Day 1 Tikal/Flores

Hey guys! I know this is the post you have all been waiting for.. ok I don't really know that but Luis and I were so excited to finally make it to Tikal! Tikal (Tee-call) is the most concentrated area for Mayan Ruins, also the most famous area. It’s the place that most people want to go to when visiting Guatemala and is also estimated as being the ultimate destination for 2012. Huh, wonder why? ;) 

This was going to be a very very long post so I separated it into the three days we were there. 

We left December 26th at 10:30pm, Luis, me, his Uncle, Aunt, and two cousins. We took a red-eye bus, an all night one, to not waste one day in Tikal. It was a very looooooooooooooong ride. I couldn't really fall asleep and Luis was dying of heat. Luckily we were in the back of the bus and could open a window. I basically read the whole time and Luis alternated from trying to sleep and playing on his iPhone. The roads were apparently better than what they used to be but Luis and I thought the ride was extremely bumpy. One of the things I miss the most from the U.S. is smooth roads! 

Day 1 December 27th...

We arrived in Flores around 7am. Flores (Floor-ace) is a small island in the middle of a lake. 

Not one of our pictures but a great picture of the island we stayed at!

Technically it’s a peninsula since a road connects it to land. We stayed in a hotel in Flores because Tikal is a National Park and there aren’t any hotels near there, its about an hour away from Flores. So when we got to Flores we went to our hotel and took a 2 hour nap. Got up around 9:30 and still had the rest of the day ahead! Even though I thought the bus ride was miserable I would recommend it to all others traveling to Tikal to do the same thing. You save a whole day to be exploring in and around Tikal because there are so many activities to do and you won’t want to miss out on anything! 

Back to waking up around 9:30am. We ate some granola bars for breakfast and then tried to find a ride to some caves. There are these little things called Tuk-tuks (took-took). It is basically a scooter with a seat in the back and a covering over your head. It can fit 2 comfortably or 3 if one of you is small. 

Tuk-Tuk!

 We took 2 of those to Cuevas Actun Kan (Ack-toon Cawn Quevas), caves!! 

Welcome to the Caves at Actun Kan!

The entrance to the caves.

These caves are not like the ones you go to in the U.S. The ones all lit up with a guide to take you through and stairs everywhere? So not like that here! It was pitch black and once you paid to go in they send you off with a “Ten Cuidado por favor,” please be careful. There was no guide and no electricity in the caves, good thing we all came prepared with flashlights. Luis actually took out his good flash (from his camera) and would use that occasionally because it lit up the whole cavern. These caves were huge! We walked around in the caves for probably two hours, almost getting lost. We saw tons of bats! Luis got some amazing pictures of bats staring right at us hissing because of the bright lights. 

They're staring right at you!

We found Batman! In a cave, in Guatemala... and really tiny ;)

There were a couple steps when you first walked into the cave but other than that you were at the mercy of the uneven floor, we slipped quite often but never fell. It was very cool to feel like real spelunkers! The deeper we went the warmer it got, all of us, including Luis’s family, were drenched with sweat by the time we were done! 

Hi! 

Look at all the cool handprints. We don't really know what or when they're from.

After the caves we got back into some Tuk-Tuks and headed back to our hotel. We stopped at a plaza and ate lunch at Pollo Campero (Poyo Com-perrrrro). So delicious! It is a fast food chain but the best fast food I have ever had. It’s mainly a chicken restaurant, like KFC but seriously much better. There are a few in the U.S. but apparently some ingredients aren’t allowed to be used in the U.S. restaurants so you don’t get the full delicious flavor. 

Hanging out after eating lunch and traversing the caves! Me and Clarissa.

Once done with lunch we went back to our hotel and swam in the small pool. 

The pool of our hotel. I spy with my little eye..... MAX!

While in the pool we had our first encounter with a huge cucaracha (cockroach), the thing was the size of a role of quarters! Did you know they can swim, and underwater? And that they apparently enjoy it!? It swam after us when we were trying to get away from it!! We all jump out of the pool except for Luis, the brave one. He grabbed one of those floaty noodles and tried to pick it up and fling it out of the pool. After about 8 tries he finally did it. Everyone was yelling at him to kill it, including two other random kids in the pool, “Matalo, matalo!” (kill it, kill it!). One of the kids even begged him to use his own shoe to kill the cockroach even though it was finally out of the pool. Luis slammed the shoe on the cockroach at least 10 times before the thing succumbed to death. Gross!

The size of our cockroach!

After the pool, we all showered and decided to walk around Flores. There were several restaurants for us to pick from and ended up choosing a restaurant that wasn’t actually very good. Also we sat near a Christmas tree that played “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” over and over and over and over and over again. I had that song stuck in my head for the next week! And Luis’s eleven year old cousin would tease me and starting humming the song just when I would start to get it out of my head! We would tease each other back and forth, he didn’t like cockroaches so I would pretend there was a cockroach right by his foot. After dinner we all went to bed early to get ready for Tikal the next day!

Did I mention yet how warm it was? Where we are staying in Guatemala City the elevation is about 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. So even though its a tropical country the weather has been a steady 60 to 70 degrees. Tikal/Flores is at sea level and entirely a rainforest. The temperature was usually around 80 degrees. Even though Guatemala doesn’t get snow, it is there winter season so here’s another travel tip... if you plan on coming to Guatemala and visiting Tikal, do it in the winter months. There are hardly any bugs or mosquitoes to bother you, Luis and I did not get bit by one mosquito and we were outside almost the whole entire trip! It was pure heaven to enjoy warm weather and not be bothered by bugs!

To read about Day 2 click here!