We have an early wakeup for our 730am Tikal departure.  Tikal is the biggest of the presently excavated Mayan sites and is over the border in Guatemala.  If you asked me any time in the last thirty years if I'd ever be in Guatemala, it would have been an emphatic "no, are you nuts?", yet here we were. 

The tour arranges for the border crossing which is supposedly a hassle on your own.  We drive to the border, go through, have our passports checked, and then board a different van in Guatemala.  All of this is pretty painless and takes only a few minutes.  It's about two hours to Tikal from here.

We start at a small temple and take a jungle path on the way to Temple IV- the biggest one. Tikal is in the middle of the rain forest.  Our guide spots monkeys a couple times and we stop to observe.  I'm excited to finally see monkeys on the trip.   We see both howler and spider monkeys.  It's now raining a bit, but stops shortly.

We get to Temple IV which is awesome.  There are stairs to the top, so despite this structure being much taller than the ones we have already seen, it is an easier climb.  The view from the top is amazing.  You are above the canopy and can see several other large temples that poke through the trees.  This view is well known from the first Star Wars movie.  We get some photos in before the downpour begins.

We visit the other biggies at Tikal- the Jaguar temple and main plaza.  While hiking up and down Tikal, I nearly tripped and L' says "you can't kill yourself- that's my job!".  Nothing like the support of my friends.  Our guide pulls a red butted tarantula out of a hole.  The main plaza is breathtaking in scope and uniqueness.  I've never seen anything remotely like it.  With our tour of the site complete, we stop for lunch before our return back.  Lunch is pretty good and I hope it doesn't kill me.

I have lots of thoughts on the ride back.  Tikal is the most amazing thing I've seen that I had never heard of two months ago.  The sites of the last two days were great, but Tikal is really special.  The Mayans were really interesting.  They accomplished a lot without the wheel, cows, metal, or the arch.  They figured out much in astronomy.   Our European bias results in us learning little about these advanced, if savage, people.

On the ride through Guatemala back to Belize, it's clear this is a poor country.  People live in tiny shacks.  Tikal is a national treasure.  In the park, locals were dressed up because their visit could be the only one of their lifetime.  It costs $20US to get in, but $3US for locals- which I guess is a lot of money for them.  What can be done about this I don't know.   We learn later in trip, that Guatemalans are brought in to Belize to harvest some of the crops.  Even here, as in the U.S. and Costa Rica, the poorest of the  poor are brought in to do the hard manual labor.  

The ride back, border crossing, and drop off at the hotel is uneventful.  Lonnie takes care of his airport arrangements and we return to the  house.   A little while later we head to town for dinner at Martha's restaurant which is recommended in all of our guide books.  It's a major disappointment.  It takes well over an hour to get our food and it's not even good.  We are all pretty irritated.  We get ice cream to save the evening.  In the ice cream store I see they have some candy for sale.  Among the selection is "Nerds".  I ask L' if she wants some nerds and she replies "No, I already got two!".  Her quick wit is one of her endearing qualities and it's good that after a long day and irritating evening we can all still joke around.  We pick up groceries and taxi back to the house for showers and sleep.