Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Suzanne here...
Few people come to Guatemala without visiting the main tourist attraction of Tikal. However, for a while it seemed that we'd do exactly that. A State of Emergency was declared in the area after a massacre by a Mexican drug cartel. The UK Government were advising against visiting the area, and anyway we've tried to avoid being massacred on this trip. When we got close enough that we had to make the decision Peten was still under emergency measures. However the Government were no longer advising against going and the police and military presence had been dramatically increased. We're not foolhardy and we don't take our safety lightly but we decided that actually, with the extra measures in place, it was probably a safer time than ever to see the area.
For a chance we took a tourist mini-bus from Lanquin. The driver seemed to keep stopping at random for no discernible reason and we started to wonder if we'd been better off on local transport (The answer turned out to be no. Our friend Ariele did the route on local buses and it took her three times as long and cost her twice as much). The
plan had been to move straight on to El Remate but after eight hours of traveling we decided to stay a night in Flores. Flores was actually a lot nicer than we'd expected, quite pretty in fact and with lots of hotels and restaurants, and would have made a good base.
The next day we decided to stick to our plans and move on to El Remate, quieter and nearer to Tikal. As we were crossing the bridge to Santa Elena to get the bus we were passed by numerous armed police, tanks and armored personnel carriers. Strangely comforting I suppose... We got the bus easily and in 40 minutes were in El Remate. We ended up in the Sun Breeze hotel, cheap, clean and friendly. There really isn't much at El Remate but it was peaceful and had some good, cheap local food.
We arranged travel to Tikal through our hotel, and of course he tried to sell us a tour, which we declined. When later that night he offered it for a cheaper price, we said we'd sleep on it. In the morning we dragged ourselves out of bed for the 5.30am departure, luckily from right
outside our room. We decided to do the tour as the price was reasonable. When we got there and saw the group numbered about 30 we regretted it, but we'd paid by then. However, we were rather pleased to see our friend Ariele was one of the group, it was very good to spend some time with her again. As it turned out, our worries were unfounded. The tour was really good and well worth the money. The size of the group didn't matter in a place as big as Tikal. Anyway, possibly due to the recent events, there really weren't that many people there other than our group. Our guide pointed out lots of wildlife we'd have missed, and I finally saw a toucan! We also saw Holwler Monkey's, grey foxes, an Emerald Toucanet and other assorted creatures. At no point did we feel the slightest bit unsafe either.
No doubt about it, Tikal is amazing. The views from some of the temples were absolutely breathtaking. It's hard to put into words the feeling of standing at the top of a temple with nothing but lush forest as far as the eye can see with just the occasional
temple rising above the canopy. It's something I'll never forget. Having a guide made the day more structured and meant we saw a lot more. It's a huge site (apparently the largest excavated site in the American continent) and I don't know where we'd have started on our own, the scale of it is mind-blowing. The work that went into creating it is difficult to comprehend. There was a lot of climbing steep steps involved, and it was tiring, but it was well worth the effort. A great day, and another highpoint of our trip I'd say.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.059s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0244s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb