At home at the top of the world-Sunrise at Tikal, Guatemala

There is no noise on earth than I hate more then the sound of an alarm clock. Man, it's early!! Janene's phone goes off at 3:30am and it is pitch black out. Also, the power is out again. Grrreeeaaat....

As I roll out of bed, I realize where I am and its not so bad. Today is the day that we check out the sunrise at Tikal. Janene has been looking forward to this for as long as we have been talking about going on this trip. We light the candle in our room and dress quickly in the dark. It is even too early for the roosters.

We layer on the clothes-there are a lot of mosquitoes in the Guatemalan jungle, and we want to be comfortable. Within ten minutes we are out the door and in the darkened lobby of the hotel. We smell coffee and see snacks waiting for us.

How nice! As we load up on the brew, Oliver, our faithful tour guide, arrives to meet us. We hop into the car and drive the pitch-black road to the entrance of Tikal.

When we arrive, there is no one around, and all around us are the sounds of the jungle. Kinda creepy to be perfectly honest. Like, at any moment a jaguar might jump out and get us! It doesn't help that Oliver has been entertaining us with stories of animals that we could encounter. Poisonous spiders, flying-lethal snakes, and of course the elusive jaguar. I touch the swiss army knife that I put in my pocket just before leaving the hotel. As if THAT is going to protect me. Good thing Oliver has a machette.

We stand alone in the dark at the entrance of the park when we see headlights and a beat-up truck pulls up.

It is a friend of Oliver's that works on site at Tikal and offers to drive us in his pickup truck to the base of Temple VI where we will make our ascent. We 4x4 it through the jungle on rough roads and peer out of the windows trying to see something, anything. The only thing we can see is what the headlights illuminate and its just rough road.

After about a 15 minute ride, we arrive at the base of the temple, but it is so dark that we can't even see. We thank our driver and Oliver leads us to the base of the stairs we must climb to get to the top. It's DARK! We turn on our tiny flashlights that we had purchased the night before, and they project 3 tiny pinpoints of light just ahead of us. How are we going to climb this stairway in the dark?

Oliver doesn't usually go to the top, he has seen this wonder of nature many times before.

However, this time, he decides to join us. We start the climb, Janene in the front, me in the middle and Oliver in the back. This is no normal staircase, kids. It's super steep and hard to manuver. We stop several times to catch our breath, until finally, we are at the top!

Luckily, we were the first one's to arrive and we had the view to ourselves. At first it was too dark to see anything, but gradually, our eyes adjusted to the dark and we could start to pick out Temple I and II far in the distance. The stars were spectacular and we could hear birds and even the voices of other adventurous trekkers that were on thier way to the site.

We were up there for about half an hour by ourselves. We were quiet most of the time, each person lost in their own thoughts.

I was thinking about how lucky I was to experience this with Janene. I thought about my grandpa, now long passed away, and how cool he would have thought this experience was. I also thought about how small we are and how the world just keeps on going long after you are gone. Its hard to describe such a cool experience.

Soon, we were joined by about 15 other people who made the trekk up and they were stoked. We had had some time to take it all in, and were felling really mellow but after about 10 minutes, they settled down and all we felt was a light breeze and all we heard were the sounds of the jungle waking up. The sky turned purple, and the stars started to fade. We could clearly make out the shape of the Lost World and the other temples out in the distance.

At one point a flock of tucan's squacked and flew by. As the howler monkeys started to scream, the sky turned orange, and then at long last a luminous blue. After a couple of minutes everyone clapped and started taking pictures.

When we had finally had our fill of the amazing view, we climbed back down to the base of the temple. Oliver had promised to take us through the jungle today and off the beaten path to show us some sights that most tourists don't get to see. The jungle was super thick and we clammered our way through. Swatting away the massive mosquitoes that just couldn't get enough of us, we were able to see a Mayan kitchen recently uncovered, and the entrance to the underground portion of Tikal. We were also fortunate enough to enter some of the openings in some of the stuctures that still had some paint visible.

Sweet...

As our awesome morning came to an end, we said goodbye to Oliver and promised to visit again. We picked up Jon and Kara at the hotel and started the long drive back across the border to Belize city. Just before we crossed the border we stopped at another ancient site, Xha Ha. The site is a bit newer, and doesn't quite hold the magic that Tikal has, but still really cool. There is one HUGE temple that when you climb to the top you are rewarded with a breathtaking view of a nearby lake that is surrounded by jungle. Amazing.

We cross the border (no problems this time!) and are back in Belize. We decided to take a driving break and check out the Belize Zoo. I have to say it is one of the most intimate zoo's I have ever visited. You can get very close to the animals and there is a great sense of humor about the place that is evident on the signs that are posted giving information about each animal.

Now, its on to our next adventure, the Ambergris Cayes!