DATELINE: Peten jungle, Guatemala, Central America, 5 AM
The sky above has a slight glow. Sunrise isn’t for an hour but the jungle has come alive with breakfast sounds. Scarlet Macaws flit from tree to tree usually fighting with each other for a newly found scrap of food. The shrill of the Toucan is ever present. Other birds keep up a constant chatter of high pitched whistles or low thudding pecks into soft wood. The branches sway as spider monkeys swing by showing off to the others. A pleasant cacophony of sounds to greet any newcomer to Peten’s thick green mass of rare trees, long tangled vines and bountiful palms.
Then …. suddenly a shattering voice that could only have come from the bowels of hell breaks the silence, a mournful groan that never breaks into a higher or more pleasant pitch. A whimpered moan that is undoubtedly the last profound utter emitted from some animal in the final throes of death. It’s the howler monkey. You haven’t been in the jungle until you’ve experienced its plaintive frightful greeting. If he doesn’t make you jump up out of bed and grab the nearest weapon for defense your libido will intuitively force you to pull the covers over your head and crouch in a fetal position.
The Peten tropical rain forest still shrouds the secrets to the illusive Mayan enigma of why and how did one of Central America’s most important civilizations disappear into the same jungle and never return. For the last 150 years scientists, anthropologists and archeologist have been competing to solve the riddle.
A legacy of thousands of temples reaching to the sky and hundreds of stela (stone plaques announcing important events) with plentiful but still undecipherable annotations is all that was left behind. Guatemala is the heart of the Mayan’s previous existence and where the riddle might yet be solved.
“Tikal” the “place voices” in their own vernacular was not just another temple city but one of the most sacred of centers of the Mayan culture. A wonder in the depths of the selva (jungle). The people that called themselves Mutul, (knot of hair) that particular glyph became the hieroglyphic sign for the metropolis.
Records have traced habitation into the area from approximately 900 BC with its dominant period 700-900 AD. The low land situation alongside a river blended with a hot humid climate made the place a comfort to its indigenous inhabitants. It served them well for easily obtainable food and medicine from the myriad of plants plus construction materials for the quickly growing agrarian populace. The sacred center is surrounded by tall trees of mahogany, ramon, cedar, copal, cordoncillo (for snake bite) chickle, bromeliads and orchids.
The town flourished with easy hunting of turkeys, peccary, parrots, spider monkeys, deer and jaguars. Abundant streams and fruitful lakes made Tikal the perfect setting for predator and progenitor. An ideal paradise. And so too wrote and painted the first explorer intruders to venture upon the site about a millennium later. The absolute beauty of the situation made them attest to the obvious … the peaceful Indian living in perfect harmony with nature. Truthfully, for the sangrid Mayan’s nothing could have been further from the truth, but that took researchers some one hundred years to figure out.
In 1848 the first recorded expedition took place at Tikal led by Modesto Menez and Ambrosio Tut accompanied by the artist Eusebio Lara. Later in 1877 one Gustav Bernoulli looted the place taking back to Switzerland most of the good hand carved door lintels and spreading the word: “Tikal—the magic romantic kingdom” to the European world.
With gracious grants from the University of Pennsylvania, USA the place was gradually turned into an impressive must visit on the intellectual tourist trek as important as Machu Picchu in Peru or Teotihuacan in Mexico City. Tikal’s temples themselves draw the most attention with their unique steep stairs and flared altar backdrops. Not only are they big, temple four reaching up to 64 meters poking well above the forest canopy as if beckoning the gods to notice them. Majestic. Awe inspiring … even to the casual visitor. How impressive they must have been to the true believers of the epoch.
The literate traveler’s guide book LONELY PLANET summarizes the meandering paths between pyramids and shrines as “rich loamy smells of earth and vegetation, a peaceful air and animal noises all contribute to an experience not offered by other Mayan sites”.
“Tikal is now a national forest and Monument Park consisting of 222 sq miles. The first such park in Central America, and declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
In almost every way the study of Tikal is an investigation concerning the entire Mayan culture. The population grew and nearby city states were soon conquered making it the dominant force in the region. Then Tikal too soon reaped what it had sown, another war took place and the not too distant Caracol struck back and conquered Tikal in 562 AD ushering in a 130 year “hiatus” in which no new temples nor stela were erected. Tikal struggled under the Yoke of foreign invaders. By 682 AD they had garnered back their freedom and now extended their boundaries in a series of wars. They also formed important relationships with Teotihuacan (near Mexico City) and Kaminaljuyu (near present day Guatemala City). New stela and temples were erected and the city population flourished guesstimated at near 500,000 when at the apogee of strength, exactly a thousand years ago, the Mayan culture imploded and disipitated and vanished into the Peten forest. Historians are still scratching their heads but it appears as though it was revolution by the masses against their over bearing rulers, plain and simple.
But, it is the surrounding jungle and its magnificent embracing presence that overwhelms the senses and steals the majesty away from the colossal temples. The once swampy lands cultivated and converted into a well groomed manicured golf estate full of camera toting visitors once more paying homage and raising their voices to Tikal, the place of ancient voices.
