Tikal Ruins

Tikal is the largest collection of Mayan ruins that still exists today. At the height of the Mayan dynasty it was more than 100 sq km (50 sq Miles ish) with a population of 50-100,000 people. Tikal consist of 6 temples, a central great plaza, 2 acropolis, 3 ball courts, a plaza of seven smaller temples, a market place, 9 sets of twin pyramids and several residential areas for royalty and common folk.

Tikal Ruins from on top another ruin

However not all of these structures have been excavated by archeologist yet and just look like a large Mountain covered with moss, plants and trees. Our guide told us that during the Mayan time they cleared out all the trees between the structures so that it was a wide open flat area and the whole city could be seen from the central plaza. Anyways we walked around for about 5 hours with the guide telling us all about the Mayan ruins, cultural and rituals along with the indigence plants and animals around us.

Leaf Ants at Tikal

Strong little bugger

He pointed out the “Chiclet” tree…originally the chiclet gum we get in Tijuana was made from the sap of this tree (now it is artificially made). We also saw some spider and howler monkeys, lots of different birds and held a tarantula that the guide teased out of its hole.

Ryan holding Turanchela

Debb holding Turanchela

And of course the ruins were awesome. We got to climb like 4 of them and look over the jungle canopy. Temple 4 was the highest at 70 m (210 ft ish); we felt in when we got to the top!! The last hour we roamed around the central grand plaza then headed back to the bus.

Tikal Ruin

Two hours later we got back to Flores, hung out at the hostel and waited till 8:30 PM to board the bus to Antigua, a nine drive to the pacific side of Guatemala.

Tikal, Guatemala