Souvenir Chronicles: GUATEMALA 2026: TIKAL NATIONAL PARK

March 19, 2026

The next morning we had to be checked out of our charming ecolodge and ready to go by 4:50 a.m. We were picked up at 5:00 a.m. by a driver/guide named Roney, someone Bob had selected based on his reputation for birding expertise. Supposedly he is the best guide in northern Guatemala and we were lucky to have him as our guide in Tikal, our next destination.

Tikal was the #1 reason I wanted to travel to Guatemala. As a college student, I spent a summer on a study abroad in Mexico City. One weekend a group went on a field trip to Tikal, but I went with my friends to Acapulco. When the other group came back with their stories (but no photos as this was long before the digital camera), I was jealous and made the resolve that I would go to Tikal someday. That "someday" had come.

We got to the park just as the sun was rising, and long before we got to the archaeological site, Roney was scanning the treetops for birds, of which there didn't seem to be many. We spent a lot of time staring into the branches.

Not having binoculars, I had to be content with nature that was closer at hand. The red mushroom-looking thing below is a Helosis cayennensis (like "cayenne" pepper but not related except in color), a parasitic flowering plant.

It was pretty, but *yawn*, I wanted to get to the good stuff. It was hard to get excited about birds I could not see. But wait. What's that moving around in the trees?

These are spider monkeys, probably Geoffrey's spider monkeys, aka black-handed spider monkeys, with arms that are substantially longer than their legs and tails that function as an extra limb. Okay, seeing this quickly-moving monkeys was fun.

We passed by several signs reminding me that I was at Tikal, but not the part of Tikal where I wanted to be.

Here we go, back into the trees. Sigh.

On the other hand, I have to admit that there was plenty to see at eye level.

Finally, we pulled into the parking lot for the archaeological site. Miracle of miracles, there was a bird wandering around that Bob had never seen before, an ocellated turkey. Okay, that's cool, especially since I could see it without binoculars.

Bob's photo

As we were walking towards the ruins (HOORAY!), we took a detour into the woods (*#*$&^%). I don't remember if we saw any birds, but we did see this old car graveyard. Not quite the ruins I was anticipating.

We were within just a few-minute walk of the ruins when we sat down on a wall to watch for toucans. We stayed there for what felt like two hours but was probably twenty minutes. Did we see one? We must have because Bob has a photo of one, but I don't remember seeing it.

Signs pointed us to various parts of the ruins, which are fairly spread out and not easy to navigate if you don't know where you are going. Otherwise, I think I would have been long gone.

But the forest called (and maybe some birds), so down the trail we went.

Overall, Bob had a pretty successful birding expedition. See his photos here.

Finally, finally, we came out of the trees and into the archaelogical site.

Tikal dominated the Mayan world from c. 200 to 900 but was abandoned at the end of that period. At its height, as many as 90,000 people lived here, so obviously there is a lot of archaeological work yet to be done. It was first explored in 1848, and the national park was established in 1955 (the first national park in Guatemala) to protect an area of 220 square miles of ruins and surrounding forests, savannas, and wetlands. The actual residential area covers about 23 square miles, most of which has not been excavated. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, the same year I spent my summer in Mexico and missed an opportunity to visit.

Entering Tikal's Great Plaza is a "WOW!" experience. The plaza is bookended by two gigantic temples. On the east end is the grandaddy of them all, the iconic Temple of the Great Jaguar (aka Temple I), so named because it has a lintel that shows a king sitting on a jaguar throne. Dated to 732 AD, this funerary temple held the remains of a prominent Mayan ruler, which were discovered by archaeologists in 1962. It has nine stepped levels, probably representing the nine levels of the underworld, and is 180 feet tall.

It was almost enough just to see this magnificent structure. ALMOST.

To the left of the Jaguar Temple (if you are facing the temple) is the North Acropolis, a series of temples built upon each other over successive periods, making it a very dense archaeological site.

Across the Grand Plaza and facing the Jaguar Temple is the Temple of the Masks (aka Temple II), named for two eroded giant masks adorning the upper platform. It is a "mere" 125 feet tall, the equivalent of about 10 stories in a modern building. (For reference, the tallest building in the town where I live is seven stories.) This temple was built in the 8th century AD to honor the ruler's wife.

Inside the temple, archaeologists discovered the image of a woman carved on a wooden lintel. The drawing below left is an artist's rendering of that image. She may have been the wife of the ruler and the temple's honoree.

We climbed a metal staircase (with a handrail!) attached to the backside of the Temple of the Masks so that we could get a good view of the complex.

The sign at the foot of the stairs warms that anyone who destroys, alters, damages, or defaces any structures will be punished with imprisonment from 6 to 9 years and will pay a fine. It ends with "Avoid criminal prosecution. Don't do it." Duly noted.

I was very happy to see the guardrails at the top (unlike the top of the pyramid at Xanantunich the day before). And what a view of the Temple of the Great Jaguar behind us!

What looks like a firepit below left is a Mayan altar, possibly used for sacrifices. The sign in front of the stone below right has in English "Do not seat on the monuments."

The altar is near the center of the Great Plaza. I took this picture of the Temple of the Masks . . .

. . . then I turned 180° and took this picture of the Temple of the Great Jaguar. The temples are 230 feet apart.

What I thought looked like chairs in the plaza are actually Ancient Mayan stelae, or stone monoliths carved with hieroglyphs that document the dynastic history and rituals of over 30 Mayan kings.

The fourth side of the plaza is the Central Acropolis, which includes a series of palaces that were the dwellings of the royal family. Within the complex are six plazas and two especially notable palaces, the Maler Palace and the Five Level Palace. Unfortunately, this is as close as I got. We didn't have time to explore.

On our way to another section of the park, we ran into a group of very cute white-nosed coatis.

Another section of Tikal is known as the Mundo Perdido, or "Lost World." It is the largest Preclassic ceremonial complex in Tikal. It is easy to see how the jungle could overtake the structures, many of which are intentionally only partially uncovered.

The architecture in this area is called talud-tablero, or "deck slope," a building style associated with the pyramids in Mexico's Teotihuacan. This temple is "just" 72 feet tall (about six stories) and contained two burial chambers.

This structure reminded me of Palenque, Mayan ruins in Mexico about 140 miles away as the crow flies.

Our guide Roney seemed surprised that we (I) wanted to take the time to climb to the top of another temple to get the best view of the valley. He was infinitely more focused on birds than on the ruins, which is too bad because we heard from friends who are not birders and visited a few months after us and had the same guide that he was an excellent guide for the ruins, which was their only interest in Tikal.

Anyway, we climbed the hundreds of stairs on the back of a temple I don't even know the name of and in spite of the "Climb at your own risk" sign at the base.

This is an exceptional panoramic view from the top, which I filmed a bit too fast as I felt pressure to move on:

A few still shots catch both the enormity of the structures and their mystical setting in the Guatemalan jungle. In the background is Temple IV. At an astonishing 230 feet, it is Tikal's tallest pyramid. Or maybe we were ON Temple IV and that's a different temple? I am a little confused.

How many more structures have been buried by the voracious jungle or swept away by storms and earthquakes? We may never know, but Tikal is certainly an archaeologist's dream space. By the way, that monolithic temple on the left is Temple III--180 feet tall.