Day 4 - Dec 9, 2018 Tikal & Western Belize Interior

We started our day early before 7a to visit Tikal in the morning before the crowd arrived.  I found it interesting to see people pay top dollars to do “sunrise” tour here all the time and yet there is seldom normal sunrise in Tikal or Belize interior.  Due to the evaporation from vegetation in the jungle, it would be usually misty or cloudy in the early morning and by 9-10 o’clock, the sun would just pop out after burning through the clouds.  The park was almost deserted when we got in.  We walked the trail to Temple VI which was not restored but left in its original state.  We saw many wildlife like coatimundi, wild pigs, ocellated turkeys (which look like peacocks), and spider monkeys on the trails and in the bush.  It’s a totally different feeling to be able to wander among the awesome ruins just the two of us.  Hard to imagine that this was a cosmopolitan city state just over a thousand years ago.  Lesson learned: “Mow your lawn and clean the moss off your roof often because if you don’t, your house will be overtaken by a rain forest!)

Coatimundi on the road to the Tikal ruins

Wild pigs on the path to Temple VI

Original state of Temple VI.  All cover with vegetation and trees

Oscellated Turkey at the ruins

After an hour, we reached the back side of Temple V.  Just as we followed the trail to the front of this building, we saw one of the most impressive buildings we have seen on this trip.  Temple V is the tallest building in Tikal (57m high) and it formed the most perfect iconic Mayan temple you can imagine.  Climbing this temple is not allowed.  From there, it was a short walk to Grand Plaza, the downtown of Tikal.  By this time, more tourists had arrived but we had already done our second magical day in Tikal.

Temple V - the most perfect looking Mayan temple building I have seen.  Can you spot Yiling?

Temple V - the highest building in Tikal at 57m

Back to the Grand Plaza for a look at dawn

Looking to the Grand Plaza from the East

We left Tikal after breakfast at the hotel and drove back to the border town of Melchor de Mencos to do some shopping and fill up on the cheap gas (just like filling up on the cheap US gas at the Canadian border).  Going through the border in the opposite direction is easier but those kids were again trying to help in order to earn a tip.  It was a breeze comparing to yesterday.  From the border, it was 45 mins to our next stop, Blackrock Lodge, through a rough unpaved road.
Blackrock Lodge is one of the many jungle lodges in Belize interior which offer upscale off-the-grid away-from-it-all experiences to travellers.  It is located on a striking rock canyon on the bank of Macal river.  Everything is self-sufficient here.  Electricity is from solar and hydro.  Vegetables and fruits are grown on their own farm.  Their cabins all have nice view of the river.  We chilled in the restaurant and just watched all kinds of beautiful birds visiting the bird feeding station.  They served dinner family style, grouping the guests into different tables to promote conversation similar to a cruise ship.  Their food was good but as expected, price was also high for the captive guests.  Our tablemates include two professors from Montana (researching on bees here), a retired geology professor from Waterloo, Ont and his wife, and a guy who retired from Intel.

View of the river canyon at Macal River from the lodge

Our cabin at Blackrock Lodge

View from our cabin

Our cabin front entrance

Restaurant terrace

Trail to the vegetable garden of the lodge

Stairs access to the river

Lots of birds eating from the bird feeding station

Day 3 - Dec 9, 2018, Tikal, Guatemala

We said good bye to Nikki and Gerry after breakfast this morning and started our drive west to cross the Guatemalan border.  This actually has been the most stressful thing on my mind for this trip to cross the border without knowing too much Spanish.  It turned out fine.  There were small kids all over who volunteered to help tourists to negotiate this process for a tip.  Although I had read up lots already on the exact process, I still let the kid go ahead.  It's actually quite involved if you want to drive a rental car across the border.  We are technically importing a car into the country.  There was fumigation of the vehicle, stamping the passport, importing the car and paying for it, exchanging local currency at the border (and haggle with the exchange rate).  All told, it took about an hour to go through the whole thing.  And then there was the police road check.  Not knowing any Spanish actually worked in our favor as they didn't know how to extort us even if they want to.  We were just waved through after they pretended to check the documents.  I was a bit worried about this drive as the tour books suggested caution not to stop if someone throws up some random obstacles to stop you (robbery follows).  There was none of this.  All looked safe at the end as there were many small villages and people in between big towns.  We arrived at Tikal closed to 2 pm.

Here in this part of Guatemala, we felt that everyone is trying to take advantage of you, including the official looking park workers who offered themselves as guides and sell park map for $3 USD.  I suspect the map should be free to start with.  After all obstacles, we finally arrived at our hotel inside the park at 2:30 pm.  We started our walk to the huge park just when everyone was walking out.  This is the advantage of staying inside the park as we can stay later till it closed at 6 pm after everyone left.

We hit the most important highlights first starting at the Grand Plaza.  We could climb up to some of the buildings but not all.  Some temples are restored but many are just left in original state (i.e., covered in trees and vegetation).  We saw many spider monkeys running on top of the trees and heard the howler monkeys from the distance, not to mention the numerous birds flying about.

A Ceiba tree - the Mayan believed it has magic power

Temple I

Grand Plaza

Grand Plaza

We can walk up some of the temples

Pretty steep walkway.  Good exercise!

Good view down to the Grand Plaza

View from Grand Pyramid to Temple III and Grand Plaza

Good Evening to Tikal!

Sunset view of Temple IV

 We walked to the furthest point of the park and climbed up Temple IV.  Here they said is the view in one of the scene from Star Wars - A New Dawn.  It was perfect weather for watching sunset this evening.  Magical!  I have to hurry to finish posting this blog to beat the power off deadline.  Here inside the park, electricity is from generator so there is curfew from 10p-5a.  Good thing to force us to sleep early for tomorrow's plan to see the park at dawn.

This is the scene where George Lucas films Star Wars - A New Dawn!

Sunset at Tikal

Just after sunset

Tikal afte sunset 

Grand Plaza after sunset

Temple I at dusk

Day 1 & 2 - Dec 7-8, 2018 Belmopan, Belize

After traveling through the night from YVR to SFO to IAH to BZE, we finally arrived at Belize City yesterday afternoon.  Although we slept a bit on the flights and got upgraded to First Class on the last leg, it is still taxing on your body but we are ready to hit the road right away.  We picked up our rental car at the airport and first thing we noticed is that Belize is still a developing country.  The "highways" are like our country back roads.  Many potholes and broken pavement.  The killers are the sometimes unannounced speed bumps along a perfectly fine straight stretch of the highways.  If you are not careful, they would easily send your car airborne!

Lemon butter shrimp

We first went to a local shrimp farm to have a very relaxing lunch.  Their restaurant was located right in the middle of the shrimp ponds.  The food was delicious and we learnt that the shrimps were all organic raised.  Here in Belize, they used Belize dollars which is pegged to USD at 2 BZD to 1 USD so we don't have to exchange any currency.  The only drawback is you will get local currency back as change.  After lunch, we drove to our first destination which also happens to be our lodging for the night, Rock Farm Guest House which operates the volunteer organization, Belize Bird Rescue.  They operate the guest house portion to generate funds for their bird rescue operation.  The owners Gerry and Nicki were super friendly and they started this operation 15 years ago.  Their mission is to care for and try to rehabilitate all kinds of birds (mostly parrots it happens) which are rescued as pets, illegal trades, injuried, or abandoned.  As expected, the whole place is filled with noisy bird calls.  We have never seen so many parrots in our lives.  Many birds are now wild and free to fly anywhere but they still stick around for the free food every morning in the feeders.  Another amazing sight we saw after dark is all the fire bugs flying around in the field around our cabin.  It is just awesome to see all the little twinkles all over.

Our cabin at the Rock Farm Bird Rescue

Owner Nikki and her scarlet macaw

This parrot is crippled and won't be able to live in the wild any more

It has bonded with human also

Parrots being rehabilitated

This morning we were served a big breakfast on the terrace in the main house.  We saw 4 toucans in the trees!!  Again the bird calls and songs were almost deafening!  I never thought parrots can be this noisy!  We then drove 1.5h to visit a spectacular Mayan ruin, Xunantunich.  To get there, you have to cross a small river on a hand-cranked car ferry!  What a concept!  Wish all BC Ferry boats are operated this efficiently!  Even on a Saturday, we almost had the whole place to ourselves.  This is the first Mayan ruin that we have ever visited and we are impressed.  El Castillo, the tallest building of this archaeological complex, is beautiful with detailed stucco friezes with carved symbols representing the Sun god, Moon god, and others.  We were allowed to climb all the way up to most pyramids, including El Castillo.  The view of the surrounding area from the summit is breathtaking.  There was even an iguana sunbathing right at the top as well!  Xunantunich is so close to the border that we could see Guatemala from the top of the pyramid.  This is where we are going tomorrow to visit the most famous Mayan ruin of all in Tikal.

All hand powered!

Beautiful stucco friezes on El Castillo

Iguana sharing the best spot on top of El Castillo!

This place is so quiet that we have the whole site to ourselves!

We then drove through 30 km of rugged back country roads to visit two waterfalls in the Pine Ridge Mountain area of Belize.  It is totally unexpected to see such a familiar flora in Belize, a pine tree forest!  The Five Sister Falls are located near a upscale lodge but the staff now won't allow non-guests to use their facilities so we could only admire the waterfalls from afar instead of swimming in the natural pools.  Not too sure about the legality of this policy but we don't want to argue.  We kept driving to our next destination, Rio On Pools, which are a series of pools formed by various waterfalls cascading down the mountain.  I am surprised that not many people were there to enjoy this scenery and the water.  We only saw two people swimming and two other tourists there.

Five Sisters Falls

Rio On Pools