Sunrise in Tikal

We awoke at 4:00 AM. By 4:30, we were hiking with our guide, Nixon, through the jungle of Tikal National Park to the site of Temple 4, the tallest structure of the Mayan ruins. Above us, first light started extinguishing the stars and the canopy became silhouetted against the now lightening sky. A howler monkey roared somewhere in the distance, creating a cascade of responses from a variety of birds registering their complaint at having been disturbed.

By the time we reached the base of the temple, it was 5:30. Sunrise was at 6:05. We struggled with the steeply inclined ladder constructed up the side of the temple. At the top, we found a spot on the lowest bench. Other people sat higher up, but our view was unobstructed.

The panorama of muted colors stretched as far as the eye could see, over the tips of temples 1, 2 and 5, across the jungle to an area totally submerged in fog. A craggy ridge of clouds rose from the mountain range at the horizon, distinguishable only because the mountains were a darker shade of grey.

A gentle murmur circulated around us as the spectators chatted with each other.

Right on cue, a glimmer appeared at the top center of the clouds. Then it spread along the edge of the cloud to the right and left. It was as if someone initially lit a brush fire in the center and it began to catch hold, racing along the top, finally becoming so hot that it spilled over like lava through the body of the cloud.

The fiercely red bulb of the sun momentarily appeared in a break between the bottom of the cloud and the top of the mountains, as if checking to make sure he wanted to come up at all. A moment later, the orb broke through the top of the clouds and, in only a few seconds, was too intense to view with the unshaded eye.

It is a routine of nature taken for granted unless seen in such an exceptional circumstance as this. But, when you do witness the sunrise at Temple 4, you sense the vastness of the universe and somehow are confronted with your insignificance in it.