I was out on the nature path by 7:15 a.m. this morning. I was actually weirded out: this was a very different jungle, and it was obvious no one had been on the path in days, if not longer. I was utterly alone. Within five minutes, I heard a huge amount of noise in the underbrush to my right. It took a moment for me to remember I didn’t have to worry about the packs of man-eating hogs from Corcovado, Costa Rica (seriously, the guides tell you that if you encounter wild hogs in Corcovado, you need to get up in the trees immediately or you are pig feed). It was probably just a tapir, but I couldn’t see more than a few feet into the underbrush. In fact, I didn’t see anything at all on this site. I heard lots: monkeys, birds, small critters just a few feet from the trail…
Then it suddenly started raining buckets. I had my poncho, but the added heat was unbearable. I turned around maybe 1 km into the 5 km hike, and far from the Mirador overlooking the entire Tikal area.
After breakfast, I decided to check out the pottery and engravings museum. Much to my surprise, there was not a prohibition on flash photography like you will find in most Western museums, so I began shooting. But everything was over exposed, just like some of my shots of monkeys. With the monkeys, I didn’t think much about it: a flash is not designed to work with a zoom lens, let alone the Better Beamer flash extender, so you’re going to get some overexposed and underexposed shots. But this was different: it was within the working range of the flash. I knew it had to be the light meter, but everything seemed to be set properly. After fumbling around with the camera for a few minutes, I noticed that on this one odd, hard-to-reach screen the meter was set to take pictures 1.5 stops overexposed. The screen had the little lightning bolt symbol that represents a flash. I had no idea one could even have a separate meter setting for a flash. Makes sense, but… shouldn’t it just adjust the regular meter setting? You know, load it as a new default, and then let you adjust the regular setting? It took me a few more minutes to figure out how to set it back to normal. Bloody aggravating, but it takes time to learn a new camera.
When I got out of the museum, the damn weather was perfect. Blue sky with maybe 50% cloud cover, all puffy white cotton balls and broken into picturesque clumps. Plus, the weather was dry and cool–well, dry and cool relative to prior days, and even to an hour ago. I thought about staying one more day to retake some of my shots of Tikal with that gorgeous sky. But I only thought about it for about 10 minutes. I’m dying for more moderate weather in the highlands, and I’m sure that it will start raining as soon as I go back into Tikal.
More importantly, I need the rest. My knees and legs are still sore from yesterday. I guess if I can’t make today’s flight, then this will almost be a wasted day. Well, not entirely. I shared some of my best monkey pics with a few different groups of tourists (I love showing off, and with digital, I can do it right away) and passed on my advice about finding monkeys: don’t look for them, listen for them. And in exchange, one pair of young Russian women pointed out some huge caterpillars nearly four-inches long nursing in huge clumps on a tree near Comedor Tikal.
Well, I’m fed and packed. I’ll head to the airport in Flores, see if anyone is at the TikalJets office so I can check-in and drop off my pack. Maybe I’ll get an hour or two in Flores before the flight leaves. And maybe I’ll get a full 24 hours in Flores instead. Well, I need a change. If I can’t get a change in locale and weather, I’ll settle for a change in locale.