Lori felt well enough to take the shuttle van to Tikal this morning, so we made it! While seeing "a bunch of ruins" won't top Elena's list of highlights of this trip, it ranks pretty high for Lori and me. While they range widely, most of these limestone structures are about 1,300 years old. They've uncovered about 20% of the structures here and restored a few of them to nearly their original shape.
I'm reading Alan Weissman's book, "The World Without Us" right now. It's a fascinating book that envisions how the world would evolve if humans were removed from the picture. What things have we done that will leave a permanent mark, for better or worse? How quickly will Nature reclaim all else? As we walked through Tikal, Weissman's book was more than just a thought exercise, it described what we were seeing: structures of stone being the only thing to survive, and even those structures were completely overtaken by jungle. It's a great read. I highly recommend it.
Fortunately the trip to Tikal wasn't nearly as hot, humid and mosquito-infested as we were led to believe. We made it back to Flores in the late afternoon. Lori's still not 100% back, but has been improving steadily. She really kept it together today so she could see Tikal. She should be in even better shape tomorrow for the shuttle ride to our final destination, Caye Caulker, Belize. We're all looking forward to our longest stay (6 nights) in one place, with mostly relaxation being the plan.
PS: I think the highlight of Tikal for Jarrett was that a howler monkey pooped on my head from way up in the canopy.
