Posada Del Cerro El Remate

... awesome panoramic view of the jungle speckled with the tips of other temples. It also offered a view of the Mexican border and a tree with some sweet howler monkeys. On another temple, we came across a tarantula! Farrah held it, I chickened out! We also saw a toucan and a bunch of coatis, which look like the love child of a raccoon and an anteater' cute and cuddly with a long snout! We spent about 5 hours roaming around until it was time to go back. All in all I´m ...

... about life. Oh, I suppose I also have not mentioned yet that there is no electricity in the park. This means that all electricity is made by local generators. And to save fuel, these generators – at least at my hotel – only were switched on from 6 – 8 AM and from 6 to 10 PM. That was also the only time of day, where you could get a warm shower. I tucked in shortly after nine, and woke up to the sound of the birds at sunrise. My original plan had been ...

... 30 odd metres, it gives the
feeling of being in a stadium or something. These temples, built between 700bc and 700AD are built
ith varying degrees variation to the sunrise and sunset to cast different angled shadows
across the entrance at the summer and winter equinox and more interestingly, to
have huge religious ceremonies where they drag their enemies to the top,
cut their heads off and toss them into the crowd below!!

After climbing temple 2 (one end of the ...

... air with mattress set out in the middle. Despite being sure we'd be eaten alive by mossies we decided to stay for one night purely to see the sun rise and set from out own private rooftop veranda.

We spent the evening playing cards with the daughter of one of the locals who had helped build the place years before. Somehow we got by despite neither side speaking the others language ...

... site of Tikal…

Tikal was one of the largest Mayan cities in its heyday. It was a rival superpower with Chichen Itza. Tikal was settled 700 BCE but really rose to power between 700-900 CE. Many of the Temples that you see in our photos were built by a powerful king named Moon Double Comb and Ahcacau (aka Lord Chocolate). As we walked through the Grand Plaza and climbed many of the impressive structures, we were astounded by the magnificence of these buildings ...

... One of the other girls pointed out that we had climbed the ladder to get into the caves so it made sense that the exit was the other way so Cat swam off in the other direction and found another channel. She called to us but we couldn’t see her beyond the flame of our candles. “Switch your camera on.” I shouted and then we spotted her and swam over. We were now in thigh high water so started wadding and then there were the shouts, we could see light at ...

We travelled from Palenque in Mexico to Flores in Guatemala fairly easily, including a trip down the jungle river Usmacinta in a longboat. When we arrived on the Guatemalan shore the immigration guys said "veinte, er quarenta Quetzales" so basically doubled the immigration fee which we believe they shouldn´t even be charging anyway. After 3 hours on a bumpy dirt road and another hour we arrived in Flores, built on an island in the Lago Peten Itza where the Mayan people of ...

... staying in and we were taken to and then dropped off right in front of our hotel. We loved El Remate so much that we decided to stay for 4 nights in order to relax and enjoy the beauty of this place. Our hotel and restaurant, Casa de Don David, was in a great location on Lake Peten, fairly close to Tikal. The people in the hotel were able to arrange a tour for us to Tikal, and the owner David, and his wife Rosita were very kind ...

Hola from El Remate. This morning we woke up a little later, had some breakfast made by Theo, our host at the Parrot Nest and headed out. We tried to find a mechanic because the crazy bumpy roads have caused our car to lose a bolt, but failed. Apparently Boxing day is a pretty big holiday here...makes sense since it used to be british columbia. After that we headed to the botanical gardens outside of San Ignacio and ...

... and figure out how we were going to communicate. Our intention was to get to Flores and stay there a few days. One of the taxi drivers followed us at a distance and when we were settled with cold beers in front of us he approached and introduced himself. His English was very good and we realized we could really use that about now, having realized after 15 minutes in the country we were in trouble. His name was Franklin and very quickly we were all good friends. His car was a bit ...