“Deep in the misty rain forest of northern Guatemala” lie the remains of a great Mayan city, said David Kelly in the Los Angeles Times. From about 600 B.C. to A.D. 900, Tikal was the “Manhattan of the Maya”—a city-state of 100,000 with bustling markets, raised causeways, and temple pyramids painted blood red. Then warfare and famine seem to have combined to cause a population collapse. I learned of Tikal, and of its mysterious decline, while poring over encyclopedias as a boy. The fascination never died, which is why I booked a seat on a small prop plane that ferries visitors from Guatemala City out to the jungle.
One minute I was following our guide through dense foliage; the next, I was “walking wide-eyed into the Great Plaza, stopping before the Temple of the Giant Jaguar.” Crossing the courtyard, I climbed the Central Acropolis, “poking in and out of rooms and imagining nobles, adorned with feathers, drinking cups of spiced chocolate.” But there was much more to see. Many of Tikal National Park’s major ruin sites are within a 6.2-square-mile area, and despite bearing such “ho-hum” names as Complex N or Complex P, they’re often majestic. Setting out on a dirt path lined with tropical flowers, I passed a sign warning about defecating monkeys before emerging into Complex Q. Centuries ago, priests stood atop its twin flat-topped pyramids to study the stars. At a nearby altar, I got chills looking at an etching that showed a bound captive whose heart may have been torn out at the very spot where I stood.
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