The border formalities were pretty strait forward - same as entering Belize, except that suddendly everything looked much older, a little more ‘dodgy’ and run down. Once we had crossed the border the road changed from a good surfaced into a rough dirt track. We were wondering for quite a while whether we were on the right road but after several clarification with bystanders we had to accept that traveling would be much slower (and more torture for our poor camper!). Once we had resigned ourselves to this fact suddenly the road surface changed into smooth brandnew tarmac and we speedily went towards lake Péten Itza, an ocean like lake only an hour from Tikal, our next destination. After a lunch at Don David (apparently the guy who developed the area for tourism) we drove through a beautiful wild jungle to reach Tikal.
The following morning we got up at 5 a.m. to enter the park right at sunrise and to experience the awakening of the forest and the animals in the setting of the tempels. And it is difficult to describe the amazing atmosphere sitting on one of the biggest tempels about 60 meters above the jungle to see the clouds touch the tree tops, to feel the humidity dampening the noises, to hear the howler monkeys challenging each other and to think how those Mayas would have lived in a huge city of 100.000 people covering 70 square kilometers 1500 years ago. To our amazement the kids were as thrilled by this experience, climbing up and down the various temples, reading up about the significance of a piece of stone or a ruin and running through the forest as we were. Despite having spent 4 hours in the morning Kate and Cléo rushed back at sunset to get another glimps of the great site.
This would be one of the very few official campsites that we would encounter in Guatemala. But there right at the park entrance we had an entire football field size lawn to ourselves and could park our camper. Despite the advanced hour Kate could not hold back and had to rush at sunset into the site trailing the kids behind her. I stayed back to get a bit of exercise and do the (boring) cooking. They seemed to have a marvelous time since they only made it back more than one hour after it had got pitchdark - which got me obviously a bit worried having read about tourist being assaulted on the road to and in Tikal itself. But they had had great fun!!!!
Lili’s account:
I’m very happy to leave Belize and going to Guatemala because there were lots and lots of mosquitos.
I’m very happy to leave Belize and going to Guatemala because there were lots and lots of mosquitos.
Lili’s account:
I liked Tikal a lot because of the very high temples. Most of them you couldn’t go up and some of them had wodden steps to go up on the side. We went up on the highest one and from there you could see the other temples popping out of the mist and you could here the howler monkeys. They howl to defend their territory. We also saw a Tucan and a very big spider that jumped and there were lots of little parrots that screamed their heads off and in the end we some some spider monkeys.
I liked Tikal a lot because of the very high temples. Most of them you couldn’t go up and some of them had wodden steps to go up on the side. We went up on the highest one and from there you could see the other temples popping out of the mist and you could here the howler monkeys. They howl to defend their territory. We also saw a Tucan and a very big spider that jumped and there were lots of little parrots that screamed their heads off and in the end we some some spider monkeys.
