Tikal - awesome ruins in the jungle

yesterday morning I got into Flores, Guatemala at 5:30 AM after having ridden the night bus from Antigua. Not one to waste time, a mere half hour later I hopped onto a shuttle which would take me to the ruins of Tikal. Long story short (for those of you who don't want to follow the link), Tikal is this huge Mayan ruin. It is especially praised in the guidebook as a must-see among the many ruins in Guatemala because it is in the middle of the jungle, so offers a great deal of wildlife as well as some incredible ruins.

And the guidebooks were right. In addition to some truly incredible ruins, we also saw a Coati, several toucans, and even a python! (Or some other sort of large snake - I'm not really sure). Ok, enough blabbing - on to the pics!

holy crap! A pyramid!!

temple 2: one of the 2 temples in the great plaza

a look at temple 5 through the jungle foliage

ruins poking out above the jungle canopy

big scary snake! Luckily it was just hanging out, and just chilled while we shot photo after photo

a bunch of ruins in the great plaza. Temple 1 is to the left, and temple 5 is off in the distance

cool carving

chilling on temple 5 with the other ruins behind me