It was in early 1976. Arriving from Oaxaca, the earthquake of February had shaken wide stretches of Guatemala, taking the lives of more than 23.000 people, mostly in rural districts. Many roads and bridges were gone. My goal in Quezaltenango was to reach the ruins of Tital at any cost. I did it in autobuses through the backdoor via Cobán, Sebol, and in different wooden canoes along the Rio de la Pasión. It took me nearly a week.

   At that time Tikal was just a place for backpackers like me. We put up our hammocks in the shade for shelter, and every early morning , as punctual as clockwork we cursed a pack of hundreds of parrots that fought on top of a huge tree for the juicy Mammee apples. Some fell down. They were our breakfast. (The apples, not the parrots.)

   Even the Guatemalan archaeologists had turned away and were busy clearing their archaeological museum at the Capital of rubble and trash produced between antique and new earthenware during the "sismo". (That's how they call a temblor.)

   Beer was plenty at the "comedor" in Tikal, but water was very scarce at that time. There was a shallow pool not too far away, but it was defended by millions of gnats. I needed some water to shave my ten-days-old beard.

   Early next morning, on an exploratory walk along the Mendez causeway, I reached a fascinating stone mound, an entry decorated by a huge monster mask. I passed a vaulted tunnel in the dark and stood in the middle of an enormous palace complex. It's called Group G.

   After Pennsylvania's archeologists, -- including some friends of mine, -- had left Tikal in search of new discoveries, this large cluster of structures had to be cleared and restored by a project sponsored by the Guatemalan Governement.(According to Dr.William R.Coe) Obviously only as long as the money lasted.

   Here, in the center of this awesome precinct of abandoned palace buildings was my barbershop! Someone had left a barrel full of rain water for the Guatemalan workers to prepare plaster or concrete to continue their restaurationwork, but not yet. Reconstructing bridges and villages came first.

   This done, my shiny face took a look inside the small rooms around me. What a surprise! In one or two of the small cells, a long time ago, an artist - maybe a prisoner -, had scratched his farewell to the earth into the hard plaster of the walls. At some point, an archeologist had already marked each line with a black pencil. Otherwise I might have overseen them. I took pictures of them and copied some freely into my book. I was very impressed by this more than 1200-year-old testimony.

   What a lucky chance I had had! If I had shaved myself with some foamy beer this morning -- as somebody suggested at the "comedor" -- I would never have looked so close into each corner of this lonely building. And there was another reason, too.The same morning two long snakes, one with yellow jaws, had escaped already my footsteps and every time I saw one, I thought, I wouldn't be able to run as fast as they did in case of a snake assault on me.

   Some of the little rooms were roofless, but were still covered in 1976 with corrugated iron sheets and palm fronds. The tropical rain season would do no harm to these graffiti. The scaffolding around this area was testimony enough, that the preservation work was still going on, I thought.
   I was mistaken. Exactly ten years later I returned to the same place. Group G was cleaned of debrits. Even the corrugated iron sheets were gone. The walls of the little rooms were open to rain and sunshine. Rain water and greenish must had made the graffiti disappear forever. I thought this was very sad.
   Their was much more to admire at Tikal. Archeologists were busy unearthing a huge pyramid and they had already come up with an attractive name for it: "El Mundo perdido." Tourists are not attracted by hidden graffiti. Their cameras need shots of ne-plus-ultra pictures to testify to themselves and others, that the risky trip to the jungle was worth the money.
   I still think all the treasures unearthed in Tikal are much better seen in museums around the world. They are cold and abstract and without a profound meaning, if not very well lectured on by specialists. What I experienced that early morning inside the little rooms in Group G was like some old Mayan people coming to life again and talking to me. Only for that reason do I publish their sign of life here. It remains my own little "Mundo perdido". It's not the artistic message they delivered to us; it's their human soul, full of grief. Very important, as long as the rise and fall of the Tikal Mayan people remain a mystery.