I leave Belize to get in Guatemala, I move away from the Caribbean coast to the picturesque village of Flores. Geographically, Flores is a projection of land in the southern part of the Peten Itza lake and is flanked with an only bridge to reach it. We cross the bridge and we get into another dimension, a cobblestone road encircles the blocks of colourful houses and gives the impression of a tourist sphere besides the city of Santa Elena. A cosy place to cheer us up or to prepare us to receive a visual and emotional slap in the face because this small peninsula is the entrance gate to the archaeological site of Tikal. “Stones and stones again” or “just another Mayan site” will say the blasé tourist, but on the shady paths of the dazzling and enchanting city of Tikal, probably dawned the honour of the most beautiful site of the Mayan empire.
The site is huge and the ways numerous to link the monuments to one another. More than ever, the jungle took over the old edifices of an extinct civilization which formerly built and livened up these stone-made pyramids. To wholly live the Tikal experience, we must set off in search of adventure like a trip we would embark in without any established plan or like a dish we would order without knowing its contents. Return to the roots of a genuine exploration, where elements of surprise invited themselves at each junction of the discovery paths.
In the return bus, the sensory whirl hardly fades that a seed has jut germinated in my head. Another city, even bigger and more mysterious whose main pyramid would cover the totality of the central square of Tikal by itself. Unimaginable to tell oneself that this site keeps on wandering anonymously far from the desires. To reach it, we must dust our trekking shoes and walk for 2 days through the forest to finally marvel at this grandiose city known as El Mirador. Unfortunately, it's not the good season to go there but this sort of adventure attracts me and just arrived, I have already a good reason to come back to Guatemala.
Keyword - in another world -
Thursday 4 December 2008
a Mayan city in a jungle setting: Tikal
By dorian on Thursday 4 December 2008, 08:45 - RTW2-Guatemala
Monday 24 November 2008
the spellbinding play of light in the cenotes
By dorian on Monday 24 November 2008, 15:13 - RTW2-Mexico
Divers of all over the world rush to the Yucatan for a little bit special immersion. And so do I, I gave in to temptation, the weird universe of the cave diving. Here, no fish, no corals, no current, but a couple of stalagmites and stalactites, flabbergasting plays of light, a visibility that can reach 100m and a Dantean impression of navigating in another world. For my introductory dives, I booked an intensive day with the discovery of 3 cenotes, Dos Ojos, Calavera and Grand Cenote. An inebriating selection: Dos Ojos for its subaquatic rocky outgrowths and the rays of the sun which in places hit this submerged cathedral, Calavera for its green waters and haloclines and Grand Cenote for its half-moon shape. Before diving, we get strict instructions about the safety. We go into the water and fitted with a lamp we start kicking alongside an Ariadne's thread. The feeling of breathing underground and wandering about among an almost complete darkness make me shiver with joy. We play with the stalactites surrounded by a heavy silent that only the noise of our bubbles tear. At the end of the Dos Ojos cave, a hole lets the rays of a soft and saving light gush out; the divers of another group seem to hover in the middle of this luminous halo. Exhilaration of gliding in this unreal world. Time goes too fast and we are already at half-dive, we go astern and kick towards the entrance. We get off, the smile clung to our lips and not totally recovered from our underground experience.
The other dives will complete the emotional patchwork of these aquatic peregrinations.
Halfway between Tulum and Playa del Carmen, another cenote attracts the fans or neo-enthusiasts of these underground aquatic networks. The cenote Chacmool offers the most beautiful plays of light and to that, we'll have the unforgettable opportunity to split the dive into two by surfacing into a grottoe. We take off our masks and regulators to contemplate this exclusive cavity. We are the pioneers in front of their discovery. Filled with pleasure, we swim on the surface, we observe the different stalactites and the roots of several trees which seep through the rock to come and draw the nourishing liquid. It's time to leave our find and kick back towards the land with the same sensation of not being completely here when we finish the dive, the mind drifting at several meters underwater.
Thursday 13 November 2008
bathing into the northern cenotes
By dorian on Thursday 13 November 2008, 13:44 - RTW2-Mexico
We leave Cancun for a several-day loop when in each stop Mayan ruins stand. But on the way and to cut down the stifling heat of the day, a network of water-filled sinkholes fed by subterranean rivers offers a bath of salutary coolness. The area around the town of Valladolid gathers three of the most beautiful cenotes, the cenote Zaci in the heart of the city, the cenote Dzitnup Xkeken where the stalactites are reflected in the calm and pure waters of the grottoe and the cenote Samula where a light shaft gushes out from the ceiling and a poplar, settled at the edge of this hole, lets its roots gliding over several meters down to the sapphire-tinted water.
On the road to Chichen Itza, we divert from this aquatic pleasures once for the Balankanche grottoes. This long dimly-lit cavity seeps under the ground in a overheated atmosphere. We end this subterranean stroll by diving again into another cenote, the Ik Kil one, a genuine natural swimming pool where the surrounding wall doesn't array itself in blue mosaics but a smooth rock inlaid with moss and thin hanging roots.
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