Saturday 9 November 2013
Got up
at the crazy hour of 3:30 am to see the sunrise at Tikal. Walked into the park with a guide and
everything was dark so could hardly see anything. Weird walking around and seeing the
silhouettes of these huge, really vertical pyramids. Then climbed these steps up to the top of one
of the tallest pyramids and sat on the steps to wait for the sunrise. Too misty for a pink sunrise but it was still
really cool. The howler monkeys get up
just before the dawn and make their racket.
I’ve seen them on documentaries but nothing prepares you for how they
actually sound. If you didn’t know they
were monkeys and that they are harmless you’d think it was something really
dangerous, evil even. Trevor recorded
them on his phone; it’s not very loud but I think it gives you a sense.
Went
to our hotel in Flores. Las
Lagunas. We splurged and spent a bit of
money on this hotel and boy was it worth it!
Security guard at the front gate with an automatic shotgun freaked us
out a little bit, but hey, its Guatemala.
This was a very high end lodge with all the trimmings, set in the jungle
on a beautiful lagoon – just wow!
They
had two activities to do at the resort.
One: go feed the monkeys in their luxury lagoon boat. Two: Go on their fancy quad bikes to see the
ocelots. We did both.
The fancy
quad bike tour was through the jungle along very muddy trails to see their
collection of animals that they were looking after – it’s a refuge for animals
rescued from different places in Guatemala.
We wanted to see the ocelots, and oh boy it was amazing. One of them came right up to the side of the
cage and kept sticking his arm through trying to get to us; he was that
close. Totally cool. Absolutely gorgeous animal – never been so
close to a big cat like that.
