Uaxactun bike ride

After spending all day enjoying the ruins of Tikal, I (Douglas) got on my bike to try and reach Uaxactun, a village 23 km north of Tikal. The guy at the gate couldn't quite understand why I wanted to *ride* their, especially as the bus was right behind me. Now the fact that there is bus service to this village is truly amazing. I actually stayed ahead of it for most of the way, navigating 1/2 meter ruts in the mud road and would consider it a pretty good *mountain* bike ride. During the hot afternoon on my way out there the jungle was quite and my uneasiness was quickly displaced with a bit of exercise. (I unfortunately came within 1km of the village and the not so touristy ruins, but was running out of time to get back to watch the sun set again from the temple in Tikal with Kim.) The trip home, was a very different story. The sun was now coming in at a more acute angle, and everything was glowing green, a truly spectacular light. The jungle was also waking up from its nap and the birds started to make quite a racket. Then I spotted a group of spider monkeys in the trees next to the road. Now there's two types of spider monkeys, the ones that are used to tourists, and the kind that aren't. These were the later, and upon seeing me began screeching and shaking the branches and piling three high and waving all there appendages around. It was an amazing sight! They even did that monkey thing of scratching under (and up and down) their arms. WOW. Pressing on, I heard something running through trees, even Jim M. woulda been impressed at how fast that made me go!