Greetings All,
The last posting had us teetering at the border. We are currently in San Ignacio, Belize at the moment but that's getting ahead of ourselves. I've got some Tikal photos downloaded so I'll stick to that for now.
The border crossing went fairly smooth, considering it involved a van, a boat, a truck driven by a twelve year old and a shuttle that was missing it's top gear. I think we were taken for $5 each at the border crossing but they were very friendly about it. Our bus driver (Eddie) was very nice but he turned out to be an agent for San Juan Travel in St. Elena. He drove us to the ATM, then gave us his sales pitch. We stopped at the agency, within sight of our destination (Flores, Guatemala) and he gave us the "everybody off" sign so we could buy tickets for his tours. No one did, and after 2-3 mins of uncomfortable silence, he got the message and drove us onto the island of Flores and tried to sell us on a hotel. After 6-7 hrs of heat, dust and potholes, we were not in the mood. Everyone split up from there and we found the place where Lisa had stayed in 2001. He was a nice guy though.
We relaxed in the Flores area for a day (I'll let Lisa fill you in this portion) and booked a sunrise tour of Tikal. It was 40% less then our good friend Eddie had quoted and, although it was booked through a 3rd party company, was actually run by (dramatic pause) San Juan Travel!
The border crossing went fairly smooth, considering it involved a van, a boat, a truck driven by a twelve year old and a shuttle that was missing it's top gear. I think we were taken for $5 each at the border crossing but they were very friendly about it. Our bus driver (Eddie) was very nice but he turned out to be an agent for San Juan Travel in St. Elena. He drove us to the ATM, then gave us his sales pitch. We stopped at the agency, within sight of our destination (Flores, Guatemala) and he gave us the "everybody off" sign so we could buy tickets for his tours. No one did, and after 2-3 mins of uncomfortable silence, he got the message and drove us onto the island of Flores and tried to sell us on a hotel. After 6-7 hrs of heat, dust and potholes, we were not in the mood. Everyone split up from there and we found the place where Lisa had stayed in 2001. He was a nice guy though.
We relaxed in the Flores area for a day (I'll let Lisa fill you in this portion) and booked a sunrise tour of Tikal. It was 40% less then our good friend Eddie had quoted and, although it was booked through a 3rd party company, was actually run by (dramatic pause) San Juan Travel!
We got on the bus at 3:30 in the morning to get at Tikal before the sun came up. We got out of the van in the pitch black darkness with 30 other people and met our guide, Luis, who spoke perfect English. We grabbed our flashlights and headed on the trail towards Temple 4, a tower that peeks above the trees over the surrounding jungle. On the way there we could hear the Howler Monkeys in the trees above us but we could see very little else. We got on top of Temple 4 just in time to see daylight. Although the sunrise was obscured by clouds, the view was amazing. The other temples slowly came into focus as the darkness and the mist disappeared. The sounds of the monkeys and jungle birds added to the atmosphere perfectly.
The rest of the day was very cool as well. Tikal doesn't have as many wall carvings as the other major ruins but it makes up for it in pure grandeur. You really get the feeling that this was a place where 100,000 people lived. We saw an anteater, oscillated turkeys and a harpy eagle, which is just being reintroduced to the area by conservationists.
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