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Published: September 4th 2006
Flores is a very pretty little town on an island in the middle of a lake. It is connected to the mainland town of St. Elena by a bridge and you can easily walk between the two. Flores is also quite expensive being the main town base for tourists, such as ourselves, wanting to visit the famous mayan ruins at Tikal, an hour away in the jungle. As always hotel staff and tour shops are touting for your business as soon as you step foot in the town and after weighing up the costs we decided it was worth paying the extra to visit Tikal with a tour guide to see the sunrise which also meant we could get the night bus out the next day.
After securing our tour tickets we had a wander around the town which resulted in us purchasing a hammock. The idea is that we will save money by sleeping in it whenever possible - cheaper than rooms!
So we got up at 3.00 am the next morning to get in the minibus to Tikal. It was obviously still pitch black when we arrived at the national park, and we arrived well prepared with no torches! Our jungle farm training had obviously been forgotten! Fortunately our guide had a torch. Our guide was a local guy called Caesar, who made the trip extremely interesting, which was great because I think if we'd had to endure a load of historical info at 5am we would have fallen back to sleep!!
We made our way through the jungle to one of the largest temples on the site, with the sounds of howler monkeys in the trees around us. We were on top of the temple by about 6am, about 45 metres up and with an amazing view over the top of the jungle canopy.
The sunrise was pretty special: everyone was sat in silence as the howler monkeys screamed to each other waiting for the moment the sun would start to peak it's head over the horizon. The sky was quite clear with just a few clouds to create those perfect sunrise pictures. As the sun slowly came up the mist above the jungle canopy cleared to reveal other ruins in the distance poking up through the trees. The howler monkeys quieten down and then the birds took over by which time it was light - daytime when normal people get up!
The other advantage of going on the early tour was that we were pretty much the only group in the ruins. Comparing it with our previous ruin visits it was really nice to have the temples to yourself and without the hawkers following you around. Our guide showed us round the rest of the site leaving us at the main complex of temples to explore. The tour was really worthwhile he pointed out lots of different animals, gave us an insight into the people that might have lived at Tikal, talked about how the temples were built and how they were being uncovered still. He also told us that the site had been used as a location for films including Star Wars IV where Tikal was the site used for the rebel base on one of Yavine´s moons. Our guide had also shown Mel Gibson round when he came to film for a new film about the Mayans recently.
The view from temple IV out across the jungle as seen in our sunrise photos can be seen in the film. Kev has also just spent the last half an 
Sunrise part 2
As the light got brighter you could see the tops of the other temples (rebel base) in the distancehour finding the exact same picture from the film to prove it to you!
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paul
non-member comment
awesome sunrise
hey guys, glad to see your both well. getting around a bit aren't you? those temples look out of this world, dont think you could cope living in suburbia again, a little bland by comparison, eh? will find out about police this week hopefully, but might be offered a job as security for fashion shows around europe and poss states, will see how it goes, fingers crossed. take care guys. paul