Tikal, Guatemala

On Wednesday we took a shuttle bus from Flores to the Maya ruins of Tikal. Before our tickets were even checked, we were held up by a huge group of monkey-like creatures walking across the path. Nice way to start the day!

When the spectacle of the monkeys had passed, we walked for about 30 minutes through lush jungle foliage and small remains of an old empire before arriving at the gran plaza, the location of the majority of the temples (and tourists).

After exploring the area and climbing a number of exessively-tall steps (I refuse to belive the Mayans were any taller than us, so they must have had some incredible thighs), we continued north towards Templo V through a quieter path, occasionally egged on by howler monkeys, until we reached the temple.

While almost all of the verticle temples in the gran plaza had been off-limits to climbers, this one had a wooden ladder allowing people to climb to the top (as many of the original stone steps had eroded). Flipping the bird to his fear of heights, Jay made his way up the ladder to see the view from the top.

I stayed safely on the ground for documentation purposes.

Tikal, Guatemala