Tikal

Today is the National Day for Guatamala, Thursday 12 October. Our guide greeted us with the new that at least 60 chicken buses had arrived with people from all over Guatamala for the day.
What Carlos didn't tell us was that the bus loads of people are of Mayan descent and had come with their sharmans and wise midwives to celebrate the past and future year and to bless their people crops and land and to hold healing ceremonies for the sick.
With them they brought their marimba, brought to Guatamala by African slaves and now developed into something uniquely Guatamalan.
We climbed up to the top of temple two in the main plaza and witnessed the ceremony from the beginning to its completion. Each quadrant of the compass was addressed. First to the east to honour the rising sun and the beginning of life. Then to the west to honour the setting sun and the end of life; to the north to honor the god of maize, the giver of food. Then to the south to honour the god of water, who without it no life would exist. And lastly to the circle of fire within, humanity, the most important of all.
We felt very honoured and special to have witnessed such an occasion. Carlos, a local Mayan, had only ever witnessed this event once before in his life.

The young sharmans-in-training were expected to dance. And those that has just become sharmans were mentored by more experienced men in the ritual performances.

Carlos our guide was supposed to inherit the sharmans role in his village from his grandfather and father before him. But at the age of eight, when he was supposed to be going into the jungle to learn about the medicinal plants, he witnessed his father being taken from the family home by the military and then gunshot sounds were heard. Seventeen men were murdered that day, but not his father. However his father never returned and became one of the missing people of Guatamala, during the civil war. When Carlos was fourteen, he left home to find his father. His mother said he couldn't go because he had to help support the family. His grandfather who was generally a very quiet man said that he must go and that his father was already in him. So he left and sought education and training in guiding and learning fluent English without the assistance of a teacher.
Now Carlos is a leader in his village, which is the only village in the Tikal national park, promoting and supporting sustainable food production, education for all and a glamping tourism set up to help provide economic income to his village. He was everyone to earn an income that will ensure that noone will kill the fauna or harm the jungle. Traditional Mayan techniques of harvesting allspice and chewing gum are still practiced! This is a place we would love to visit as the villagers are also the traditional custodians of the greatest Mayan astrological and mathematical centre known to exist.
Tikal, itself is majestic and amazing.

It was made all the more special foe us because the Mayan traditions were being lived on the day we went.