Tikal Sunrise 2012 ... must see!

This morning at 3 am we were in a bus heading North towards Tikal, the great Mayan ruins called "The Place of theVoices".  We were in a van with a guide and 12 other visitors.  Outside, the stars were greater than I have ever witnessed.  Orion stood out with picture perfect clairty.  There were faint clusters of stars that appeared to be from our Milky Way... it was incredible!

Once we got to Tikal, around 430am, it was pitch black.  You could imagine, it is in the middle of the jungle with no lights or city around.  Quiet with only the creaking of the branches beneath our feet and in the dark along the path.  The air was cool, but still humid and comfortable. We found a tarantula and our guide lured it out, and I think that was more awakening than a cup of coffee.

Tikal´s majesty shone bright when we arrived at Temple 4 and climbed this temple.  It is the highest temple at 64 meters, it is the temple of inscriptions because it has the most preserved detailed markings on it.  It is for a king for sure.  These temples are steep too, if you can imagine the climb of it, we were sitting on top of the stone and lime steps within feet of the highest point.  Above us was a carved face where the Mayans would burn fire and smoke would bellow out of its nose and ears.

This is what I thought was the sunrise, above.  The sky was black as black, and then it felt like the sky was rolling back and the bright blue and yellow hues began to peush forward.  It was beautiful, sitting in silence.

Then, the actual sun came out, after the whole jungle canopy already became alive with toucans, howler monkeys, other birds, macaws, it was amazing to hear the ripple of the jungle awakening!

Because it is the winter solstice, the sun aligns directly overhead of the temple shown here.

This picture on the right is a diagram of how the Mayans had purposefully designed the layout of their main plaza here.  The suns pathway aligns with the solstices and other specific times in a way that still occurs, like above.  It is amazing to be sitting there and imagine that between 700bc and 200ad these pyramids were built and people would watch the same sun rise from where I was sitting.


We spent another 4 hours in the park, looking at the other temples and learning a lot about the achievements made at this site... We met a lot of animals, some closer than others, but it was the most fun to watch the monkeys in the trees.  We saw a vivid toucan, and my favorite a baby crocodile about 3 feet long.  I got pretty close, and once his head tossed to one side really quickly... I backed up.