27 de Diciembre 2010

Today we visited Tikal. I must say, its a pretty amazing ruins site stuck right out in the jungle. For the first time in our trip, we had a tour guide - and I found him pretty amazing. He was full of good information and he had a great charismatic and energetic way of talking. Tikal differed from the sites we visited in Mexico by the expanse and breadth of the site, as well as the density of the jungle between temples. Tikal is spread out, and has the feel of a days nature hike out in the jungle as we walked between locals and not just a parking lot leading into a site of ruins. Not to belittle the other ruins, they were all great, this one just had an air of mystery a bit more. The guide said that 80% of Tikal is still untouched in the jungle, but it looks to my untrained eye that all the major buildings have been unearthed.

I have provided only a few photos here, and most likely not the best of teh bunch. But enjoy.


Welcome to Tikal - great list of prohibited items



Tikal Temple - Mari near opening on top



Tikal Temple - Close up of Mari near opening


Tikal Ruins - Travis in the plaza on top of temple seen above



One great thing about traveling is the signs you see everywhere. This one is supposed to mean do not sit on certain ruins, but looks more like no pooping on the ruins.

We met a great girl from New York on this trip named Stephanie. We hung out all day today, but she took off tonight headed to Antigua. Mari and I purchased tickets to head out at 9 am to Lanquin. The asked some people staying at our hotel how long it took to get there and they said around 3 hours. Then we hit the first ticket office to check on ticket prices and times, 100 quetzals (Q) each and 5 hours. We hit another ticket office to compare, and they told us 130 Q each. After talking to a woman at an information booth, we hit still another ticket off. Here we bought tickets, 75 Q each, and the trip is 7 hours. Now I know what you are thinking, we bought the cheap tickets that take longer to get there. But you would be wrong. Welcome to the wonderful insight of Central America, where its hard to get good information. After purchasing our tickets, we finally went out to have a beer with Stephanie and send her on her way, when we saw a board advertising trips all over Guatemala - which said our trip would be an 8 hour bus ride. Luckily, we ran into two Germans just arriving from Lanquin today that verified this info. We paid 75 Q each and the 3 hour trip we were hoping and expecting, miraculously turned into an 8 hour trip. Shitty for us. But oh well, Lanquin here we come.

By the way, we are staying at an okay, mediocre at best hotel Doña Goya. Not great at all. We stopped by Los Amigos Hostel to pick up Stephanie, and were blown away by how cool that place was. If anyone is coming to Flores in the future, check out the Los Amigos Hostel. It is beautiful. I kick myself for believing advice I recieved to not stay there without checking it out myself. By far one of the coolest looking hostels I have seen in Central America.

T