Flores- Tikal

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The journey to Flores was long but interesting. After a bus ride we caught a small boat down the river to cross the Mexican/Guatemalan border. Along the way we saw kids playing in the river and adults washing their clothes in it. Then we embarked on a small minibus for a long, bumpy journey along winding dirt tracks, but the scenery was beautiful, very green and unspoilt.

Flores itself is a pretty town situated on an island. The first night we had dinner on a jetty over the lake with no-one else there which was really nice.

The next day we got picked up at 4am to watch the sun rise over Tikal. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to appreciate the sunrise but Tikal was amazing! There were barely any tourists there so it felt as if we were discovering the temples for ourselves. These were by far the best ruins we have seen, huge temples peaking above the dense jungle, just appearing out of nowhere. Some of the temples still lay undiscovered under mounds of grass and trees.

We climbed up most of the temples and enjoyed the spectacular jungle-top views. We saw monkeys and parakeets and even a wild crocodile. Tikal was one of our highlights of the trip so far, well worth a visit.

When leaving Flores to get to the airport we had to jump in a tuk-tuk which we could barely fit our backpacks in and the crazy driver meant we had to keep a firm grip on them!

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