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It took us AGES to be able to leave Livingstone. After establishing that there was not much to do in the town other than eat breakfast, we attempted to catch a boat ('lancha') down the scenic Rio Dulce where we were hoping to catch a bus to El Remata - a remote village near Tikal in northern Guatemala. The boat had no set time at which to leave, instead we had to wait a couple of hours for other passengers to show up and fill the boat. It was frustrating as hell as we were afraid of missing our connecting bus. Finally we set off and it was all worth the wait. The Rio Dulce is a huge beautiful river with dense jungle on either side, and dotted with gorgeous houses and yachts. We stopped by the banks along the way where boiling hot water flows from the rocks into the river, and we all got out and swam (in our clothes). The water was unbelievably hot and steaming at certain points - it felt better than a bath! After frolicking in the river, we continued on our way for a couple of hours til we reached the town of Rio
Dulce. Here we ate a cheap tasty lunch at a street corner cafe: a tortilla covered in refried beans and sauce, which tasted just like pizza. Yum! (I´m easily pleased - as long as I was getting my daily dose of refried beans and rice I was happy). We drank a lovely Licuado - a delicious fruit smoothy, banana being the best flavour, after which we prepared for the 5 hour bus journey to the northern towns of Flores/Santa Elena. The bus journey was suprisingly comfortable and the scenery breathtaking. We arrived in Santa Elena in the dark, close to 11pm, and caught a taxi (30 mins) to the village of El Remata where we were hoping the hotel we had read about and wanted to stay in (Gringo Perdido) was still open. It wasn't...which lead us to our next adventure:
The taxi dropped us off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere - a dirt road along the huge Lake Peten Itza. Every hotel along that road (not that there were many) was closed for the night. Crap! Calvin braved it and decided to enter the hotel grounds to see if he could find someone, despite a
dog barking furiously. He proceeded (the nutter!) by patting the dog who eventually changed from a bloodthirsty hound to a purring kitten. There was no one around, so we had no choice but to find a spot on the hotel floor to set up camp for the night. We explored the grounds and spotted a peer over the lake which happened to have 2 empty hammocks attached! So that's where we slept. It was bloody uncomfortable and the wind was howling but I was too tired to care. I slept like a baby and awoke to the most beautiful sight - dawn creeping over the mountains and spilling onto the tranquil lake, with no sound other than the early morning birds and the lapping of water at the shore under the peer. Paradise! I jumped in the warm lake and enjoyed the morning peace.
We decided not to continue staying at Gringo Perdido as it was too remote for our liking and too expensive to get into the village for food, etc. So we found another hotel (with a pool!) in the village - a lovely place up on the mountainside with a gorgeous sunset view of the lake,
La Ceiba Tree
Holy tree for Mayans and a (loud, squawking) peacock to boot!
After checking in we set off for Tikal - arguably the most impressive Mayan ruins site in Central America. It was certainly impressive with its pyramids and temples poking through the green jungle canopy and howler monkeys swinging through the trees. There's not much I can say about Tikal - you have to see it for yourselves. We spent about 5 hours wandering around and climbed three of the temples which was fairly scary as they're incredibly steep and very high! It was incredibly hot - almost unbearably hot, which kind of detracted from the fun, but we were still determined to climb and see as much as we could. From the top of the main pyramid in 'The Lost World' there's a view of the other temples/pyramids poking up through the trees, and the horizon stretches all the way to Mexico in one direction and Belize in the other. We couldn't believe that there were hardly any other tourists around - it was almost eery to be completely alone in the jungle on top of these 2000 year old temples. I felt very Indiana Jones. I guess it is such a
remote part of Guatemala, it's a real hassle to get to. In the distance we could hear the small Howler monkeys screeching with ferocious lungs like King Kong! I could imagine that if you didn't know these sounds were from monkeys you'd be crapping yourself!
We headed back to El Remate and jumped in the lake just as the sun set. It was indeed another lovely day, thankfully as the next day was less lovely...
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