Tikal! -- Flores, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from the top of the tallest pyramid in Yaxha. The sun glows golden in the distance, transforming the surrounding clouds into vibrant, glimmering puffs of pink, purple, and gold. The lake over which this pyramid stands is a soft blue, and I can see small ripples dancing across its surface, as water and wind meet. Howler monkeys roar in the canopy of jungle trees, and the other tourists sitting on the steps behind me keep their voices to a whisper, all of us treasuring this intensely beautiful moment.

Yes. 

I'll carry this sunset fresh in my memory for a very long time.

  

Yaxha is our second excursion to Guatemalan ruins. The Kellehers and I ventured out of Flores and into the ruins of Tikal yesterday. 

And it was pretty phenomenal. 

We walked across the street to the tour agency (there's a tour agency across the street from everything in Flores. Sometimes across the street from each other), and waited for our shuttle to arrive at four-thirty am. 

My favorite time of day, I sighed, looking around the quiet streets and feeling the freshness of morning. I don't know why EVERYONE isn't awake right now. They're all missing the best part of morning.

We climbed into the van and sped off towards Tikal, pulling into the entrance station at around six o'clock. John purchased tickets for the three of us, and we continued our journey into the park. 

It took us a good long while to actually reach the ruins. Because we kept running into interesting Guatemalan fauna. Such as the extravagantly flamboyant, blue-headed turkey (it's the scientific name). 

Everything in Guatemala has more color. Even the freaking turkeys. Jesus.    

 

After we'd finished our lengthy turkey gawking, we continued on to our first set of pyramids.

There's something so incredible about places like this, I thought, jogging up the steps to the top. Which is the most cliché, nondescript thing to think. Incredible. Mayan ruins are incredible. What does that actually mean? 

... 

It's just hard to find words for places like this. Places with stories richer, fuller, than I could possibly imagine.

Which is why everyone just says, "incredible."
 

Tikal is speckled with tourists who come for the magnificent views from the tops of ancient Mayan pyramids, but it's also visited by Mayans who practice their indigenous religions. At altars like this.

These steps. Feel like nothing, I thought as I continued to happily walk/jog up pyramid gradas. Wait... this pyramid, I counted steps and broke into a silly grin. This pyramid has fewer steps than I had to climb every morning to get from my tent to the composting toilet at The Yoga Forest. 

Haha. 

No wonder everything feels so easy. I'm climbing fewer steps and suffering from significantly less desperation.

I walked around with the other tourists, snapping the same photographs hundreds of thousands of people have probably snapped before. 

Sometimes it IS kind of refreshing to just do the normal tourist things. Like visiting Tikal with a tour company and taking rather vapid photographs. 
 

I went so deeply into tourist mode that I even took a selfie.

Which, uh, is something I haven't done in years. I think.

We headed back into the rainforest, occasionally stopping to watch monkeys and look for birds in the thick foliage blocking out the sun overhead.

The last pyramid I climbed was a bit higher than The Yoga Forest's composting toilet (though not by much), and the view was (I admit this grudgingly) about just as good. 

While sitting on the steps of the day's final pyramid, I chatted with some travelers from Slovenia, Germany, and Switzerland. Giving suggestions for what to do in Antigua and around Lake Atitlan.

It feels so weird that I can give advice for Guatemala. As in, I've lived here long enough to know how to enjoy bits and pieces of this remarkable country. 

"What about the best parties?" the traveler from Slovenia asked me. Innocently enough.

Oh god. And now, again, I feel like I know nothing about Guatemala. 

"I'm... uh... not the person you would talk to about parties," I replied with a wry smile, thinking about the time I'd almost fallen off the bar stool in Cafe No Se with Pancho. After one drink. At eleven thirty.

Gosh, I'm pathetic. 
 

We made our way back to the shuttle at around eleven, then sped back towards our temporary island home. Feeling as if we'd already accomplished at least an entire day worth of living well before lunchtime.

How did I get so lucky? I thought, bouncing up and down in the shuttle with a stupid smile of total contentment plastered to my face.