Blogs from Tikal, Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 8

On the spur of the moment I joined my past traveling partner on her work trip to Guatemala, where she able to add on a couple of days for exploring. We spent a day and a half in Tikal and got to hear the howler monkeys from the highest temple at sunrise, climb several of the temples, walk through the jungle paths watching monkeys swinging above us and investage the amazing ruins of a society that dates back to 700 BC. Most of the pictures are of different structures since there are there were over 4000 structures in Tikal more than six huge temples that we visited. The majority of the structures not uncovered, so they look like mounds or hills, but at one time there were more than 100,000 people living in Tikal. Overall a ... read more

Since my mom was coming a few days ahead of my sister and her family, we decided to head up to Petén together. It was the first time that we've ever traveled just the two of us and I think it was awesome. I had just been to Tikal a few weeks earlier with my family and our visiting friends so I thought that I was mostly going to show my mom around. Well it turned out to be a very different trip and we had a great time. For starters, I know my mom is game for anything so when we got off the plane, I asked the driver to take a little detour from our planned itinerary. Instead of going directly to our hotel near the Tikal ruins(to hang out for the afternoon ... read more

This is my next and final item on my list of "Top Things to Do in Guatemala if You're Visiting for a Short Time." (See Dec 24 entry for my list). Tikal is a national park and an ancient Mayan city with temples dating to 900 BC. That's BEFORE Christ. We're talking OLD. We had eagerly waited for the Gellerts and Carlos to visit so that we, too, could visit Tikal, as this is one of the more special yet somewhat less accessible trips from Antigua. (That is, you have to fly). Tikal is an hour's flight up north (to Guatemala's only other airport), and we landed in the afternoon, walked around the lazy town of Flores a bit, then went to a little hotel in a little town called San Jose, not terribly far from ... read more

Alors, nous voilà donc arrivés pour des visites un peu plus culturelles de nouveau avec les visites de notre premier site Maya, cad TIKAL. Très impressionnant malgré une fatigue passagère suite à la nuit passée dans le bus depuis Guatemala City. Donc nous avons vu pour de vrai ce que nous n’avions vu auparavant que ds des livres ou àla télévision ... (je pense aussi à un dessin animé que Nicolas adorait - passait même pas en Autriche...ouh c’ est nul...) Certains temples sont très haut jusqu’ à 70 m et Nicolas a même eu bq le vertige sur un des temples... pas très rassuré le garçon... Sabine quant à elle avait un coup de pompe, et ça la bien réveillée... la montée. Voila c était notre dernier point de chute du Guatemala et pas trop ... read more

Finally added the pictures, folks. As promised, although I'm again a day late. ;) --- As I mentioned before we were off early to Tikal, perhaps the most impressive set of Mayan ruins, situated in the just as impressive jungle of Peten. We arrived at the gates of the nature reserve (stretching several hundreds of square miles around Tikal) around six, too late for sunrise, but early enough for it to still be cool and dry in the jungle. Said jungle hosts an impressive multitude of wildlife - bears, jaguars, snakes, tucans, crocodiles, tarantulas, hundreds of different birds and insects, geckos, etc.pp. - it's a nature lover's dream! First off we decided on some breakfast for the group at the restaurant near the ruins - after all, you need to be fit to climb huge pyramids! ... read more