Word: tikal
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Guatemala's most popular Maya ruins lie at Tikal, but for real bragging rights you'll have to head deep into the Peten jungle, where you'll find the ancient city of El Mirador. Dating back to 300 B.C., it's about a century older and more than twice the size of Tikal. And while getting to Tikal is a simple matter of climbing into an air-conditioned vehicle, to get a glimpse of El Mirador's monumental temples you need to trek your way through the jungle - the nearest road is about 45 miles (75 km) away...
Part of the adventure for tourists who visit the ancient Mayan city of Tikal is in getting there. The site's famous ruins are buried deep in the Guatemalan jungle, and the 40-min. flight from Guatemala City affords sightseers spectacular views of the lush terrain. But last Saturday morning that journey ended in tragedy as a twin-engine Caravelle operated by the private carrier Aerovias crashed on its way to the airport at Santa Elena, 37 miles south of Tikal. Early reports put the number killed at 90, including six Americans. Some of the passengers had apparently traveled...
...catastrophes that made 1985 the deadliest in the history of civil aviation. The number of people killed in accidents in 1985 was nearly 2,000, far above the previous record of 1,229 in 1974. Aerovias officials had rented the jet to handle increased demand for trips to Tikal. Air-traffic controllers at Santa Elena said the pilot gave no indications that his plane was in trouble before it went down. SOVIET UNION A New Dimension in Sea Power...
...Margaret Amundson is no stranger to adventure, having raced dragon boats in China's Hunan province and explored the Tikal ruins of Guatemala. When she cast about in 1997 for a school to improve her Spanish, the Michigan nurse looked first to Ecuador, explaining, "I was fascinated by the indigenous cultures, and I wanted to see the Galapagos before they are destroyed." At the Academia Latinoamericana de Espanol in the capital city of Quito, she was not disappointed. After three intensive weeks of private classes and living with a family, she went off better prepared for her explorations. Says Amundson...
Water shortages might have played a role in the collapse as well: University of Cincinnati archaeologist Vernon Scarborough has found evidence of sophisticated reservoir systems in Tikal and other landlocked Maya cities (some of the settlements newly discovered this week also have reservoirs). Since those cities depended on stored rainfall during the four dry months of the year, they would have been extremely vulnerable to a prolonged drought...