To the land of Quetzal

Tour agencies in Palenque offer transport packages to get you to Guatemala, for at least 30 euros per person. We thought it was pretty steep and decided to do it on our own.

We felt super adventurous getting into an old minivan at 5.45am in the dark, with streets still overflowing after the night of storms and heavy rain. But in the end everything went smooth, after the minivan there was a taxi, then crossing the border on foot (and paying the extortionate tourist tax when leaving Mexico), 4 hours on a decent Guatemalan bus and finally a ride in another minivan to El Remate. The last minivan was actually the toughest part as at one point there were 25 people traveling in/on it (I think it is meant for 12 persons), but luckily it didn't last long. All in all, it took us around nine hours, less then the agencies were promising, and it cost just 14 euros! So proud!

Not everybody fit inside

We stayed in the village of El Remate, because it is the largest settlement closest to Tikal and it still very quiet, little more than one main road and couple of houses by the Petén Itzá lake. A perfect place to relax after a long ride.

El Remate is a small village with lots of piggies running around

And horses

Hard life of a traveler

After the long day we deserved our prize!

On the next day, again early in the morning, we went to see what we came up here for - the Mayan ruins of Tikal. It was once one of the greatest Mayan cities spreading over a vast territory, in the middle of (now Guatemalan) jungle. It is probably the most important tourist draw of this country, so we were expecting hords of tourists climbing up and down the pyramids making it impossible to take a decent picture. Well, we were wrong twice. First of all, after series of fatal accidents that presumably happened in the past few years, unfortunately there are now only very few temples in the complex that can be climbed. And second, when we arrived there shortly after 7am, there wasn't anybody!

Alone at Gran Plaza

Templo I aka Gran Jaguar

Did someone say you can't climb Temple II? I promise I went up only few steps

We were completely alone on top of the Temple IV, one of the few accessible pyramids, and had the views of the jungle all to ourselves. We chatted with the park ranger (Tikal is a part of a national park that carries the same name), who was up there making sure people weren't going around where the entry was forbidden. And as he happened to like us, he let us climb there... No special views, but we felt like Indiana Jones for a moment and we saw a baby fox!

Cloudy but beautiful

The ranger also gave us a tip where to go see toucans, and off we were, to see El Mundo Perdido, Lost World, in search of one of our favorite birds. We've been trying to spot one since our trip to Argentina, and finally we got lucky. Ok, so it was not the big toucan you see on postcards, it was the small kind, but it was still pretty damn cool to see ten or fifteen toucancs flying around! And don't forget the fearless coati sniffing around for food.

Mundo Perdido

Hello birdie!

In moments like this we wish we had a better camera

Coati was easier to spot

Temple V was probably the one we liked the most, as it is a bit apart from the rest of the main sights, and it's quite spectacular. Here is where we saw many monkeys, both spider and howler, and D got pooped on by one of them (he says that monkey threw some fruit on him, oh ha ha). Before he got bitten by a huge ant, must have been his lucky day...

One of the rangers and the ant that attacked D

Tikal is huge, compared to other ruins we saw in Mexico, one can easily spend an entire day. When we got back to Gran Plaza, around noon, it was no longer empty, but there were still far fewer tourists than we'd expect. One of the guys working on the temples' maintenance told us that besides being the low season now, there are less people than usual coming this year and it's affecting the locals a lot as many of them work in the park. I hope the tourism picks up again because Tikal is completely worth the trip!

Gran Plaza

Acropolis Central

The sun came out in the end!

The next day we flagged down one of the crowded mini vans to get to Flores, the major tourist hub of the region, as we had an (another) early bus to catch. We are heading to Honduras, to dive!

Slow pace in Flores

Water taxis