Tikal Mayan Temples

Spent a night in Dangringa (Val's Backpackers - $10/dorms) and left early the next morning to get to Tikal. Got to the Belize-Guatemala boarder (took 2 buses & a short taxi ride), paid B$37 exit fee and tried to find the Guatemalan immigration. It's so unobvious our loskop friend Michael acctually walked straight through...Got a taxi to Tikal for $20 each, eish but we were impatient and bombarded by taxi drivers, and couldn't see a bus in sight.

Yay! Our 4th country this trip!

 And the Spanish immediately starts...I'm better than Rob, but that doesn't say much! Got to Tikal National Park and the vegetation is amazing, but it's a lot drier than I thought. Got there and pitched our tent at The Jaguar Inn (Q50). Walked around, found a small path and followed it. We bumped into a group of people from all over -New Zealand (Pip), Quebec (Steph), Holland (Fenna) etc. They were trying to find a giant tree for sundowners so we tagged along.

The Stairs of Death!

The only photo I managed to get from the top of the tree. Steph standing on the not-so-straight platform with the canopy in the background.

 Found the big tree and OMG - was it high! We climbed up these termite ridden wooden stairs that creaked everytime you moved. I went up, saw the canopy under us, saw the temples jutting out in the distance, freaked out and went back down. I had such bad vertigo I thought I was going to pass out. No-one else had a problem and I felt like a bloody wimp, but whatever. It was a beautiful view, and we all started speaking about the possibilities of sneaking into Tikal at night to see the Mayan ruins at night.

The Ceiba Tree, ones we saw a lot during the trip!

 After a whole bunch of scheming a guard approached us and told us he will take us into  Tikal at night if we paid him the ticket price ($20). Sweet, so we packed our bags (sarmies, water, mozzie net, torch, camera and sheet) and followed the guide. Eight of us went, no-one was allowed to speak or turn on their torch, which just turned us all into giggling girlies like in High School, there's something about putting girls together and telling them to be quiet that fuels uncontrollable giggling.

Arrived at our 'Hotel' - just be quiet, don't litter and stay away from Templo IV were the instructions from the guide. We immediately saw a scorpion roaming the ruins, which freaked the girls out. It was pure awesomeness being there - the sky was dark and the stars were fantastic. The place had a creepy but calming atmosphere and we literally bumped into tons of temples. We had no idea where we were, but our amazing torch that Daddy gave to us highlighted the massive temples in the dark.

Walking up the stairs of the temples at night.

 Climbed up the 'forbidden' steps up to Templo V. Gorgeous! A more perfect evening couldn't be asked for. The milky way was right in front of us over the canopy line and bright shooting stars entertained us for hours. One was so bright and close we saw the green flames from the rock as it entered our atmosphere. Amazing!

Our group climbing up the stairs of Templo V.

 Templo V was perfect. It was a little chilly and the jungle was eerily quiet - not what I expected. Steph put on her jacket and as she turned around knocked over her open bag, which went tumbling down the stairs. Her bag flew down in slow motion, spitting out all her belongings as the bag the flew down the stairs. Shirts, underwear, food, iPod...all went flying out down the 58m high temple. Shocked in silence we watched until Pip broke the silence with a suppressed giggle which escalated in all of us cracking up. It was hilarious! The noise from the bag falling and our hysterical laugher woke up the howler monkeys, which replied in loud howls. Brilliant!

Steph's sad little tortillas sitting abandoned on the stairs.

 Poor Steph had to walk the stairs searching for her tortillas, knickers, iPod etc. She got everything except one slop (flip flop) - now I know why we always see one lonely shoe in places, because strange events like this! Decided to walk around the temple complex and see the archeological park at night. It's so different at night, the noises, the anticipation of when we will see another Temple, and the general lack of visibility makes it a completely different experience as in the day. Saw a small snake, terantula and some insects. Climbed up the tiring stairs toward Templo IV, the highest in Tikal (64m). Wow!! We could see the reflection of the stars and moon lighting up the canopy line, and we could feel how high we were.

Beautiful Lizard we saw.

 Didn't want to get busted and pay another $20 so we moved away from Templo IV and walked back to Templo V. A small roof protecting some important stone served as a great place to sleep (sleeping on the actual temple was too dangerous, demonstrated by Steph's bag incident). We set up our massive mossie net over all of us, laid down our sheet and tired to sleep. We could hear animals walking around us - sounded like something was carrying a whole branch and I could hear Pip getting nervous. 'Don't be scared of animals, it's people you must be worried about' - don't know if that was good advice, but animals aren't to be feared, especially in a big group. Everyone except me slept well, I was cold and so uncomfortable.

Setting up base camp. The stone that warrents a thatched roof is seen there.

 Woke up at 4:00am to make sure we were out of sight for the early morning tours (that's how you get busted). Climbed up to the top of Templo V to watch the sunrise. It was pitch black and the wooden stairs are so steep it's was more like climbing than stairs. Robbie slept on top (he's NOT a morning person, unfortunatley) and listened to the birds and monkeys wake up. The light was creeping in and the morning smelt fresh.

Napping on the temple at 4:20 am. You can see how narrow it is and why we didn't sleep there in the first place!

 We heard some people walking around, and seeing that it's impossible to hide when you are on a temple, decided to hide in one of the small tracks on the outskirts of the temples to avoid being seen. It was already light, and as we walked a troop of Spider Monkeys swooped through the trees above us. Spider monkeys!! Yay! I was SO excited to see them, they are alot more nimble and dainty than the sturdy howler, and much more fun to watch.

Ninja Monkey!!

 Exhausted, Rob and I lay down our sheet and napped for 30min, just what the doctor ordered. The park opens at 6am so any people found there before are kicked out, so as soon as 6am came we walked around and saw beautiful temples. Saw Toucans! Wow, this is turning out to be a great day already…

Hat's off to bird photographers, they are so difficult to photograph!

 Some very interesting temples, carvings and architecture. Parrots and monkeys were seen everywhere, as Tikal differs from other Mayan sites because it’s in fantastic condition and is nestled in the jungle (it’s all around the temples and you walk through the forest as opposed to wide open spaces).

Some of the carvings seen at Tikal.

Temple Complex G where we spotted our first toucans!

 Saw the iconic temples of Tikal – King Moon Double Comb, built by his son for him. Had breakfast there (Bovril sandwiches with tomato and onion). We saw some excavated faces that looked amazing but had a hard time trying to take a great pic. There were so many birds flying around mum & dad would be going crazy! Enjoyed the views at the temples and had a great day.

Huge scultpur of a face embedded in the temple.

Jump! Fenna, Pip, Steph, Rob & Chrissie

 Walked to Templo IV, the biggest, and saw the spectacular view from the top during the day. It was honestly breath-taking! Imagine being King and standing there, thinking you are the most important person in the world, not having a clue that in the other parts of the world, ships were being prepared for invasion of your land. Sinister maybe, but powerful.

I can see the four corners of the world! I am invincible!

"No, I am God"

 Saw some Coati’s and a malachite toucanite on our way back! Saw a guide knock on a tree with a hole, and nothing came out. Went back later, knocked on the tree and out popped a sweet little toucanite! Felt so awesome. Walked out of the park while the hoards of tourists were coming in. It was already scorching hot and am SO glad to have been there crack of dawn because the heat quickly became unbearable.

Cutest coati ever!

Malacite Toucanite popping out to say hello!

 Fantastic experience! We almost skipped it and went straight to Honduras, thank god we didn’t, because this was a once in a lifetime experience!

Princess kissing her Tikalian Stallion!

Tobacco Caye

We heard about a tiny island in the south of Belize where you can snorkel straight from the beach called Tobacco Caye. We took a few buses to Dangringa, via Belmorpan, and took a motorboat to Tobacco Caye. The ride was so bumpy it left like my boobs were going to slide off - sports bra is deffinitely reccommended! Saw an island in the distance, and then we drove right past it - what?! Tobacco Caye was smaller than I thought! I could spit across the whole island if the wind was right, it´s about 5 acres. We arrived and everyone was so chilled. No-one had change on the island, so we were running tabs with everyone. We camped right on the beach, under coconut trees (but away from the deadly coconuts) and enjoyed the day.

Our little Island Paradise.

This island is a must-see. The vibe is so relaxed, no-one is in a hurry and the only thing with a wheel on the whole island is a wheelbarrow. No roads or paths, just sand, with a few docks jutting out from where you can hire a boat for fishing, diving or snorkelling. We saw a massive stingray swim right in front of our tent, and a beautiful green turtle (that had a rusty red shell) swimming under the jetty. Wow, paradise!

Our neat little tent.

This little guy came to greet us 2m from our tent.

Great spot to camp, right on the beach.

Met some really lovely girls from the States - Tal and Amy. Had drinks for happy hour on the beach bar and watched the eagle rays jump high in the air, to evade predators. It was picture perfect beautiful, calm beach, an island in the distance covered in mangroves with the sun setting, watching tons of eagle rays jumping and swimming. Wow...Words can´t describe it. I saw an eagle ray jump bloody high, and a huge shark fin follow behind. Eek, zambezi (bull) sharks aren´t calming when I´m snorkelling.

Tobacco Caye is right on the reef and is frequented by eagle rays, turtles and tons of marine life.

The next day we decided to go fishing, just for you Mick & Kyle! It was $20 per hour for the boat, but we were 4 people, went out for 2 hours so it was a good deal. We trawled a little on the way to the island, then used sardines to get some fish. Amy caught a big baracuda, and I caught a small one, so threw it back. We entered the mangroves and AC our guide threw in his net to catch tons of small sardines that we used as bait. We fished for a while, when a massive storm went over tiny Tobacco and we didn´t put our rain sheet over our tent. Zoomed back to the island to see some kind semaritan had covered our tent. Waited for the storm to pass and went out again.

On the boat with the blue water behind him.

AC throwing the net in the mangroves to catch sardines for live bait.

Beautiful Mangroves.

Were fishing in deepish water. I caught a fish on a hand line, yay! We all pulled out some fish, no massive ones, but big enough to eat. Rob caught some, so did Amy. Went back and made a massive fish braai. Rob climbed coconut trees and we were taught how to open coconuts with machetes efficiently. Rum and coconut water is so refreshing, the best drink ever! We were also taught how to make coconut milk - so easy, grind up coconut, let it soak in water for about an hour, strain it and voala! Had a fantastic braai (barbeque)!!

The fish we caught and were allowed to keep!

The end product - Robbie prepared them and I made the braai.

The clever little machine to grate coconut.

The next day we did the typical - snorkel, relax, open coconuts and play with the machete. We saw a scorpion fish, tons of colourful ones, rays...lovely fan corals etc. Very nice place. One of the girls on the island made us delicious empindadas with fish inside, served with a homemade spicy relish - delicious! We packed up our tent in the morning and relaxed all day. A group of kayakers went from Corozol all the way to Placencia on their kayaks, sleeping over on the thousands of islands that are scattered throughout the reef. Wow, what an amazing trip, and what amazing people. Said good-bye to them and the island and took a bumpy road back. Great place,definitely recommended and if you go - bring your own booze and snacks!

Some fishies taken with our underwater camera.

Corn empinadas

Beautiful sunset. Adios!

You better Belize it!

OK finally onto Belize on this stupid blog. Those of you who read have no idea how long this takes me and how frustrating it is to sit here with shitty internet trying to upload one pic. And then I get no comments! C´mon guys, give me a break! I can´t get no satisfaction...

Anyways, crossed the Mexican-Belize boarder at Chutemal, got scammed $200 pesos each to pay the exit fee, something we DIDN´T need to pay. So mad! There is a distinctive difference between Mexico and Belize. Firstly, the buses went from luxury AC, toilet on board with individual seats to old American School buses open windows known here as ´chicken busses´, although they never deliver what they promise in terms of chickens! I prefer the chicken buses...

This is EXACTLY what chicken buses look like.

The biggest difference is the sudden ethnic diversity in Belize, and English! Felt great to see blacks, whites, latino´s etc again. The best was their accent, heavy Caribbean accents and slang, loved it! Slept in Corozol for a night then took the ferry to Caye Caulker, a small island (6km) on the Barrier Reef. We spent 5 nights here ($8 pp) at Edith´s Guest House where Miss Molly and her boyfriend run the place like a nice family business. We met Steph and Doug, a sweet American couple and chilled on the island together, getting up to fun stuff like the never-ending quest to find more coconuts!

Opening coconuts with conch shells was awesome!

Doug, Steph, Rob and I drinking coconut rum that we made ourselves.

The island is cute, no tar roads and very touristy with all pubs and restaurant advertising ´Happy Hour All Damn Day´ or ´Happy Hour until Everyone is Happy´, that describes the vibe of the island! Sundowners were stunning, with the calm Caribbean swallowing the bright red sun. We could go snorkelling there, not that impressive but nice, and we all cracked open some coconuts, filled them with nice Belizean rum and had lekker cocktails.  

Happy people enjoying the sunset by 'The Split'

The next day we went on a Raggamuffin snorkelling tour. We set out onm the sail boat and watched Caye Caulker slip away in the distance. The reef is about 2km from the island, so we need to take a tour to go snorkelling which kinda sux. On our way there we saw a tail on a manetee! I was so excited, just wanted to jump into the water. We snorkelled, was pretty but the reef was quite overgrown with algae, which isn´t a good sign. No manetees. Summoned back onto the boat to go to our next destination, when we drove for 30 sec we saw manetees in the water. Slowly the sailboat swung aorund and we all slipped into the water. What a perfect spotting! These creatures had the expression like they were confused and too lazy to care. We saw two of them, suspended in the water with no sense of urgency.

Our awesome guide who speaks like a proper Rasta Mon!

'Sometimes I get the feeling I'm being watched'

Amped we saw manetees! off to the next spot - Shark Ray Alley were we saw tons of nurse sharks and stingrays (and fish!). It was lovely to see them, but it was highly unnatural as the tours feed them and the sharks and rays immediatley flock to the boat expecting a meal. They´ve completely disrupted the natural feeding cycles and the sharks are more like zoo-pets than wild. Pity. Nevertheless, got to feel a shark.

Last destination was another spot on the reef. Saw a beautiful Green Turtle grazing on seaweed. Stunning. We saw tons of fish and went on a 8m dive under a little rock cave thing, with large fish hiding underwater and a large morae eel. The tour was nice, but i´ve seen better (in the Philippines). On the way back we got tons of ceviche (prawn salsa) and rum punch (it packed quite a punch!!). Chatted with fellow travellers and had a great time. When we arrived we were allowed to take the rest of the rum. Saw kids feeding the huge birds with fish - fun stuff! Got pooped on by fish eating birds - not cool!

One of many bottles of Rum poured into our awesome punch!

Feeding the fish while snorkelling.

Rob and Steph trying to get the birdies to swoop down and eat their fish.

The big birds who shat all over me.

 That night was Miss Molly´s birthday and she told us to go to a Cuban restuarant. There were professional Cuban salsa dancers trying to teah me how to salsa. I suck, but it was tons of fun! Chilled the whole next day on the beautiful beach writing in my diary. The next day our Scottish mate organised a kayak for us and we explored the uninhabited part of Caye Caulker (the island was split in two by a hurricane in the 1960´s, leaving half the isalnd a nature reserve and thus mostly uninhabited). It was so much fun, we saw lots of birds and the mangrove trees left no space for sand, so the trees met the sea. Really Beautiful. We walked around a bit, saw huge iguanas. We went for a snorkel when I noticed a gogga (creepy crawly) on me - eeeeeeeeeew<! It looked like lice in the water, and they were all over me. Eeek! We decided to paddle back.

Chilling on the beach in the shade of a palm tree eating a freshly baked banana bread!

On our way back we saw a little cove with a small entrance between the Mangrove trees. Let´s explore! We were right amongst the leaves and spiders. ´David Livingston has nothing on us´ said Rob, when suddenly the calm pool errupted in buzzing and we were flipin´destroyed by a massive swarm of mossies! Never seen that many mosqitos in my life! Slapping the mossies and trying to paddle through a narrow opening wasn´t easy, but we escaped with about 100 bites each, at least! Hope they don´t have malaria.

This is the happy pic before we were mauled by mossies.

Caye Caulker was nice. Expensive and very touristy, but it´s a tranquil  place. If you go, be sure to wear insect repellent, and buy your beer at the docks and not in the shops on the beach (much cheaper!)