Showing posts with label tikal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tikal. Show all posts

Monday, June 23, 2014

It's a jungle out there!

As we entered Tikal park, we started noticing these signs.

Watch out for jaguars!

Turkeys?

And then when we were in the park, we started spotting some interesting creatures.





A tarantula, just hanging out on the tree


Hudson's hands

Our friend at the hotel, a coati

He was pretty oblivious to humans.

Later on that evening, we saw some baby coati by one of the bungalows.  They were super cute!

Here's the turkey they were warning about.  Much prettier than the standard turkey.

Our hotel was located in the park.  We only had electricity for 5 hours a day because everything is run on generators.  We were in the jungle after all.  Thankfully our hotel did have a pool, which was very refreshing and a good place to escape the deer flies.  The deer flies were super annoying and didn't care that we had DEET on.  They especially liked me, and 2 weeks later the marks are just starting to go away.


The boys have fond memories of Tikal, and say it was one of the best parts of vacation.  It was such a unique experience, unlike anything I've ever done before in my life.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Tikal

Our first stop in Guatemala was Tikal.  Tikal is one of the largest Mayan sites and located in the northern part of Guatemala.  We flew there (on a prop plane!) from Guatemala City.  The site is huge and has many temples.  We had a great tour guide who took us around for 4 hours.  Our group included high school students from Iowa.  The boys loved Tikal, and were great listeners.  It was very hot and humid, but we were fortunate to have cloudy skies and the rain held off.


Many of the temples you could climb, but a few are off limits due to deaths.

Hudson couldn't help himself from climbing the temples.  As soon as we came to a new one, he was off to the top.


A great view of distant temples above the jungle canopy.

Taking a rest after lots of stairs.


Hudson at the top in blue.


Ryan talking with our tour guide.


Temple 1, what most people associate with Tikal.  One of the temples you can no longer climb.


Next up, the animals of Tikal.