Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks, Micah Sparks Page B

Yaxhá had been completely restored less than eighty years earlier by archaeologists, in much the same way Tikal has been restored now. The jungle had been cut back, and dozens of buildings and temples had been completely excavated. Yet because the rains were beginning to slowly destroy the newly uncovered temples—and because lack of funds failed to keep the destruction in check—the government had no choice but to allow the jungle to encroach once more on Yaxhá, in favor of Tikal.
    Micah began looking around, his expression as wondrous as that of a child.
    “Can you believe that all this growth took place in only eighty years?” Micah asked me. “Our grandparents were living then.”
    “I can’t believe it.”
    “I wonder what it would look like after eight hundred years.”
    “Probably about the same, don’t you think?” I speculated. “Except that the hills might be a little bigger.”
    “I guess so.” He squinted, trying to peer through the density of the jungle. “How on earth could someone even have discovered this place? I mean, when I see a mound of dirt, I don’t automatically think there’s a pyramid beneath it.”
    I put my arm around him. “That’s why you’re not an archaeologist,” I said.
    Our guide began leading us along a path, continuing to describe various aspects of the city. Micah and I trailed behind our group, our heads swiveling from side to side. Micah suddenly rubbed his hands together; it was something he always did when excited.
    “Nick,” he said, “can you believe we’re here? In a buried Mayan city in the jungles of Guatemala? Six hours ago, we were in Fort Lauderdale eating bagels and cream cheese!”
    “It doesn’t seem real, does it?”
    “No,” he said. “And I’ll tell you something.” He motioned around him. “I never believed I could get so excited about seeing a pile of dirt.”
    A few minutes later, we entered what was once a plaza; before us was one of the only temples that had been fully excavated, and for the first time the reality of what we would see on the trip took hold. Shaped like a black and gray trapezoid, the temple towered a hundred feet in the air. Our guide informed us that it had been abandoned in roughly A.D. 900, some six hundred years before Columbus arrived. It meant that the time between the usage of the temple and Columbus’s arrival, and Columbus’s arrival and the current day, were roughly the same, and the very thought amazed me. In the ebb and flow of history, the rise and fall of civilizations, my own daily concerns suddenly seemed minuscule in comparison.
    My brother, too, was examining the temple before us with great interest, though his thoughts were slightly different from mine.
    “Look how high it is! I’ve got to climb that thing!”
    So, with our guide’s permission, we did. Running up the far side of the temple was a rickety set of rotting boards, spaced irregularly and laced together with frayed rope. My brother and I were the first to reach the top, and for the first few minutes we had the place to ourselves.
    The sky was overcast with black clouds hovering at the distant horizon. Beyond us, we could see the lagoon and the utter density of the jungle spreading thirty miles in every direction. It was impossible to see through the canopy of trees, but we saw the tops of three or four pyramids poking through, as if trying to reach the heavens. And with the exception of the sound of our breathing—slightly labored from the climb—it was utterly, completely silent. The sides of the pyramid seemed to plunge straight down, and standing near the edge gave me a sense of vertigo. Yet neither Micah nor I could wipe the smiles off our faces. We had begun the trip of our lives a few hours earlier; now we were standing on what seemed to be the top of the world, in a place we’d always dreamed of seeing.
    “Take my picture,” Micah suddenly said. “Christine’s going to love this.”
    “If she were here, do you think