Tikal

The second last day in Guatemala – we took a trip to Tikal, an ancient Mayan city that existed from approximately 200 BC to 900 AD. It was quite a long journey to get there – we took a shuttle bus back to Guatemala City, hopped on a 1 hour flight to Flores and finally, another shuttle bus to Tikal (of course I slept through most of each leg). Archaeologists are still excavating Tikal and the amount of history here is fascinating.

We happened to arrive during the hottest month of the year at the hottest time of the day, which made for an interesting tour. We were so eager to complete the 4-hour tour and get out of the heat that we rushed the guide through the whole thing. We didn’t even give him a chance to get some rest, although we did offer him water multiple times. We got done the tour in 2.5 hours and the poor tour guide looked ready to collapse by the end of it! The abridged tour gave us a lot of free time, so we stayed cool by drinking Cerveza Gallo (Guatemalan beer) and enjoyed the sunset while we played dominos.