{"id":33,"date":"2008-12-21T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T00:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/?p=33"},"modified":"2010-02-06T18:42:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:42:40","slug":"across-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/21\/across-the-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Across the border"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a day of travelling, finished off with watching the sunset over the jungle from atop a Mayan temple, the second highest pre<\/span>–Columbian<\/span> structure in the Americas, at the ancient city of Tikal<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I left San Ignacio fairly early in order to make easy connections — a rickety bus to a town near the border, a beat up shared taxi to the border, and by foot over the border. Then two hours squished into a sweltering<\/span> minibus with 29 other people including babies being breast fed and the driver. I got dropped off at a crossroads where I waited less than five minutes to flag down a tourist shuttle bus coming from Flores to Tikal<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It all went very smoothly despite the uncertainty of timetables, and it was a lot cheaper than the taxis from the border whose drivers wanted to charge me $60, telling me there was no other way. The moral of the story is that although many taxi drivers are honest, a lot cannot be believed if they stand to make a buck. Like the one in San Ignacio who tried to claim the buses only ran hourly on Sundays, hoping I would give up and take a taxi, when in fact buses ran on the half hour as normal.<\/p>\n

I wanted to stay overnight in Tikal<\/span> because sunset and sunrise are the most interesting times — both for the skies and for the animals that come out at dawn and dusk. The cheapest hotel said they had an unpaid reservation that they could give me if I waited 15 minutes till noon. But after paying for the room, they said it wouldn’t be ready until check-in time at 2 p.m. I didn’t plan to go to the ruins until 4 p.m. anyway, so I waited around — only to find out that the person who previously had the room they were going to give me hadn’t checked out. In the end they found me a room in a more expensive hotel and refunded my money, but it was a hassle.<\/p>\n

There are two prices of admission to Tikal<\/span> — a cheap price ($3) for Guatemalans, and an expensive price ($24) for Gringos. But I knew that if you buy a ticket after 4 p.m., they stamp your ticket for the next day, and you can still get in for the remainder of the day until closing time at 6 p.m. So I went for a couple hours in the late afternoon, knowing I can return tomorrow.
\nTikal<\/span> is quite large. It was a major city in its day. There are a number of tall temples, and many of them have not yet been unearthed and are still jungley<\/span> mounds. What makes the place so special is the setting surrounded by jungle. Even in the day you see exotic birds like toucans, Peten<\/span> turkeys, and numerous others I can’t identify. There are howler monkeys, and coatamundis<\/span>. As dusk approaches, the sounds reach a pitch of crickets, birds, and other noises.<\/p>\n

I visited a couple of the temples in the main plaza. They’ve now added wooden steps to climb one because the original stone steps were too steep and have resulted in a few fatal accidents of tourists. The other one you can’t climb at all.<\/p>\n

After that, I hurried over to the tallest one, temple IV, which is known for its sunrises and sunsets. I was not disappointed. There were other tourists and photography enthusiasts there already, as the sun lowered in the sky. It cast orange light patterns across a couple of temples in the distance, and over top of the jungle foliage. Very dramatic.<\/p>\n

It’s 35 minutes back to the main gate, and I knew I had to move quickly so as not to get caught in the dark. As it was, there was only a trace of light — just enough to see roots, stumps and steps on the trail as I approached the gate. The jungle sounds and animals though were amazing.
\nTomorrow I’ll be up early to see more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a day of travelling, finished off with watching the sunset over the jungle from atop a Mayan temple, the second highest pre–Columbian structure in the Americas, at the ancient city of Tikal. I left San Ignacio fairly early in order to make easy connections — a rickety bus to a town near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-mexico-central-america","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}