Further ruination

Flores, Guatemala

Why are we in Flores, you might ask.  Flores is a town built on a small island, connected to the mainland town of Santa Elena via a two-lane causeway.  It is a very touristy place, full of hotels and restaurants, catering mainly to the budget-minded back-packer sort of tourists (of which there are very few this time of year).  While Flores is an interesting destination unto itself, the real reason most people come here is for its proximity to the Mayan ruins at Tikal.

After a relaxing afternoon in Flores, we booked a day-trip to Tikal.  This meant that a small van picked us up at 4:30AM and drove us the 1-1/4 hours to the park, where we met our guide.  This is one park that we really feel needs a guide - it is huge and there is a lot to take in.

Being here early (the park opens at 6AM) and it being extremely off-season, our little group of about 20 people had the place virtually to ourselves.


Tikal is incredible. The old city is located in the middle of a dense jungle, with only about 15% of the area being uncovered to date.  According to NASA, there are some 6000 buildings under that jungle somewhere - what we see are some of the larger acropolises and pyramids and it is apparently a struggle to keep the jungle from reclaiming those.  Exploring the site consists of hiking through the jungle from one place to another, occasionally glimpsing one of the taller edifices poking through the foliage.  Sometimes you can be right next to a huge complex and not even realize it.  When we do find ourselves at one of the huge pyramids, we can't help but climb them of course - the view out over the jungle canopy is quite unique.

And the jungle is full of wild-life.  Lots of parrots, Toucans and other birds, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, jaguars, crocodiles, etc. etc.  Always lots of animal noises around and we got to see our fair share as well.

 

Pictures cannot do justice to any of these structures, but here goes anyway...

Back in Flores, we decided to stay a couple of extra days while Susanne recovers from some sort of intestinal bug or some such - she was feeling pretty wiped out the day after our trip to Tikal, but she seems much better now.  Fortunately our room here is air conditioned and we have lots of TV channels - as good a place as any for her recuperation.  Maybe it was something she ate???

 

Since Tikal was the last place on our list of must-see spots on this trip, we were at a little bit of a loss as to where to go from here.  As it turns out, we can get quite cheap transportation from Flores to Belize city, so tomorrow we plan to leave Guatemala for a few days and rest for a few days on the beach somewhere in Belize.

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