Guatemala Part 5 — Tikal

The reason everyone comes to this corner of Guatemala: Tikal. $82 for the whole family, and we did it self-guided — grabbed a park map, picked a direction, and started walking. Seven hours and about 9 miles later we had covered most of it, which the boys’ bodies registered as a formal complaint.

The place is hard to describe at scale. It’s a whole Maya city swallowed by jungle — the map at the entrance looks like a subway system, with walking times between temple groups instead of stops. You come out of the trees into the Great Plaza and Temple I is just standing there, 150 feet of stone staircase going straight up into the sky, and the pyramids keep coming after that. We climbed everything they’d let us climb. From the wooden deck on Temple IV you look out over nothing but jungle canopy with the tops of the other temples poking through like islands — the view they used for the rebel base in Star Wars, for anyone keeping score. The boys celebrated the climb by lying flat on the deck like they’d been shot.

One photo came out of the day that we can’t explain: the boys inside one of the ruin chambers, Axel and Enzo perfectly sharp, and Xander blurred into a full ghost smear even though everyone swears he was standing still. Ancient city, draw your own conclusions.

The grand finale wasn’t even the ruins. On the way out we hit a troop of spider monkeys right over the path — fighting, chasing each other through the branches, launching between trees over our heads. One hung off the top of a ruin wall like he owned the place, which, fair. We could have watched them for another hour.

Guatemala’s not done with us yet. More coming.

#unpavedparenting