Tropical Beauty

Below are shown some of the beautiful flowers around the Tikal Inn.....

....and raindrops on the coleus

Banana Surprise!

You know what this is?  BANANA FLOWER!!!! 

I have seen my share of banana trees in the few countries I have traveled to, including Guatemala, but I had never seen, nor known, that a beautiful flower stalk and bloom extends downward from the growing bunch of bananas!  Did you know that?  There you have it!  This tree was behind our room in Tikal.  I waded in the flooded ground (from all that hard rain, remember?) outside our cabin to take this shot!

Hotel Tikal Inn

Yes, it was as lovely as it looks :o} 

Our room was the lower right hand room in the facing building.

Even though it rained plenty in Tikal, and rained hard when it did, it was fairly warm, and certainly a bit on the muggy side.   We took a dip when we first arrived!  Never did see anyone else enjoy the pool.

While waiting for our first afternoon tour, swimming, reading and relaxing (and photo-taking for me) were the order of the day.  It started raining when we took the pool plunge, so sitting in the lounges next to the pool was out.  See how big the coleus grows there!

Old metal signage

Now, these tropical babies were delish!

I will leave you with a couple of reflective shots :o}

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

William M. Thackeray



Last of the Ruins

One last picture of the ruins that I thought was particularly pretty

A close up of one of the biography stones and the hieroglyphs

A huge 'thanks' to Anselmo, our incredibly knowledgeable Mayan guide, who spent far more time showing us the ruins than he was paid to! 

Jungle Mushrooms, Fungi and More

Of course, I need to add a few snapshots of one of my newest hobbies!

I love these that look like parachutes dropping from the sky!

The entire trunk of this tree was covered with them....

The caps of this type are like inverted umbrellas........

.....with the top appearing like a fried egg!

These sort of remind me of large, floppy garden hats.

We saw locally made dolls with theses shelf fungi used as aprons on the dresses!  Colorful and clever!

Interesting seed pods on this bush.

I don't know if these are seed pods or just some creepy parasitical growth!
Everything was so interesting!

Trees of the Jungle

A variety of trees populate the jungle, and locals fashion many beautiful wood products from them.  The red wood of this tree is especially pretty.

Even the roots of trees seem to creep and sprawl all over, as if to capture you as you stumble by........

Branches grow down to the earth where they take root and form a tangled mess.....

Parasitic trees strangle the life out of healthy trees.....

Others simply twist and twine upwards together..... 

Picture the last two photos as one.  This Ceiba tree was too tall to get in one shot!

Simply beautiful :o}

Creepy Crawlers

Just a few more before I move on to something else:

Spider waiting to capture its prey in the jungle

This fellow (and I am sure some of his friends) freely moved in and out of our room through gaps in the structure.



The Agouti ,  a big tailess rat-like creature all over the jungle, including running around outside our room.

The Coatis, a raccoon-like animal with an exceptionally long tail!

Wild turkeys with their warty heads abounded here.  Pretty coloring, though!

What we never saw, though heard clearly, were the howler monkeys.  Both at dusk (well, okay, so it was pitch black) while we were fumbling our way out of the jungle ruins, and the next dawn as we crept back in, the howlers were letting all know they were there with their ferocious roars!  I kid you not, they sound just like the mighty lion, the King of the Jungle!  It was truly incredible!  We also never saw any puma or jaguars that reside in the jungle, and forunately didn't run into any boa constictors, coral or rattle snakes while there.  Both the white tail and the red deer also call the jungle their home.

One BIG Nest!

Think you have termite issues?!?!  Everything is big in the jungle!

Butterflies

Though not able to capture on camera all of the beautiful butterflies that danced across our path, here are a few. 

I wonder what this colorful caterpillar will metamorph into?

Leafcutter Ants

Throughout the El Petén Jungle we came across many leafcutter ants.  They chew a section of a leaf off and proceed to march back to their nest hefting the cargo between two pinchers on their heads.  What a balancing act!

This is only a small part of the loooong line of ants busy at work.  The tree that they cut their leaves from is about 30 feet tall.  Once they have procured the leaf they haul it down the tall tree trunk and as far away as their nest exists.  This particular solid line of worker ants extended down the tree, through the dense jungle maybe 100 feet, out into a small open area for about 10 more feet and into their underground mound home.  Amazing to see so many thousands moving along the ground with the leaves held high above their bodies!  What do they use them for, might be a good question.  Our guide may have addressed this, but he sometimes fell into speaking Spanish since both Bethany and Karen are fluent (I don't think any of them were even aware they were no longer in the English language!), and when he did I could usually pick up the gist of the conversation, but little if any detail.  So next best thing, I googled it just now. Turns out they make a fungus out of it underground, which feeds the ant larvae.  Meantime, the adult ants feed off of the sap on the leaves.  All I can say is that they must have one heck of a birth rate down under!  The amount of leaves going in is phenomenal!

A Ghostly Throne

I cannot remember which temple this King's throne was in, but if you look closely..........

.........one can see a restless ghost sitting in the upper right corner, and lightening flashing throughout the spiritual world!!!!!!!!  Yikes!!!!!

Temple V

Early in the next morning, the three of us headed out with our Mayan Guide to visit and climb Temple V.  It towers above the jungle at 190 feet high, and was built around 750 AD.

A shot looking up the ladder seemingly is a Jacob's Ladder leading into heaven!

We enthusiastically begin the ascent!

Once at the top, Bethany and I carefully sat as close and still to the wall as possible, while Karen stood tall, and later walked around the front.

A view in one direction, straight forward, looking towards structures, some of which are part of the Lost World buildings. 

As Karen clamored down, Bethany and I gingerly and oh-so-slowly picked our way down step by step.  See the foot up on top of the ladder, peeking over?  That was all we saw of poor Bethany for a long time.  She was flat on her belly trying to make that first most difficult step.  Her foot poked out, then disappeared.  Poked out again.  Finally, our faithful guide climbed back up to talk her down a step at a time most of the way! 

It was s loooooooooooooooong way down!

This is what the temple looked like when the first began the excavation process.

It was so white and clean when they finished with it.  It does not take long for the jungle flora to start taking over.  And we think our yard is difficult to keep the brush battled back !