Parque Nacional Tikal (Tikal National Park) is on the Peten in Guatemala. In Tikal there is a jungle as it was before Christopher Columbus arrived to the New World. In this jungle live small felines as well as pumas and jaguars. The toucans and the parrots fly among the trees. When aroused, the monkeys squeal from the branches. The vegetation is so much in Tikal and its surrounding areas that is called the third lung of the world.

I was not always this way. Long before the ships from Europe arrived, there was an important city in Tikal, which in some occasions was capital of empires. Civilizations developed and prospered there for a millennium. One day, for some reason not well known, its citizens left for the mountains. The jungle took over. This story remained hidden from the world for many centuries until not too long ago.

Very likely that Tikal was the city most populated by a Mayan civilization. Until now, it is the one with the tallest temples, or pyramids, and the must number of them.

We can not tell the thrill it was to be in this place, it has to be experienced. Although we were there for only half a day, what we walked and saw is beyond description. Briefly we try to go through and present the few pictures we took.

Note: The Parque Nacional Tikal is a natural and archeological reserve covering an area of 575.83 square kilometers. Really it is estimated that the local people and some visitors knew of the Mayan ruins in this location long before 1848 when it received the attention it deserved and formal studies started. Ever since then, the process of clearing, unearthing and restoring the pyramids and other ruins has continued, with more or less legality, to the present. The national park was created in 1955. In 1979 UNESCO declared Tikal a World Heritage Site. The jungle in Tikal is classified as a lowland rainforest.