The Force is strong with this one

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We are now in Guatemala, where we have been for almost a week. We’re staying in a shack overlooking a huge lake in the town of El Remate. It’s quite basic, Wifi is limited to non-existent, in fact we had no power at all on our first day, but the truth is it’s actually quite nice to get back to basics.

Yesterday we visited the ruins of Tikal. According to the Guatemalans Tikal was first inhabited by the Mayans in 900 BC. I’m pretty sure it was inhabited long before this but I don’t want to argue, some of these people carry guns.

Between me and you though, and I could be wrong (though I rarely am about these things) I’m pretty sure Tikal was once a rebel base used during the intergalactic war with the evil Empire and was most famously where the assault to destroy the first Death Star was launched. It’s also where Luke Skywalker and Han Solo received their medals for dealing the killer blow on the space station. My mate Dave even told me that somewhere near the Grand Plaza is a huge crater that was caused when a section of the Death Star impacted on the surface after its destruction.

The ruins of Tikal are vast and covered with rain; there is rain everywhere, almost as much as Glastonbury festival. Like Palenque in Mexico they are overgrown and set deep in the forest. Climbing Templo IV and seeing the tops of the other Templo’s puncture the forest canopy is pretty cool; it almost looks like the set from a movie.

After wandering around for a while it became apparent that we would find no trace or evidence of any kind to prove my theory that this was in fact the site of a rebel base. That is until we turned the corner at Templo II. There were Coati’s everywhere! What more evidence do you need!? Everyone knows Coati’s originate from the planet Kashykk; they must have been brought here by the Rebel alliance. From what Dave told me Coati’s are generally nice critters but these guys were anything but.

They were rummaging through the bins looking for food when all of a sudden they turned toward us and pointed their noses up to sniff the air. Oh no! I thought; they could smell Helen’s pro-biotic strawberry-cheesecake yoghurt she had in her backpack.

We made a run for it and fortunately outran the little critters but just as quickly as we got away we realised we were lost in the jungle. We found a clearing and tried to get our bearings, it was very eerie and at all turns it felt like we were being watched. It turned out we were. Almost out of nowhere this little man appeared! I pulled out my umbrella to defend us when the guy spoke. He said: ‘Your weapons, you will need them not.’ Suffice to say he was very weird, his name was Doder or something, he had a green tinge about his skin which was super wrinkly and he was really short, he was even shorter than Helen.

Doder actually turned out to be pretty friendly. We asked how to get to the restaurante but he rambled on for ages about all sorts of weird stuff. He said the ‘Force was strong with me’, whatever that means and that Helen was actually my sister. It was pretty clear he was deluded but just as we were about to leave he did this awesome trick.

Without strings, a crane or anything he pulled this old space ship out of the swamp and said we could use it to get to the restaurante if we wanted. Such a nice guy! It was like some strange voodoo. The ship must have been left behind by the Rebels. I have to say it was definitely the coolest thing I’ve seen so far on this trip. I think I’m going to like Guatemala if everyone is like Doder.

All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day, could have done without the rain though.

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