Tikal

Today was a very, very successful day! 

The shuttle arrived at 8 am, and after picking up two other sets of passengers, we headed on the road to Tikal.  The trip took a little over an hour and was quite entertaining.  At one point the driver totally swerved to the other side of the road.  When I asked Lynn what just happened, she replied, “There was a dog laying in the middle of the road.”  I turned around to see the dog still laying smack dab in the road.  Still didn’t move.  Guess he didn’t feel any reason to move for traffic, and the people around him weren’t making him move. Crazy.

The shuttle driver brought us directly to the Jaguar Inn, inside Tikal National Park.  We went into the hotel, not sure what would be our situation as check-in is at 2 pm and it was only 9:30 am.  The man at reception told us we could leave our bags in the corner and head into the ruins for a little bit. Come back around 1:30/2. He said they had had a full house the night before.  Before we walked away, he said, “Wait a minute. Let me check your room.” We must have seemed saddened by the prospect of staying in our filthy clothes on our filthy bodies.  He came back with a huge smile on his face and told us our room was ready!!  Music to our ears! 

Much to our sheer pleasure, our room has its own bathroom, with plumbing as it is in the USA.  The hot water is only turned on from 6-9 am but none of us cared!  It is about 80 degrees so it is not cold outside at all.  We all showered and then headed to the dining room for breakfast.  We had pancakes and were extremely content.

Brooke enjoying the hammock on our porch at the Jaguar Inn,

 

With full stomachs and clean bodies, we headed to the ruins.  They are amazing!!  We spent about 4 hours in the park, walking to all of the ruins and taking a ton of pictures!  We thought about how neat it would be to see the ruins with our archeologist friend, Beloved Nancy Davis.  Some of the ruins are completely uncovered, some are still being excavated.  Howler monkeys screamed at us from overhead and spider monkeys ran among the treetops.  Jeff captured it all on video. 



Looking at Temple #1 from Temple #2.

 
Jeff decided he is going to market a t-shirt to tourist that says, “I left my heart at Tikal…so the sun could rise.”



Temples #3 and 4 in the background.

We treated ourselves to an excellent dinner at the Inn, complete with an appetizer of nachos and a huge papaya fruit smoothie.  Today we are all back in good spirits.  There is even WiFi so the girls had an opportunity to post on Instagram.

Tomorrow we head back into the ruins for a sunrise tour.  Caesar, our guide, already introduced himself to us.  We will meet him in the front parking lot at 4 am.  The plan is to do the tour and then head back via shuttle to Flores for the day.  One of the workers here is from Bakersfield, CA and he is going to give us some recommendations for places to see and eat at while we are there.

We’ll take the overnight bus and make our way to San Pedro La Laguna and the language school.  Should be there by Sunday evening.