Tikal

Yesterday I went to Tikal - the biggest (and most famous) site of Mayan ruins in Guatemala. The difference with other mayan sites is that it is deep in the jungle - so it's tall steep-sided pyramids appear to poke out above the rainforest canopy. It also means that you're surrounded by the jungle with all it's wildlife. It was actually tipping with rain nearly all day -so most of it had the sense to hide, but we did hear lots of howler monkeys.

Temple 1


The Gran Plaza

Alot of the pyramids are built in 'twin-temple' complexes - pairs of pyramids which face each other across a plaza or courtyard. Apparently they were built to commemorate the end of a 'katun', a 20 year cycle in the Mayan calendar. Tikal was inhabited and built between 700BC and 900AD.

Some carvings on one of the temples - generally there's lots more 'art' at Copan, but there's still lots of carvings and hiergliphics at Tikal too.

Temple 3 as we walked through the jungle.

Temple 4 - which is the tallest at 64m high-

- which we climbed and then had this view

of the twin temples of 1 and 2 on the left, and temple 3 (I think) on the right.