We pass through the Belize to Guatemala border easily and get a taxi for $75 direct to Tikal which is a couple of hours drive away.
We would have liked more time in Belize, it seem more friendly and greater cultural melting pot and has a better standard of living than Mexico. We’ve seen many stilt houses and mid size homes with multiple floors and generally better maintenance. It helps that most people speak English in Belize as an ex Uk colony.
We drive past a couple of huge lakes around Macanche and el remate before turning in towards Tikal our first destination in Guatemala.
We arrived at the edge of the park and managed to buy sunset tickets and full day tickets for the next day. We were lucky here as we hadn’t realised the park entrance is 30 mins away from Tikal and the in-park hotels. After a 30
Minute drive through lush jungle in the park, we manage to get a room at the tikal inn right next to the entrance of the ancient city and it’s a lovely place. Due to its location and remoteness it has rationed electricity so we time our charging of devices and planning for the next few days carefully! We have a mess about in the little pool and meet Alondra, the daughter of reception lady and we find out this is their family business.
We have a nice burgers and fries and get ready for our guided tour starting at 4.30. Alex and Alondra are getting on so well that Alondra comes with us and her aunt and uncle to explore. Tikal is one of the largest Mayan sites in the world and is a Unesco world heritage site. By this point in our trip after visiting Mexico and Belize we seen and climbed a few pyramids but are so excited for Tikal! At its peak the city had around 90k inhabitants and started to enter its decline around 900AD. Sadly the weather gods are not with us and it starts to rain and we’re very rushed in the city. The poor weather takes the edge off the experience but it is still cool to see and climb the pyramid in this lost ancient world. It’s incredible walking through the central plaza and exploring the jungle to climb one of the highest pyramids to get above the tree canopy. We stop to clap and hear the echoes in the main plaza - it’s eerie!
We climb a steep wooden staircase and watch the sunset but sadly don’t see much of it due to the rain. We enjoy meeting several coatis with their long striped tails pottering about the pyramids! We also spot a tarantula on the way back. The guide is a bit rubbish and focuses on the Italians in our group and ignores us and Alondras family leaving us behind and we get eaten alive by bugs, despite Thomas in our party lending us some of his. By this point we’re soaking wet but we still enjoy listening to the coati and ocellated turkeys calls echo in the grand plaza. We also hear that jaguars were seen here and near our hotel 2 days ago.
We have a Lovely dinner of steaks (much cheaper than Belize) and 2 margaritas each and dry out before early to bed as the electricity is shut down soon after dinner. We climb under our mozzie nets and hope we don’t get any more bites!
Well rested we wake up early and head back into tikal at 6.30 to avoid the tour buses. We explore peacefully for 3 hrs and it’s beautiful and so vast.
We climb the plaza pyramid wooden stairs and some others and See some well preserved masks. We also see a huge family group of coatis on way out when our legs are starting to get tired from climbing.
The weather is still poor and we’re sad we didn’t get to see the place in the sunshine but it still has a magic about it in the rain, and we see very few visitors as we’re here early.
We get a colectivo to Flores at 11 for 50 q each (5 pounds)and arrive at lunch time. We meet a young backpacker called Sam on the way and get a tuk tuk to the same hostel and get a very basic room for 3 of us (280 q) which is nice and central. We now know guy’s phone is definitely dead after drying it out and getting a couple of people to look at it and will need to replace it, probably in Columbia.
We head out to explore Flores and Walk around the colourful little town with beautifully painted colourful doors and streets which is so pretty.
We take a potter along the wall at the edge of town and see some flooded streets and find a little eatery next to boat taxis where we grab lunch and a drink.
We meet Ian and Evie and get chatting to them about our respective trips. They join us and we move onto a lovely hostel bar and chat the night away over cocktails (and a bit of screen time for Alex who is tired from the pyramid climbing) and we’re sure we will be firm friends. We head back to bed at the hostel a bit tipsy and have a poor nights sleep (noisy!!)
We’re up and ready for taxi at 8 the next morning and meet our new friends at the airport and chat to a nice American - John who is setting up a hotel and a life in Guatemala with his wife. We travel on a Cool little prop plane to guatemala city (would have been 14hr bus trip with construction so opt for flight and is £323 for the 3 of us and takes an hour). We arrive and take taxi straight to Antigua (it’s not really recommended to stay in Guatemala City).
Emma
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