So when I left you on Sunday, we were chilling at the Jaguar Inn, waiting to go on our Sunset tour of Tikal. That seems like ages ago and a lot has happened since then. We headed out around 3:00 PM and Jose took us to explore a few areas of the site that we had not been to before and then went back to the grand plaza to climb to the top for sunset. Well, at this time of year it is not a really good angle to get the actual sunset and there were not enough clouds to create any colour in the sky but it did provide some different lighting for viewing and taking pics of the temples.
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Once the sun was down, we headed back to the hotel for dinner, which was actually better, and cheaper, than what we had the previous night at the upscale Jungle Lodge. Another early night after a long day. The next day, Monday, was a travel day but we weren't leaving until around 2 PM, since we were catching a ride back with the PacZ day-trippers who only came over for the 4 hour tour, from 10:00 to 2:00. So we had a leisurely morning. We did take about a 20 minute walk along a trail into the jungle to see if we could see some crocodiles at a pond that they hang out at, but we didn't see any. I'm sure they saw us, though.
An uneventful trip back to San Ignacio, though it did take a while. The day-trippers had to stop for lunch (we had already eaten) and souvenir shopping so we had to wait around for about an hour and a half. Then of course the border crossing formalities and switching vans again. (Did I mention before that the tours from Belize are not allowed to bring their vans across the border and have to get a local van and driver once in Guatemala.)
Anyway we made back and went for dinner at Eva's, which we had been using as our "base" for drinks and wifi but hadn't eaten there yet. It was very good--tremendous lime soup with chicken. Then we arranged with Mayawalk Tours across the street to go to Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave the next day.
The ATM tour is tremendous--it is the number 1 tour in the area--but it is a very full and strenuous day. We started out at 8:00 am with our 2 guides, Aaron and Martin. Aaron is one of the most senior guides to do this tour although he is only 34--he has been doing it since he was 17. Martin is a naturalist and a wealth of information about not only the flora and fauna seen on the way and the history but also the spiritual significance of the caves. One guide can only take a maximum of 8 people and we had 9, thus 2 guides. They were both very good. After about an hour and a half drive, including a stop to "steal" some oranges (extremely tasty) from the Valencia orange groves that we were driving through, we reached the park entrance where we collected our helmets and put our snacks and water into bags to carry in.
Unfortunately, about a year and a half ago some idiot tourist dropped his camera on one of the human skulls in the cave and broke it. As a result, there are now no cameras allowed past the park entrance. The photos here are courtesy of Mayawalk Tours and were taken a couple of years ago, before the ban was put in place. The photos, however, don't show half of what this tour is about. It starts with a one hour hike, with 3 river crossings, to the entrance of the cave. Once inside, you swim, wade through waist-deep water, climb over rocks and up to ledges, crawl under rocks and squeeze through incredibly tight spaces.
The rock formations are amazing. The artifacts have all been left as they were found and there are no barriers between the people and the historical treasures, just some occasional orange tape markers on the ground to warn you to stay away from particularly sensitive area. It really is amazing! The photos included are very good ones of the artifacts, but as I said, don't really capture the enormity of the experience. It is also very draining. By the time we retraced our steps and made it back to the park entrance, we were pretty beat. We had a quick "lunch" (by this time it was 4:30) of chicken and rice and then headed back to town. We just had the energy split a plate of nachos to fill us up a bit more, caught a cab home and were in bed by 8:30.
Which was good because we had booked another tour for the next morning. Another cave tour but much more leisurely, floating through Barton Creek cave in a canoe. We were told to be there for 8:00, so we got up early again and hiked into town. Well we needn't have rushed. We were the only ones booked for the tour and, though he said he would, Andrew at Mayawalk really didn't want to send the tour with just 2 people, so he was trying to round up some more people. As luck would have it, the ATM tour was cancelled again for the day (we had a torrential rain storm the night before) so he managed to talk some of the people who were booked for that to go with us to Barton Creek, but it took forever to get them all rounded up and sorted out, so it was about 11:00 by the time we finally left.
Fortunately, it is a much shorter tour. We ended up with a group of 10 people (plus 2 guides) and the tour was good. The caves are impressive but after the ATM tour it was a bit anticlimactic. I did discover that I am just as bad at controlling a canoe as I am at controlling a kayak, though.
A Few More Temples and Some Amazing Caves
Thursday, November 27, 2014
San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize
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