Flores
GUATEMALA
Center of the Mayan Kingdom
By LYNDI
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Tikal was on the top of my “Top 10 Things To Do While Wandering Aimlessly in Central America” list, so after over a month in Latin America, it was about time we arrived.
After yet another painful bus experience that included (but was not limited to) switching minivans/buses 5 times, sitting in extremely cramped conditions, sweating profusely while baking in the van, and enjoying the pungent scent of the entire vehicle, Aaron and I arrived in Flores in northern Guatemala. Well, to be more correct, our bus dropped us off in a nearby town and told us to walk to Flores – it was a bit out of their way.
Flores is actually a tiny island in the enormous Lake Petén Itza that is connected to the rest of the country by a little 500 meter bridge. By the time we finally walked into town, we beelined for a hotel some friends in Rio Dulce had recommended, dropped our bags, and passed out. After a much deserved nap and cold shower, we headed out to wander the town a bit. We met some older, ex-Army guys while walking around that recommended a little cafe right on the water for a refreshing mojito. Little did we know what we were getting into. The restaurant is called Le Chef de Ville and looks like all the other waterfront restaurants, except this one sold the world’s best mojito for Q10 from 4-7pm. Which, by the way, is $1.20. Now, I used to bartend in a Latin American restaurant and have made and sampled my fair share of mojitos, but these put all of them to shame. They actually blended all the ingredients like a frozen margarita – lime, mint, ice, and all. On a hot night with the sun setting, it was exactly what we needed.
The next day we had a very limited, yet important, itinerary:
1) Book a tour to Tikal
2) Call our moms to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day.
Well, one out of two ain’t bad, right? Actually, Aaron was able to get ahold of his mom and got to catch her up on a few things. I tried just about every phone number I could think of to reach my mom – to no avail. I did, however, reach my sister Erica, but the crappy phone line cut us off after 5 minutes.
Something I was to learn in Flores is that that location is the absolute hottest I’ve ever been. Which actually got me to thinking: why, when I’m the hottest I’ve ever been, does it make me the un-hottest I can possibly be? Why shouldn’t being physically hot actually make you attractive and live up to it’s name? Or maybe in some other culture, actively dripping sweat when just sitting in the shade is an attractive feature for a lady. Aaron thinks so, I’m sure. But enough on that…
So on Monday, we were finally off to Tikal. We had booked a sunrise tour with a popular hostel in town called Los Amigos, and set off – at 3:30am! I don’t remember the last time I saw 3:30am – well, on purpose. But to beat the heat in this part of the world, you gotta get an early start. And early start we did…Tikal is about an hour and a half drive north from Flores, so by the time we got there it was close to 4:45am. We took a half hour walk through the rainforest to find the largest temple of the entire compound and watch the sunrise over the jungle from the top. And when I saw “half hour walk”, I should probably clarify as a “brisk jog”. Apparently, our bus was running a little late and in order to catch the sunrise part of this “Sunrise Tour”, we had to book it.
Tikal was, for awhile, the center of the Mayan Kingdom. It originated in 900 BC and finally fell in 900 AD. During it’s heyday around 300 AD, Tikal had a higher population density than Los Angeles today. That’s a lot of Mayans. For some reason that has not been fully explained to me, this intelligent civilization decided to build their capital over 30 miles from the nearest limestone and water source. Therefore, in order to build all their temples and supply the population with water, limestone and all water had to be carried in on some poor guy’s back. OK, lots of guys’ backs. The whole ordeal took almost a week – 3 days there and 3 days back. Which brings me to the following logical question: if the Mayans were smart enough to come up with the concept of zero, create the exact same calendar that we use today – including Leap Day, and be able to predict all natural disasters that man has experienced, surely someone could have invented the wheel? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
Our tour guide Luis had everyone sit on the top of Temple IV to watch the sun rise slowly over the rainforest. I’ve seen more impressive sunrises, but the smells of the jungle and sounds of the birds and howler monkeys waking up made it all worthwhile. The entire city of Tikal is over 220 square miles with over 30,000 structures, although only 15% have been uncovered. The whole Tikal complex was overtaken by the jungle in the years following the collapse of the Mayans and was only rediscovered when some guys from Chiclet came searching the local gum trees for ingredients and cut down the wrong tree. From the top of Temple IV you can see the tops of about 4 other temples that have been uncovered. Luis explained that all of the temples were used for religious and political ceremonies and were built in strict adherence to the laws of astronomy. For example, during the summer solstice on June 21st, the sun shines directly over Temple II, casting a shadow on Temple IV so that the sun shines only through the top window. During the winter solstice on December 21st, the same thing happens with Temple I. Not only that, but they actually built it so that the sun shines on Temple I during the winter, and casts a shadow on a specific stair, which holds the hieroglyph for the calendar date. So they always knew it was December 12th just by looking at what stair had a shadow cast. But no wheel??
After the sun had risen sufficiently, Luis took us for a walk around the grounds. I don’t know if I have ever climbed so many stairs in my entire life – we walked up about 5 gazillion temples where each stair came up to my waist. Apparently they made it that way on purpose because the line of Mayan kings was tall, while the normal worker Mayans were much smaller and therefore could not climb the stairs easily. Made for a good buttocks workout though. We were both really impressed with Luis – he was raised in Tikal and regularly attends international conferences on Mayan culture and archaeology, so he was constantly answering questions and explaining their astronomy charts, etc. to us.
And just for everyone’s information, those same Mayans that came up with the alignment of the stars, dates, etc. also predicted that the world will end when the traditional Mayan calendar matches up with the moon-cycle calendar (ours)… or December 23, 2012. So start stocking up on Campbell’s Soup friends. However, as one of my friends noted, the Mayans may be a bit off, since they think they can predict the end of the world but failed to foresee their own demise? So take heart.
Come about 10:30am, the temperature was already stifling, so Aaron and I headed back on the 11am bus. After a much deserved siesta, we jumped into the Lake Petén Itza for what we thought would be a refreshing swim… only to find out it was warmer than bath water. Oh well – at least no one could tell how much I was sweating when I was already wet. We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the water and actually ran across an old friend that we had met at D&D Brewery in Honduras, so went out for some more mojitos with her that night.
Although we had a great time in Flores, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t really excited to escape the oppressive heat and new sweating habit I’d picked up. So Tuesday morning we were finally headed south.
One last point that I feel it is my duty to address: for centuries, everyone thought the disappearance of the Mayan kingdom was a complete mystery. There was even a strong and widely believed theory that aliens came and got them, but their demise is no longer unsolved. And it’s basically exactly what we’re doing today. They overused their resources, ran out of water, started irrigating in order to bring more water in, this caused soil to become less fertile, leading to less plants, leading to starvation, leading to their entire population nearly being wiped out. On top of that, the rulers of the kingdom continued their vain attempts to have the nicest headdress and the grandest temples, despite the knowledge that their resources were rapidly declining. Hmm.. maybe 2012 really isn’t that far off…
