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Community Service Trip to Parramos, Guatemala

Parramos, Guatemala
July 6-July 15

Day Nine: Saturday, July 14
Tikal to Guatemala City, Guatemala

1. Kristin and Pam.	2. The planting around the Jungle Hotel were amazing.	3. Sweeping the walkways. The broom of choise is a palm frond.
4. Donald, our guide for the tour of Tikal, gives us an overview of the archaeological site.	5. The model of Tikal at the vister's center. In it's glory around 700 AD, Tikal was a trading city of over 100,000 residents. The ubitquitous souvenier stands are in the background.	6. Donald points out the walking route we will take to the remains, about 3 hours
7. The Ceiba tree, one of the tallest trees in the rain forest, grows to 270 feet. To the Mayans it was the "Holy Tree of Life" since they considered it the axle of the earth. Since 1955 it has been Guatemala's National tree.	8. Oddly enough, it started raining in the rain forest. We were all okay with that, since it cooled off a bit, and kept the bugs to a minimum.	9. Donald explains the first temple we encounter. The left side is how they look after 1,500 in the jungle. The right side is after excavation and careful restoration.
10. These are not tombstones, but ceremonial stelae each with its round altar. There are nine in front of each temple. The altar stones are perfectly round, but the Mayan's never developed the wheel, large stones were moved around on logs.	11. Every facet of construction was symbolic. The five setbacks, the nine pillars, the number of stairs, even the positioning of the temple to coincide with the position of the sun during the vernal and autumnal equinox.	12. We stop at open air temple, which traditionally had four walls but no covering. Note the inverted "V" doorway, a typical Mayan design used both for doorways and interior ceilings.
13. Donald explains the markings on a stone pillar, this one preserved under a tatched roof. This one was a tribute to a king, and marked the period of his reign.	14. We file through the undergrowth on what is left of the Mayan road. When Tikal was inhabited, the forest was clear-cut, as in the model.	15. A temple restoration project. The archaeologists today use limestone, just as the Mayans did, but unlike the Mayans who had no steel tools, they use power tools and winches to bring cut stones to the top.
16. New limetone blocks. Unlike granite which is extremely hard, and was used by the Incas further south for their construction, limestone is relatively soft, and does not fare well in the jungle.	17. Some of the temples are too fragile to climb directly, so the park authorities provide stairs, or rather ladders.	18. We begin the ascent, and as this was our fist climb of the morning so everyone was game. The geneal enthusism for climbing wanned by the fifth temple.
19. The climb was worth it, as the panarama was spectular. From this exposure there are three other temples whose tops rise above the forest canopy.	20. Our group at the top, giddy from the climb and the view.	21. Jeff pauses for a portrait.
22. Ann and Kim.	23. Our group from above. Apart from the restoration scafolding, there were no fences, railing or other saftey precautions.	24. Fredy.
25. We work our way down to ground level.	26. Margaret poses with the roots of tree. The tallest trees develope elaborate buttress root systems, since the soil is only five-six feet deep before hitting solid limestone.	27. The spider monkeys were a big hit when you could spot one. The one was jumping from tree to tree, and he begins his jump to the palm tree. In addition to spider monkeys, we saw (and heard) howler monkeys, toucans, and yellow-tails.
28. The temple we had just climbed, from ground level.	29. Margaret provides scale for one of many "caves" that the Mayans cut into solid limestone. Donald said these caves were for grain storage.	30. The "cave" interior. (Yes, I crawled in.)
31. Getting back out was a tad harder. (Photo by Jeff Mills)	32. Not to be outdone, Anne crawls in.	33. The rain had stopped, so we posed for a group photo at the next temple on our walk. I'm actually in this one, since Donald our guide took the picture.
34. This is the third temple we visited. The Mayan had class distinctions, the nobility were quite tall, and the lower classes who were shorter, and did the bulk of the construction.	35. Since only the nobilty were allowed to use the temples, the stairs were cut quite large. Janet, who was clearly nobility on our team, struggles with the stairs.	36. A view from the top. The taller temple in the background is the first we visited.
37. Anne, Fredy, Brita and Margaret encourge the stragglers.	38. Heather and Kathryn.	39. Anne and Kim.
40. Margaret and Jeff.	41. We begin the descent.	42. I forget to have my picture taken up above, so I settled for one on the ground.
43. An adult and juvenile kotamundi. They are members of the racoon family, travel in groups of 30 to 60 and are clearly not intimidated by the close proximity of humans.	44. A smaller temple, the tatched roof was added to protect the lare carved stone mask inside the doorway.	45. Pam and Kathryn near the root structure of a Ceiba tree.
46. Giuliano and Margaret, outside the door to another stone mask . (Photo by Jeff Mills)	47. Close-up of the stone mask, most likely representational of a specific diety.	48. The group takes a break while Donald prepares us for what is coming up next.
49. Two smaller structures, possibly burial sites, that are currently being excavated. The bulk of the excavation was done by teams from the University of Pennsylvania from 1956 to 1970.	50. Janet at the entrance to a current excavation of an underground chamber.	51. The final temple on our tour, and the only one with rounded corners. All the building, temples, administrative building and homes would have been covered with stucco and painted bright colors.
52. The Mayans were a diverse race, and thoughtfully installed wheelchair ramps on their temples. Only kidding, they had an almost 60 degree slant. Archeologists are not sure of the purpose, if any, of the ramps. Speculation ranges from some siesmic benefit to ramps to pull stones up during construction.	53. The view forom the top. Remember that during Mayan times the trees would not have been their and all the building would have been visible as a city from ground level.	54. Just like high school, there was an up and a down staircase, or rather ladder . . .
55. . . . and our young folks had to show off by coming down facing forward.	56. We march along a limestone road, towards our last leg of our tour of the city of Tikal.	57. Here we gather in a open square. The large structure in the center was the municipal building, to it's left was a small temple and directly in front of the temple what is left of an aprtment building.
58. The dark inverted "V" is what is left of two room apartment. Only one of the rooms still has its roof. Most of the other rooms have long since lost theirs.	59. An interior shot of the room. Note the window, and the mahogoney lintel over the door, which is now nearly 1,500 years old.	60. Antoher view of the central plaza.
61. As we continue with our tour, we climb a set of stairs that was constucted nearly 1,5000 years ago.	62. We took a brief break to watch a family of howler monkeys, they don't actually howl, but sound more like a very large dog barking.	63. A strangler fig, growing on a mahogany tree. The fig is parasitic, and will eventually kill the host tree.
64. An interior shot of a room within the municipal building. Note the carved mahogany beams.	65. Our group, shot from the doorway of the room, moves along. Note the bromiliads growing on the rock around the door. They are also called "air plants" because they don't need any soil to grow, they get all their moisture and nutriention from rain.	66. From a high vantage point the group overlooked the largest central plaza in Tikal . . .
67. . . . and this is what they were looking at.	68. The largest, and final temple on our tour.	69. Melinda, looking up a the summit.
70. One last photo of Tikal.	71. After our four hour hike and climb, we settled down to lunch alfresco. Margie, Janet and Jonathan.	72. Kim and Diane.
73. Glenn, Andreas and Brita.	74. Margaret, Anne and Pamela.	75. Kristin, Katryn and Heather.
76. Of course where there is food outside, there are bound to be critters. There were a number of vultures, looking for a handout.	77. And of course, a very bold Kotamundi, who all but climbed on the table.	78. As we left the Tikal preserve, you couldn't help but notice the unusual traffic signs.
Just outsie the gates of the preseve was the Canopy Tour, where we stopped to experience the forest canapy from above.
79. Katerine displays the finest in high wire saftey gear. For the parents who didn't know about this part of the trip, there was a second safety clamp, that was always attached to a wire whenever we were on a platform or sliding down a wire.	80. The canopy tour was remarkably inexpensive by U.S. standards, I suspect that is because their insuarance was non-existant and the number of product liability lawyers in Guatemala is limited.	81. Melinda and Brita suit up for the canopy tour, although Melinda never made it off the first platform. Which was good for us since she took most of the following high wire pictures, safely from the ground.
82. The brave crew goes up to the first platform, it was about forty feet above ground level.	83. From the first platform there is a ladder that goes up a bit higher. Anne puts on a brave smile, since she was the first of our group to go. To her credit, she never screamed and set the bar high for the rest of us.	84. The "guide," we had two, one to hook the pulley to the guy wire, and another at the other end to tell you to brake, catch you if you didn't, or go out and pull you in if you hit the brake too soon. The brake was your right hand, in a leather glove with substantial extra padding.
85. Jonathan and Janet are begining to harbor doubts, but they both hung in for the entire course, eight jumps in all.	86. Heather pushes off.	87. Dianne goes whizzing by.
88. Margie takes her turn.	89. Kristin got stuck in the middle, so one of the guides had to slide down to her to bring her in. The way this was done was the guide would tie a lead to her, and then pull himself hand over hand to the platform, towing her.	90. Fredy slides with the best of them, he is actually going feet first, the correct form.
91. Pam wouldn't let Kristin go without her, so they both went.	92. Kim looks like shes going backward but her form was perfect, it was just shot at a weird angle.

94. Back in Guatemala City, the team regroups over pizza, our final meal as a team, to discuss the trip and what the experience meant to each of us. Tomorrow, Sunday, we are all off at different times to different parts of the country to resume our normal lives. Best wishes 'til next year.

Photos by Giuliano Chicco