Tikal!

I visited Tikal today! I was supposed to go yesterday (Saturday) with George and Caroline, but sleeping pills and drugged miscommunication got in the way. I left Lago Atitlan Friday morning at 9 a.m. with the understanding that I would arrive in Flores, one of the towns near the ruins of Tikal, at 10 p.m. My bus turned out to also be a postal service, however, and I had to wait for a long time in some random town while the driver and employees at some makeshift postal service took parcel after parcel out of the bus. The ride turned into a 16 hour affair and I didn´t arrive in Flores until 1:30 a.m. Since I was completely exhausted (I had barely slept the previous night due to my new phobia of scorpions), and assumed that the girls would also be getting in later than expected, I took the opportunity to get some medicated sleep. Unfortunately, George and Caroline arrived ontime at 6 a.m., and could barely rouse me. When I finally woke up, I told them I needed some more sleep and thought they´d agreed to wait for me. Not the case. It was really nice to see them both again, though, and am quite regretful that the three of can´t travel through Central America together.

I woke up at 4:30 today to catch the 5:00 bus to Tikal. The ruins were awesome! Tikal is more peaceful than Chichen Itza, the ruins that I visited in Mexico last year; it´s less touristy and it doesn´t seem to have the same air of sacrifice that pervaded Chichen Itza. In Mayan, Tikal means ¨The city of whispers¨. After my tour finished, I sort of wandered around the main acropolis for a bit, and there were hardly any other people around, so it was really quiet. All I could hear were the leaves rustling in the wind, the intense dinosaur-like screeches of howler monkeys (I also SAW howler and spider monkeys today, they were SO CUTE!), and birds. It was so beautiful the way the birds were playing together amongst the ruins.

After Tikal, I caught a shuttle back to Flores, and began my 2 hour hunt for cash. Every cash machine I visited was either busted or out of money, so I decided to walk to Santa Elena, a town across the bridge from Flores. On my way, I heard someone shout ¨sister!¨; when I turned around, an excited man was waving at me from across the road. I walked over to talk to him, and he was elated to see another black person in these parts. His name was Carlos, and he was travelling home to Livingston, which is on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. The Caribbean coast of Guatemala is very different from the rest of the country, as it´s mainly populated by the Garifuna, descendants of shipwrecked African slaves who intermixed with the indigenous Maya of Guatemala. I told Carlos that I´m heading to Rio Dulce and then Livingston tomorrow morning, and that I was looking for a functioning cash machine so that I could pay for my hostel, dinner, and bus ticket. He was super friendly, and told me all about Livingston and how great it is there and how everyone would be so happy to meet a dread from Canada.

Carlos had been arrested crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona, where he was hoping to find some work. He was supposed to spend 6 months in prison, but was let out after one month on good behaviour. He has a Maya wife and 4 children at home and was so excited to be on his way home to see them. He had no money, though, so I told him I´d give him half his bus fare once I found a cash machine. Carlos helped me find an ATM (took us 4 tries), told me that he´d tell everyone in Livingston about me and feed me fish that he´d catch himself, and I told him about Canada and Toronto. It felt like my first authentic encounter with a Guatemalan (and was obviously aided by the fact that Carlos speaks English -- the Garifuna speak Spanish, English and creole).

I had a great day, I´m feeling healthy again, David´s coming to Nicaragua with me at the end of February, and I can´t wait to get to a beach!