photos

In El Remate, a small city which serves as base-camp for Tical, we met Adam and Greg – the first visitors on our RTW! It was a huge change for us. They came with their own car that, although registered for as many as five people, usually carried no more than five people! Each of us had his/her own place, where you can actually sit, and that is located inside the car! The guys turned on AC and started driving. They didn’t even bother to pick up other passengers every five minutes. And we did not have to get on and off the car while it was still moving, they actually stopped for us : ) No chickens, no any live stock, just us four and so much space around that you can actually stretch your arms. Crazy world!

Unfortunately, it took us only 30 minutes to reach our destination. Tical the mother of all Mayan ruins. Well, at least until they restore and open for public the city of El Mirador, where all Mayan roads led to. So far, El Mirador together with its largest Maya pyramids is hidden deep in the jungle, covered by thick laver of rich trees and green bushes. In contrast, Tical had many of its major buildings uncovered and restored the way it is supposed to have been during the reign of Mayas, and became a big gringo attraction.

There is still a thick jungle between the buildings, with lots of impressive trees and animals. We saw mating wild turkeys, and baby monkeys learning to live in the canopies. One Polish saying goes (roughly) “If you don’t fall, you will never learn.” Monkeys take it seriously – we saw one baby fall 20 meters down just in front of us! It looked totally confused, but after a few minutes it started slowly climbing a tree, a wrong tree… Survival of the fittest in its pure form.

In Tikal, we had the occasion to learn about Mayas some more than from the Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” blockbuster. This civilization constructed vast cities, roads systems, aqueducts, precise calendars, had deep astronomical knowledge, and raised amazing pyramids that served as temples and kings’ tombs. But when first Europeans arrived there, the great Maya civilization was already a history. Does not this resemble the history of Rapas on Easter Island. These civilizations drove themselves close to extinction, not only due to wars, but also because of overgrowth and overexploitation of natural resources such as water or trees.

In the 21st century, the era of information and development, knowing so much about the history of humankind, we should be intelligent enough to avoid the history repeating itself. Nevertheless, it seems that we’ve learned nothing from our ancestors and act not better than they did. Our population is growing rapidly, we’re using up all our natural resources and negatively influencing the Earth’s climate, leaving an irreversible consequences to the environment.

Sorry for these sour remarks, but we are under an influence of “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, a recent book by Thomas Friedman. Recommended. Recently we really try to live better and already make plans of what we will to in this direction when we’ll return home after our trip. When gringos go home, will gringos go green ?

• • Comments [1]
  • Tags [animals, city, nature]