once tikal was one of the most important mayan sites and the ancient city is located in the rain forest of the petén. The petén was considered as the seventh largest rainforest area on earth but on our way from rio dulce to tikal we hadn´t seen rainforests – instead there was maiz fields, cattle pastures, oil palm trees and waste land.

From the beginning of the 3rd century there was a lot of activities in tikal and in honor of the gods they had to build temples, pyramides and of course residential sites for the kings. Tikal subdued neighboring cities and had a long enmity with calakmul from which it was hammered down 562. But in 695 there was the revanche and calakmul was subjugated, this meant for tikal a new heyday.

in the city and in the surrounding area there once had lived up to 200.000 humans but in the beginning of the ninth century suddenly the game was over. Why the exodus came remains unclear up today but one assumes that an extreme drought happend between 800 and 830.

Perhaps the mayas had cleared too much rainforest for growing crops etc. and thus might had changed micro climate?

Once antigua was the capital of guatemala, but 1776 it got hit by a major earthquake which distroyed the city completely . Many churches were not reconstructed afterwards and if, they got thiscker walls and smaller towers. besides this, the government was moved to guatemala city. However, the city has not lost its charm and its lively nature, and is now a tourist highlight, flanked by three powerful volcanoes of which the “fuego” is active at the moment.

iglesia y convento de la recolección

Anno 1701 the monks in antigua placed an order to built a magnificent church together with a monastry. In 1708 it was done and nothing was saved, thick walls were created with powerful arcs. just 65 years later, in 1773, the earth was wobbling and the complete monastery was fucked up. It was never rebuilt, still today huge clusters of depris are lying in the nave and with some imagination you could assume that quite some cowls lie beneath them.

In the next centuries almost every building in Antigua suffered this fate, many were reconstructed and if just the facade was rebuild and strengthened massively on the rear side.