Tikal and Dangriga

Friday and Saturday, May 13 and 14, 2011--Flores, Guatemala, and Dangriga, Belize 

We've had two days of getting up early and traveling.  On Friday, we had our cereal, yogurt, and banana breakfast at our hotel and arrived at the bus station at 6:55 to go to the ruins at Tikal.  Our bus picked us up at 7:20 and got us there at 8:30.  We spent 4 hours going around the ruins in the HOT weather.  Fortunately, the ruins are in the jungle, so there was often shade to cover us.  Seldom, however, was there a breeze.

Tikal is a place I have dreamed of visiting since I was maybe 12 years old.  The pictures always have looked so dramatic.  I didn't realize until I was here how many of them were aerial photos.  I found myself disappointed that it isn't easy to see much from the ground, since the jungle has been left between the buildings rather than having been cleared away.  The Grand Plaza is quite nice.  But most of the other buildings are only slightly restored so that 2/3 of the structures are often rubble and 1/3 restored.  Also, the sandstone in the area must be a very poor quality one.  All the stelae that are placed throughout the ruins are mostly in such poor shape that it is difficult to see what carvings had originally been there.  Tikal is a wonderful place, but it isn't as great as I expected.  It was not nearly as nice as Palenque is, and it may not be any better than Copan is.

The bus that was supposed to take us back to town at 12:30 wasn't there.  A group of Israeli tourists who had hired their own bus gave us a ride back into town with them, since two of their members had missed the departure that morning leaving two empty seats.  I visited with one of the young couples seated near me on the way back.  They were nice kids who had just finished their military service and were about to start to university this fall.  They were headed toward Honduras, so I gave them my guidebook pages for there.  I was finished with them, and they were more up-to-date than theirs.

Wes and I stayed inside under the air conditioner and relaxed in the afternoon.  We bought some rum and Coca Cola and had a happy hour in our room while we looked out of the windows at the sunset and the people swimming off the pier below us.  About the time we were ready for dinner, it began to rain.  I finally ended around 19:30.  We went to a small, local place called Mamalina's where the woman cooks in her kitchen and serves out the front door.  We each got three tostados with guacamole and carne.  Then we shared two pieces of cake--one chocolate and the other a nut cake.  On the way back to the room, we each got a coconut liquado, but it was too watery and not a good one.

Bedtime was early for us, because we were tired and because we knew we had to get up early again on Saturday.  I was up at 5:45, and Wes soon afterwards.  We ate our hotel breakfast again.  Then we checked out at 6:30 and made it to the bus station just 5 minutes before the 7:00 bus to the border with Belize.  We quickly processed through the border and had to walk 3 km (1.8 miles) into the next town to catch a bus onward to Belmopan, the capital of the country.  There, we changed to another bus leaving 15 minutes after that to get us to our destination of Dangriga at 13:30.

Dangriga is a bit of a surprise.  It is a Garifuna town on the coast.  That I expected.  But it is very spread out. And the houses are not as colorful as I had expected.  The HEAT is unbelievable.

As soon as we were off the bus and had walked a block, a group of young people asked us if we were Americans.  They were so happy when we said we were.  They are college students here on a study tour learning about the culture of the Garifuna.  They excitedly told us about a Garifuna music festival that is occurring here tonight.

We looked at the place where the students were staying which was on the beach and quite nice.  However, it had no air conditioning, and the owner was no where to be found.  So Wes and I continued to the Jungle Huts which we had decided would probably be the best place to stay.  They had a room for us with air conditioning, so we checked in there.  We were too hot to look elsewhere.

We went to a nearby restaurant that had been recommended only to find it was closed at that time of the day.  We searched for two more restaurants our guidebook showed on the map, and neither was located where the map said it would be.  We returned to a place we had seen as we were searching and had beans and rice with chicken, salad, and tamarind juice.  It was filling and refreshing with a special hot sauce made there in the restaurant.

Again, we were HOT and tired.  We returned to the room, turned on the air conditioner, and stayed inside until evening.

It's amazing what the sun going down does to the temperatures here.  It was pleasant outside in the evening.  We walked down the main street, up the street near the beach, into parts of town we had not seen.  People were out everywhere and were very friendly.  We weren't hungry so we didn't eat again.  But we sat and listened to some of the music from the festival.  We were too tired and knew it would be a waste of money to pay for the festival which was really just beginning at 21:00.  We were in bed by 22:00.