From Palenque we went to over a little used river border crossing, Frontera Corozal, to Guatemala, with the intention of visiting the ruins of Yaxchilan. They’re described as charming, sweet and a hidden treasure, situated on a loop of the river. The pictures indicate they are nice, but when we got there it was quite hot, Myung was wilting and wanted to get out of there, and the boat ride upriver was a 30 USD rip-off, EACH! So we bagged it, took a few pictures of the river, spent the night, and went to Flores the next day. There’s nothing much at this border. There are so many boats to take people up to Yaxchilan and across to Guatemala, but I seriously doubt they ever use more than a few of them at a time. The Chol Mayan people of the area have big dollar signs in their eyes and it just isn’t really happening for them. It’s pretty nice around there, though, if you don’t mind the jungle heat. The trees are alive with howler monkeys, birds and cicadas at night.
Flores is nothing special itself, just an island tourist ghetto on Peten Lake across a causeway from Santa Elena. The ride through that part of northern Guatemala is lovely, with long stretches of pretty marsh. It’s serious mosquito country. No wonder they have malaria and dengue down here. I don’t have any pictures. We went straight to Flores on the public bus from the Guatemala side of the river, stopping only at the one-man immigration post in Bethel, an hour from the river. You might say the Mexico/Guatemala border is juuuuust a little porous.
Tikal is by far the most magnificent Mayan complex I’ve seen. It was one of the three most significant cities of it’s era. It’s heyday was 600-900 AD, after which it was quickly abandoned for reasons we don’t know. You can read about it if you want. I’ll just show you some pictures.
First off, you can see it’s in the middle of nowhere jungle about 60 km north of Flores.
But in the trees are 60 sq km of ruins. Many have been restored, many have not. You can enjoy it the way it has been for hundreds of years, or how it’s being restored and the restored places. The above picture is taken from the top of one of the temples which was the tallest structure in mesoamerica for over a thousand years. This temple is not only on high ground, but something like 68 meters high. There’s no good angle to take a good picture of it, but it looks like the temples you’ll see in a minute. Climbing up there isn’t like scaling the huge blocks of the pyramids of Giza. There’s an easy stairway. Then you just chill out at the top and take that overview photo. By the way, like many if not most Koreans, Myung wears a face mask to protect her skin from the sun.
So, map in hand, you walk through the trees and sometimes semi-suddenly come across ruins. That alone is worth the price of admission (which is 20 bucks, by the way).
This is a coati. They are very tame.
This is some kind of wild turkey.
Even the central group of structures kind of sneaks up on you after you’ve walked a half hour or so from somewhere.
I think that’s plenty of Mayan ruins pictures and all I have to say about Tikal.
From there, we spent 12 hours going all the way to Antigua. It is the original colonial capital founded in 1527. It is such an amazing place, with many restored, partially restored and unrestored buildings over many square kilometers. I am surprised how big the historical center is. It dwarfs the others I’ve been to so far. It’s the kind of place where there are many interesting routes to where you want to go, and has so many interesting things that you will almost certainly see something you didn’t notice, even if you’ve been that way several times before.
It’s the kind of place that can keep our interest for a while. So, we decided to plunk down here for at least a month and took a room in a long term hostel type place. You’ll be hearing all about it soon. Meanwhile, you can Google “Antigua”. Likely, you will see why we think this is a good place to hang out for a while.
Be well, all of you.
