Sunday, July 21, 2013

Flores and Tikal (13.07.2013 - 16.07.2013)

The lovely old town of Flores lies on a island in the Lago Peten Itza. We wanted to stay at Los Amigos but there was no place left so we had to settle with a shitty place for the first night and could switch the day after. Which was super decision!

After a day off to relax from the uncomfortable mini-bus ride we did a Tikal-Sunrise-Tour. Which meant we had to get up at 3 in the morning! On the way to the ruins we had the luck to spot a jaguar crossing the street. Arriving at the ruins we climbed temple IV (four) to wait for the sunset. We were all sitting there and listening to the jungle waking up. We could hear howler monkeys and dozens of birds chattering away. We waited and waited and the night turned to day but sadly there was no sunrise to observe as it was too cloudy. But nevertheless we enjoyed the view, which George Lucas used for the landing of the millenium falcon on Yavin 4 in Star Wars IV. 
We walked around in this huge area with dozens of temples to visit. Some temples you can't climb anymore because of a deadly accident, but the guards enforcing this only start working at 8 in the morning. So our guide asked us if we wanted to climb the pyramid and we didn't hesitated ^^
Around the many temples the jungle thrives with wildlife, we saw spider monkeys, toucans, tarantulas, foxes, some kind of wild turkey and some silly long nosed mammals.