Temple-tastic Tikal (Guatemala)

---

Well my stay in Belize was short and sweet (1 week!). After Caye Caulker I made my way south to a lovely beach called Placencia in a sheltered bay with calm waters. However, after 2 days of bad weather (with a lot of places closed because it was low season) I moved on. I seem to be having quite bad beach luck on this trip! I wanted to go to a lovely little island called Tobacco Caye, but again, there was no point going in the rain, so on I went again. Next stop was a town near the border called San Ignacio. From here they run all sorts of cool tours to the surrounding area......... but unfortunately because it was low season there was only 1 trip running. I wasn´t that fussed on going in some caves to see skeletons, and it was 3 times more expensive that the other trips. I could have waited around for 4 days to see if more people wanted to go on the other trips at the weekend, but I got a bit restless so crossed the border over into Guatemala yesterday.

I´m staying in Flores, of which the Lonely Planet has a quote describing it..."This town sucks ass big time!" but actually I don´t think that it´s that bad! It is an island in the middle of a lake joined by a causeway, and the streets are quite cute and dinky and there are lots of food options (always important!)

This morning I had to get a bus a 3.15am (!!!!!!!!!) to go to the nearby ruins at Tikal. Apparently this is where the Rebel Base Camp was filmed in one of the original Star Wars films! My tour group had to walk through all these jungle trails in the dark, then climb one of the temples so that we could sit on top of it and watch the sunrise. Very cool!

Spent a few hours being shown the different ruins by a guide, then back to Flores by 1pm, completely tired! Also saw (and heard) lots of howler monkeys, parrots and toucans. This is definitely the last temple ruin I´m going to see in a while (I hope!)

---

Photos

Misty!
Sitting on top of a temple overlooking the jungle at dawn.

Comments

[Pauline]

All templed out or what?!
Brilliant photography Soph, next job opportunity lies with National Geographic I reckon!! What was that you said about a 3.15 am, start? - Youth is a wonderful thing!! Take care, keep snapping and have funXXXXXXXXXX