There is a certain novelty to being isolated out in the middle of the jungle. However, after a cold shower and enduring a few planned power blackouts, that novelty does wear off a bit. Furthermore, because we had a general idea of when the blackouts would occur, we knew that it must be after 530am when we heard our devices make a familiar apple “beep” that they were charging once again. We both lay there for a bit before accepting that we’d each already received our eight hours of sleep and decided to just get up for the day.
We got our giant tickets processed and were wrist-banded before walking back into the park. We took a different route in to view the few temples that we hadn’t yet seen. Nobody appeared to be at the park yet. Strangely, one group was near the entrance with us, but they went to the visitor’s center first, which seemed like an odd choice. We walked by Templo VI, the furthest from the city center and home to los introvertidos. On the way, we kept hearing very deep groans in between squawking birds. The jungle was alive. I felt like I was in Jurassic Park. The deep groans were possibly howler monkeys, but having not seen them, I cannot confirm that they weren’t a triceratops. The Group G ruins were nearby, which we also explored. These were residences that had windows and built-in beds made of stone. Presumably the Mayans also crafted some kind of mattresses otherwise it would have been literally like sleeping on a rock.
We then worked our way to the Gran Plaza, or central area. We passed another tour group and found ourselves all alone in the plaza. A thick shroud of mist was passing through the site. I had read that this is pretty common and is why sunrise tours are basically a waste. With that being said, I kind of liked the effect it created (but also glad we came yesterday to experience it in better lighting). We also climbed Templo II, which we didn’t do yesterday as it was always quite crowded looking at the top. From there we were granted a good view of the mist-shrouded Jaguar Templo (Templo I) including the entire plaza around it with not a single tourist. I was able to run an entire timelapse on my other camera before the tour group we had passed finally entered the square.
I feel like it was a very successful outing and we were both surprised at how vacant the site was even as it approached 9am. We walked back to the hotel to find all the groups amassing in the opposite direction. We had a simple breakfast at the hotel before packing up in the dark (due to the electrical blackout) and checking out. We drove 70 or so minutes before reaching the Villa Maya hotel. Rooms had previously appeared unavailable, but ID90 seemed to find an open bungalow when we were searching last night, so I booked it on the spot. Luckily our room was ready (and existed) when we arrived, so we were able to unload and unwind for the rest of the day.
The Villa Maya is situated on a large swath of land that has numerous walking trails around a lake and through dense vegetation. We decided to go for a stroll on what we presumed was a simple circuit as no distance was labeled and reception didn’t give us a map. It turned out to be a fairly extensive trek through the jungle that was 3-4km. We saw a few birds (but heard many many more) as we tripped along the roots all the way back to our room.
It is much hotter today — close to 90, and we went to the hotel bar to get a Gallo (local cerveza) and some carbonated water to cool down. We sat in a partially-covered outdoor area with a wooden dock as I observed the birds. Nicole thinks I’m becoming a birder. I’m too young for that. I picture elderly white-haired men from the commonwealth with giant coffee table books titled 1001 Species of Birds and You. I played around with the 120fps feature of my camera to try and capture some of the local birds in slo-mo video action. Supposedly there are also crocodiles in the lake, but we didn’t see any.
We decided to have an early dinner again. We both had margherita pizzas and a local Moza beer. This will be (hopefully) our last dinner of the trip. We have a quick flight back to Guatemala City tomorrow followed by a direct flight back to Los Angeles a few hours later. It has been a very active trip, but we are close to heading back home.
passports & pepto bismol 