Lake Izabal and on to Tikal

We continued our trip from Quirigua to Lake Izabal where we found a lovely hotel on the lake.  The hotel had a great restaurant and the flowers were stunning.

Jungle flora around our hotel.  

After we settled into our accommodations, we all set out to go to the castle.  It was a short walk down the road to Castillo de San Felipe which had been built to keep the pirates out.  Apparently it was over run a few times by pirates!

Castillo de San Felipe

Eldon keeping a sharp eye out for pirates.

After climbing all through the castle we decided to go on a tour of the lake where we saw lots of huge yachts and beautiful homes on the island and an island of birds.  It did not smell really good.

Our tour boat.  How perfect!

Climbing into the tour boat.

The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast we headed toward Tikal stopping on the way to visit Yaxha ruins.  There are actually three cities there but we only had time for the one on this trip.  We discovered that not many ruins are actually uncovered but there are large hills all around that have buildings under then that were the city.

Climbed to the tops of a lot of pyramids like this one.

From the top of one of the pyramids

The jungle vines were intertwined amazingly!

Monkeys were throwing sticks at us from above.  They didn't like our company I guess.

Workers trying to clear off the rock and debris from one of the temples

Glyph depicting the creation found at the base of  one of the temples.

Many glyphs and writings have been found under the temples.  often there are two or three temples built on top of each other.  The interior ones give the best histories as looters have not desecrated them quite as much.  After the archaeologists finish exploring they seal the tunnel they made up.  They have found that the interior temples are from about 2200 BC.  Looks to me like the Jaredites did leave their mark on the world.

President and Dawn climbed to the top of this temple to see if the "red hands" painting was really there for Sister Norman.

The view from the top was magnificnet.

Supposedly this is the "Red Hands".  Clear as mud.  And the graffiti doesn't really add much.

Part of the stairs we had to climb.

We left here a little late so had to hurry to get to Flores and Tikal before dark.  We did not have reservations so called ahead to get one at Tikal.  When we arrived there we discovered we had made reservations at another hotel of the same name an hour away back out of the park.  Trusting to luck we checked one of the other hotels and found accommodations.  More on that story to come.