Wednesday 14th June 2006: TIKAL NATIONAL PARK: Part 1

At 5am on Wednesday 14th June we were collected from our hotel and driven through the beautiful countryside to the 550-sq-km Parque National Tikal. As we were driven 16 km from the entrance of the park towards the visitors centre where our tour would begin we noticed the road signs that warned of jaguars and snakes! The tone for the day was set – it was clear this was not going to be just a walk around some ruins but through a thriving jungle! The central area of the city occupied about 16 sq km, with more than 4000 structures.

The Mayan ruins at Tikal are the oldest in the world and were built between 1000 BC and 800 AD. The ruins remained undiscovered for thousands of years until locals discovered it in the 1800s and excavation of the site began in 1848. Now only 20% of the structures have been restored therefore many are still ‘hidden’ under the jungle and will remain so as the Guatemalan government and UNESCO have decided that no more restoration take place in order to preserve the plethora of wildlife that lives in the jungle park.

We began our walk of the park at 8am and our first sight was the crocodiles in the reservoirs that were built by the Mayans. The female crocodile had recently hatched seventeen eggs but we only managed to see a few baby crocodiles as well as the mummy. Our guide then managed to coax a tarantula out of its hiding hole and Oliver got to hold it!!!


Oliver & his new friend, the tarantula!

After our ‘David Attenborough’ moment we then made our way to the temples. As we were only visiting Tikal for one day we were led on the walk that took us to the main temples therefore allowing us to see the main 40% of the park as we were informed that it takes more than two days to see all the ruins. Walking through the jungle park looking at the ruins was really quite amazing as we realised the enormity of the temples and the workmanship that had gone into building the temples thousands of years ago and also the work it’s taken the archaeologists to reclaim the temples from the jungle.


A temple still covered by the jungle






Perhaps the best sight was the view from the top of Temple IV, the highest temple at 64 metres, where we were able to see the tops of temples rising out of the jungle.


Temple IV as seen from the trail leading up to it

The view from the top of Temple IV overlooking the park of Tikal