Tikal

Like a fool I was up horribly early this morning for the five o´clock bus to Tikal, pictured, with the idea of seeing the sun rise from one of the temples there. I was told this was an unmissable experience and that the first bus suited my purpose. So, I was far from chuffed when we trundled into the site at six-thirty, a good half hour after the sun had risen, when all the birds and monkeys had gone to sleep for the day. But despite that early disappointment, the site was quite magical. If Chichen Itza was a city of death, Calakmul a city of inscriptions, Palenque a city of artistry, then Tikal was a city of the most remarkable monumental masonry. Where other Mayan cities draw a lot of their beauty from artistic flourishes and touches, Palenque celebrates the modest craftsmanship of the working man. The brickwork is phenomenal - and all done with stone tools. The site occupies a great swathe of pristine jungle and only one-fifth of it has been excavated so far. It first assumed its current shape at about the time of Christ, and by the mid sixth-century was home to an estimated 100,000 people. At about this time it was invaded by the city of Caracol, in present-day Belize, and so began a century and a half of decline. But all was not lost, because in about 700AD a new king, who rejoiced in the name of Lord Chocolate, reversed Tikal´s fortunes and it again became one of the most dazzling cities of the Mayan world. And it´s still quite dazzling today. It was nice to see how all the entry fees us tourists pay are being spent; all over the site people were beavering away clearing debris, disentangling trees from the structures and steadily excavating more and more of the city. This is being done with great care to protect the jungle, which is a national park and home to all sorts of creatures. Throughout the day I again heard the diabolical roars of the howler monkeys echoing all around. The only thing that cast a slight shadow on the visit was that I spent much of it in the company of an ageing Swiss hippy; perhaps the most tedious man I have ever met. I somehow ended up in his company last night, and he talked non-stop for five hours about his experiences with his his ex-wife´s family in the Philippines. I went into a sort of automatic response mode, where you can daydream while saying "ooh" or "really" or "goodness me" without listening. (You usually get caught out when you find the other person staring at you waiting for an answer to a question that you weren´t listening to, but this bloke had no intention of inviting dialogue.) All of his stories, of which there were many, ended along the lines of "so I said, now I have bought you four chickens you can have eggs every day, but they ate the chickens! Sacramento!" Or: "so I said, ok, I send you another thousand dollars, but this time you must spend it on medicine. Sacramento!" He´s not such a bad old stick really, but when the opportunity arose I did shake him off. I´m sure I´ll see him later, he´s staying at the same hotel, and no doubt there will be an epic tale of how he fended off a spider monkey with his Swiss army knife or something.

It´s another early start for me tomorrow, with another border crossing, because I´m catching a bus to Belize City. Belize is a tiny corner of the Commonwealth, about the size of Wales, where they speak English. It used to belong to Spain, but British pirates nicked it. Ha-hah! I´m told it´s quite expensive, but at least the money I spend will have Brenda´s jolly old face on it.