El amanecer caro

For a reasonable fee, guests can enter the park at 4:30am to watch the sunrise from the top of Temple IV. B and I wanted to seize this opportunity, so we sought an ATM to get cash to shmear the guards the next morning. We soon learned however, that there is no ATM to speak of in a 60 mile radius. The hotel can be expensed to a credit card, but the national park functions on cash only.

Desparately, we probed every pocket, secret hiding place, decoy wallet and backpack compartment between us to yield exactly the correct amount needed to enter the park and pay for an escort to the temple at dawn. This sum was comprised of dollars and Quetzales, including 25 centavo pieces. We also contemplated which of our belongings we would be willing to hawk if we found ourselves a few Quetzales short. When we hiked out to the gate of the park and presented our motely collection of currency, the man gave us the ¨you dirty backpackers need to learn some responsibility¨look and gave us back the 2 quetzales worth of small coins.

We rode in the cab of a pickup to the base of the temple with several other tourists, and were promtly abandoned by the guards. Finding seats atop the temple, we waited for dawn. The next 50 minutes brought about 60 other people who had the same idea. Giant tours of Americans and Chilenos, one led by an obnoxious guide who kept speaking politely in Spanish then morphing into a demeaning Cheech Marin in English. He ordered us all to be silent for the 30 minutes preceeding the sunrise.

The jungle was covered in a beautiful gray fog and revealed itself slowly as the sun ascended somewhere. The view was even more breathtaking than it had been the day before. The best part, however, was the sound of all of the animals waking up and greeting the day. The calls of howler monkeys abounded and parrots and toucans joined in a fabulous chorus. One guard had told us that the monkeys howl because they are just so happy to wake up, which isn´t true but I´d love to believe it. The morning sounds were the kind of thing that make me feel like nothing I could imagine could be more beautiful than the natural world that already exists.