Exploring Maya ruins in Guatemala's Tikal National Park TIKAL NATIONAL PARK, Guatemala - The woman in the shorts shrieked, grabbed her ankle and crumpled to the ground as though she'd been shot. And in a sense she had. "A bullet ant," surmised José Elias, our unflappable guide. If they sting you, the pain will last 24 hours. Take care. We left the stricken woman to her friends and plunged deeper into Guatemala's steamy jungle. Birds sang madly, chaotically. Emerald billed toucans alighted in the treetops. The spooky cry of a howler monkey echoed through the forest. Elias plucked a fragrant leaf, crushed it and slipped it under my nose. "Wild allspice," he said. I skittered around a watermelon-sized termite nest, then caught a glimpse of something enormous looming through the canopy. We were approaching the heart of Tikal, a sprawling metropolis of temples, palaces and pyramids deep in the misty rain forests of northern Guatemala. Once a vibrant city-state of 100,000, Tikal now lies empty, partly buried beneath moss, ferns and vines. "You are coming to the cradle of Mayan civilization," Elias said. The city has collapsed, but the Mayan race has never disappeared. Just a few hours earlier I had been aboard a small prop plane from Guatemala City streaking low over volcanoes and deeply forested mountains toward a green carpet stretching to the horizon. As rain buffeted the plane, I flicked through William Coe's classic "Tikal: A Handbook of the Ancient Mayan Ruins," savoring the royal cast of characters: Stormy Sky, Jaguar Paw and Ah Cacao, or Lord Chocolate. Growing up in Ohio's dreary Rust Belt, I spent countless nights immersed in stacks of World Book Encyclopedias reading of exotic lands and vanished empires. My favorite volume was "M" for Maya, where I lingered over photos of fierce stone gods, elaborate hieroglyphs and lurid depictions of human sacrifice. Now I was walking wide-eyed into the Great Plaza, stopping before the Temple of the Giant Jaguar as it rose 170 feet, its steep staircase ascending to a doorway crowned by a mammoth limestone block bearing the faint image of Ah Cacao surrounded by serpents. In 1962, archaeologists discovered the tomb of Ah Cacao under the temple along with 16 pounds of jade ornaments now in the park museum. Temple II, directly opposite, may conceal his wife's grave. I now understood Coe when he wrote that superlatives, "however florid," are justified when describing Tikal. As grand as it now, Tikal dazzled in its heyday. The city has been called the Manhattan of the Maya and from 600 BC to AD 900 was a major force throughout Central America. Temple pyramids were painted blood red and bore massive faces of kings. Today's overgrown plazas were covered in smooth white plaster. Raised causeways connected the city. There were ball courts and bustling markets. Ultimately, drought, famine and warfare may have caused Tikal's collapse. I climbed the Central Acropolis, poking in and out of empty rooms and imagining reclining nobles, adorned with macaw feathers, drinking cups of spiced chocolate. It was July, black clouds gathered and there was a mighty crack of thunder. I took shelter beneath a thatched hut and came face to face with a giant stucco mask of Chaac, the rain god. Fittingly, a torrential downpour followed. A soggy middle-aged Frenchman sidled up beside me and lighted a cigarette. We watched the storm drench the temples below.