Finally Tikal, Guatemala

     La Ruta Inka ended in the accent Mayan city of Tikal and of course I was really pumped to get to see this fascinating place.  The day we got to Tikal we decided not to go in till the next day since we had arrived late and wouldn't have that much time to explore.  I was told for 50 bucks I could get snuck into the park before they opened and see the sunrise from the highest temple.  That night we camped right outside and there was a down pour, I thought it wouldn't of been worth it to go in for the sunrise since you probably wont be able to see much,  but I did swear to my self to go back and see the sunrise.

    The next day some friends and I got a group together, got a tour guild, and started our hike into the jungle to get to the temples.  As soon as we started walking the tour guild told us that everything we saw when Tikal was at it's prime had no trees at all and was just building after building like NYC.  As you hiked you could see a hill after a hill after a hill and a nicely made rode between them, this is because each of them hills are temples/buildings under all the dirt.

     You can't image the size of the largest temples until you see them in person.  Just image hiking on a trail threw the jungle and then getting to a clearing wheres there's a stone wall and you look up and you just can see any end to it.  There are only a few temples you can go up on but the climb up them is quit an adventurer it's self and then the climb down scares the shit out of you.  The steps you use to go up are straight up into the air, they're more like a ladder then steps.  The average height of the temples are about 20 floors high, so just imagine climbing up the side of a 20 floor building on a ladder and then when you get to the top there aren't any railings and then you have to climb back down that ladder.
  

     The hypothesis why Tikal was abandoned is that all the trees you see below were all cut down by the Mayans to build temples and buildings.  So because they had cut all the trees down area dried out and it was uninhabitable.  What blows my mind is the fact that 100s of years later Mother Natural has taken this area back and you can barley see the huge city that was once there.

  
   The image below was taken from same spot that was used for Star Wars.  I've post a clip below from the film so you can compare.

   If you zoom in to a small section of the middle of the left side in the image above you find these two little guys below.  Tikal is a real jungle and there are no cages at all, the animals are in the wild and roaming freely.  

  
    I'm a huge Patriots fan and when I seen this lady, with a Pats hat, in Tikal, the middle of a jungle, you best believe I was pumped.  It was just great benign able to be at the NYC of the ancient world and then seeing another Pats fan there what more could I ask for.

Day full of knowledge in El Salvador

                       After having to sleep in the highest point of El Salvador Ministerio de Turismo de El Salvador or the department of tourism took us to La Palma where we went to a museum to seen the history of the Salvadoran currency, from the coffee bean  to the US dollar.  After the museum they had a a huge dinner set up for us that included fireworks.  Once we were done with the awesome dinner they took us to a military base where we were going to camp for the night.  The next day we were woken up by the base's military band, they played while we ate breakfast and pack our things to get ready for a long day.

             The first place the department of tourism took us was to a small town that is one of the largest exporters of balsamo.  As soon as we got off the buses we were greeted by the children of the town and another band playing for us.   Next they had a demandstrtion on how the get the balsamo oil.  Balsamo is the main ingredient in conditioner and is also used for medicines, I will post the whole proses in a later posting(Click here to read about balsamo).  After the demonstration we went to a balsamo farm and showed us how they extract the oils from the trees and some of us had a chance to try it for our selfs.

     

             We had learned a ton about balsamo and we were on the rode again.  The next stop was a small town where we had the honer to be a part and witness a great festival that the locals they have had since when the Spaniards had colonized El Salvador.  To read about this festival click here.