The Quiet City - Tikal

At 3am I rolled out of bed and struggled in the dark to collect my gear for the sunrise tour of Tikal, an hour's bus drive away. I joined the ranks of other weary gringos wanting a mystical experience in one of the cradles of civilisation. As always, I hoped it would live up to the considerable hype.

Tikal is one of the finest Mayan cities that can be seen anywhere in the realm of the Maya. It thrived from 250AD to 900AD, in the so-called Classic Mayan era, when it controlled many other nearby cities by way of it's new approach to warfare - that it, throwing spears rather than hand-to-hand combat. Around 900AD it's power began to wane drastically, as happened throughout the Maya, for reasons as yet unknown.


It was rediscovered in the mid 1800's, and since then has attracted the attention of archaeologists the world over. A large part of it's beauty is that, unlike other Mayan cities such as Chichen Itza, it is still surrounded by the deep jungle that overtook it after it was abandoned. It is estimated that 80% of the structures (perhaps 3,000 of them) still lie under the trees; many are obvious small temples, others less so. Several main areas that have been uncovered - the Grand Plaza with it's 2 huge temples and Northern Acropolis, the Lost World and Plaza of the Seven Temples, and a few huge individual temples. Here the jungle has been cut back from the ruins and in some cases the facades restored, creating a faint image of what used to be.





Nowadays, in the early morning gloom, the quiet city plays host to the cries of black howler monkeys and calls of toucans, and quietly echoes memories of the past. It's modern name in Mayan, Ti-Kal, means City of Echoes.