Days 7-8 Tikal and more rain

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The weather has been a pain on this trip so far, because of it I didn’t get a sunset shot from Tikal and I also lost the sunrise pic. I woke up at 04:30 to hear the sound of rain pitter-pattering on my tent so turned off the alarm and turned round and went to sleep. I eventually got up at 06:15 and headed off to wander round the ruins. The tops of the temples were enveloped in mist so I did get some good pics after all but not the famous sunrise shots. Tikal is a huge Mayan site and is littered with temples but unlike the other sites it is still shrouded by dense jungle which gives it a more natural feel.

Tikal was one of the locations used for Star wars the Empire strikes back which means that I’ve been to two if its locations in the past 2 years and I’m not even a big fan! As well as the ruins there is an abundance of wildlife here and the best time to see them is the morning. I saw a spider monkey, more toucans, wild turkeys and some very colourful woodpeckers.

It took me around 3 and a half hours to walk round the ruins, unfortunately you are not able to walk up the steep stone steps to the tops of the temples any more as two tourists had fell to their deaths doing so. The stone steps are very slippy and I nearly fell on my ass a few times when I was on the smaller ruins and I had walking boots on, most of the tourists had flip flops!

After packing up my gear I caught a collective to Santa Elena where I caught a night bus to Guatemala city, which meant I had the whole day to walk round the Island of Flores (until the bus set off at 22:00), which is a tourist mecca in this area. To be honest I don’t know why apart from it being a good place to sleep and drink there isn’t much else to do – but maybe that’s the point.

I was a bit panicking about my large rucksack as I had left it at the bus station but thankfully it was there when I returned to get it.

Boring bits



Santa Elena to Guatemala city – Dep 14:00, 21:00, 22:00 takes 8 hours cost 160 quetzals which is around 11Q to £1.

Campsite 30 quetzals a night to rent tent as well, plus it has cold showers!!

The cost at the border to leave Belize is B$37.50 which is a bit extortionate, Belize is very expensive especially compared to the rest of central america, however its worth it.

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