Yaxhá

Isla de Flores, Petén Basin, Guatemala
Today finally we saw monkeys. Monos. Howler and Spider monkeys. Wild. In the trees. Hopping around the forest canopy eating leaves and grooming themselves. And a coatimundi grooming herself on a branch. I did see a monkey in Nicaragua. It was sitting on the frame of a house but I only saw him from the window of a shuttle so M. Lee claims it doesn´t count but I say a monkey is a monkey. It counts. But today we saw lots of monkeys at Yaxhá, a Mayan site in the Petén. A little Yaxhá trivia: this site was the location for a series on the "reality" show Survivor. A group of hot model types spent a couple of months at Yaxhá battling to survive the cut. Anyway, it´s a huge site, some great pyramids and many many more not excavated. And, because Yaxhá gets far fewer visitor than nearby Tikal, it´s a lot easier to catch glimpses of wildlife including crocodiles as it´s built on a lake. No. We didn´t see any crocodiles but we were warned not to swim. Muy peligroso! Here´s a tip. You can stay at Yaxhá for free in their ecco village. It´s primitive. Hammocks (bring your own) under a thatch roof with mosquito netting but then you´d have a real chance of even seeing jaguars in the evening. Tomorrow Tikal will be crawling with humans so I doubt we´ll see much wildlife there but I am hoping for a few wild parrots because this is all the jungle time we get this trip. One can hope.