Tikal

Leaving for Tikal

Here we are about to leave for Tikol. We are at the air port in Guatemala City in the non commercial side of the airport. It is early in the morning, like about 6 a.m. on Saturday, July 13th.

Here is the airplane that we will fly to Tikal on. 

We flew past this volcano. When we landed we drove past this big lake. On the lake side, here were some people out fishing!

After landing we got onto a tour bus with several other people.  Our tour guides, one in English and one is Spanish, told us about the history of the area and of the things we could see in the forest and in the National Preserve.

This is a typical home with a mother chicken with her baby chicks in the front yard.

And a crocodile along the shore line.

Once we are in the Nation Park Reserve of Tikal, our guide showed us the tree that they call the Tree of Life. Seth and Natalie are close up on this shot and on the shot below it is Natalie with Spencer.

The difference between a temple and a pyramid is that a temple has only one set of stair and a pyramid has stairs on all four sides.

 Here is a structure that we could see above the trees. That is pretty tall. We climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed some stairs to get up one of the Pyramids. The structure below is a distance away, but it was tall enough that there could have been some communication system between them.

You can see Derek on the top taking pictures.

This is a cute gray fox wondering around. He seemed to not be worried about all the humans roaming around the place.

Close by was a Coot. It was interesting to see how his long nose was so pliable. 

They found a cellar like hole that the let Seth and Spencer climb through. They told us that there were so many people that have crawled through that the spiders were not a threat.

Spencer is up on this temple. When he and Derek were up there, we could hear them while we were down on the court yard. People would clap or talk. It was amazing to experience. Makes you think of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon.

Another view of the temple. The stairs are facing the court yard.

Here are a group of people in the court yard.

Natalie and I at the foot of one of the ruins.

Here is a long distant view of the same ruin with us in front.

Our English speaking guide is showing us something about the stones used to build the structure. Spencer is running up the ruin one more time. I don't even remember how many times he went up.

If you look closely at this ruin, you can see a door way and some rooms. It is presumed that this was a dwelling place.

This structure is being excavated. 

Then this turkey runs past. He should have known they don't have Thanksgiving in Guatemala.

Another structure that is being excavated.

Lunch time. You can see Derek and Spencer are eating their soup. While we ate, there was a family of Coots that sure wanted to eat with us. You will see them below after a few other pictures.

We left the National Reserve and drove back past the big lake.

Here is a hotel in the current city.

And this is how the streets look there.

We boarded a very small prop plane to return to Guatemala City. It sat 18 people. Some of the people who came to Tikal with us in the morning were going to spend the night or maybe two nights of more there. This plane had a row of seats on one side and two rows of seats on the other side of the plane. You can see Grandpa and Seth. Seth loved the spot he sat in because he could see the sparks from the engine. There was a lot of vibration and rolling and bumping on this flight. When we boarded, Derek got the set right next to the door where we entered the plane. He turned around to take a picture and said, "Okay everyone, say turbulence." That caused everyone to laugh. Good shot, Derek. 

There was a storm that we flew though because it was raining when we arrived in Guatemala City.

Here are the city lights of Guatemala City just as we were arriving after our day in Tikal.

The family of coots.