Waking up to the eery silence of the jungle before dawn we boarded the 5AM bus for the town of Flores, Guatemala, deciding to take the direct route and skip Bonampak and Yaxchilan. Mexico was proving a strain on the budget, and we had bigger Mayan ruins to see in Guatemala.
Our first stop on the journey was the boarder town Frontera Corozal, on the border of Guatemala and in true Mexican style they charged us 10 Pesos to enter the town.
The border between Mexico and Guatemala here is the fast flowing Rio Usumacinta which we crossed by Lancha, a fast river canoe with a huge outboard motor on the back.
We travelled 1 hour upstream to Bethel, through some breathtaking scenery dotted with small villages where the women were washing their clothes in the river. The river is famous for crocodiles living on its banks but they were proving very allusive that day so we didn´t spot any.
Next was the bus to Flores. It was like riding along on a big marsh mellow as the suspension was so soft. It was a good job though as the road was horrific, a mud track that had been churned up in the rainy season and had now dried leaving steep ridges and wheel sinking trenches. The roads in Guatemala arn't quite up to the standard of Mexico, and thats not saying a lot! There are 20,000 miles of roads in Guatemala and only about 3,000 of those are paved, so were in for some rough rides!
Flores is a town in the north of Guatemala built on an island in the middle of Lake Peten Itza and only connected to the mainland by a bridge, its a beautiful setting. We stayed at Hotel Dona Goya, which is a nice chilled out place with a hammock strung roof terrace overlooking the Lake. This town is definately built for tourism, the hotels and restaurants are expensive and mundane. Its a shame because Flores was the last of the Mayan cities to be conquered by the Spanish and holds alot of history, but there are no remanants of mayan architecture as it was all destroyed.
We met up with one of our travelling friends again, Benoit from France, who happened to be staying at the same hostal. He is trying to learn English and Spanish at the same time, which makes conversations with him very amusing, and we usually resort to games of charades.
We went to the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal the following day at 5am in the morning! It is the remains of a huge Mayan city enshrouded by jungle and for any of you Star Wars geeks it was used as the setting for the rebel base on the forth moon of Yavin in the first film.
It is an incredible place full of mystery and a very magical atmosphere. The whole park spans over 222 square miles of which only a small part is open to the public. As you can imagine its work in progess and not all of it has been properly excatated yet. What they have excavated is fantastic. Pyramids, ceramonial squares, living quaters, palaces and temples, most of which are open to explore and climb and boy did the mayans like thier climbing! Every mayan step is the height equivalant of atleast 3 of what we consider a generous step and the mayan people arent exactly large in stature, sadists.
One of the structures is an exausting 72 meter high stone temple breaking through the jungle canopy. After a petrifying climb up the very ricketty wooden ladder and an attack of vertigo, we sat looking out over the jungle as far as the eye could see, listening to exotic bird calls and the calls of howler monkeys. Definately our favourite ruins so far!
For anyone reading this who plans to visit Tikal and the Flores area, we would suggest staying actually in the Tikal National Park. Its cheaper then Flores and you can get into the ruins earlier to see the sun rise. We only found this out after. Gutted!
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