Guatemala-Tikal and Yaxha

Guatemala continued...

Thursday, we woke up really early to catch a flight to the northern part of Guatemala so we could go to the ancient ruins of Tikal.  On the way to the airport, we saw Pacaya with lava on the top and learned that it had been closed.

Pacaya is in the background

As soon as we landed, we met our driver, had breakfast at the local Burger King, bought some water and then headed to Tikal.  Northern Guatemala was much warmer than Guatemala City and Antigua, but it still rained there too.  Once at the park, our driver found a guide to take us around, his name is Luis.  He was very nice and fluent in several languages which was nice so we didn't have to translate everything for Mom.  Luis was very knowledgeable of the area, history, and local plant and animal life.

A family of bats living in the trees.

Howler monkeys.  We heard these quite a bit, they let us know when it was about to rain.

 

We couldn't climb the actual structures, but one had a wooden staircase built next to it so we could get to the top.  This was our view, it should look familiar to some Star Wars fans.

At one point, it started POURING rain, so we took cover in one of the smaller structures.  A man with a friendly tarantula joined us.  We eventually decided to just brave the rain so we could continue our exploration.  After we were done and were leaving, we found that this tree had fallen over the trail we had come in on.  We decided to just climb over it.

That night we stayed in a small hotel in Remate.  The ceiling fans consisted of regular fans attached to the ceiling.  It wasn't a Marriott or Ramada by any means, but it was clean and a place to sleep.

The next day, we drove to Yaxha to see more ruins.  This park was smaller so it had fewer people around which was nice.  We didn't get a guide and went at our own pace reading the descriptions, but they were all in Spanish so we had to translate as we went.

Can you find the pyramid in this picture?  This is how all of the pyramids looked before they were discovered and uncovered.

 

We were able to climb on more of the structures here.  Dad, Michael, and I climbed this one, Mom said she'd take our picture.  What was really neat was that we were able to have a conversation with Mom down on the bottom and us on top without having to raise our voices at all.

The steps were really narrow.  We really climbed it sideways since our feet wouldn't fit on a step not even mine!

 

A pyramid partially uncovered 

We kept coming across massive trails of ants in the park.  They were always carrying large leaves (compared to them).  They even had cleared ant highways through the jungle.

From the top of a pyramid

Toucan

 

After we were done at the park, we had some time to kill before we had to catch our flight back to Guatemala City, so our driver told us about a cave in the area.  It's a good thing Mom just happened to be carrying a flashlight with her.

 The security at the airport in Las Flores was really strict.  They went through every pocket of our bags and wouldn't let us take some of the things we would be able to in the states like finger nail clippers.  They even took the roll of athletic tape I happened to have in my backpack from my last trip.  While waiting at the airport, it started POURING rain.  We had seen a lot of rain by this point in our trip, but this topped it all!  It eventually let up and we made it back to Guatemala City and Antigua.