Guatemala: Flores & Tikal

Von Belize City we took a direct bus to Flores in Guatemala. The journey took about 5.5 hours, but it was quite pleasant as the bus was almost empty. The exit formalities in Belize were quickly done, mainly about paying the $20 exit fee. In Guatemala, there wasn't even a proper office, just a shelter where customs formalities were done. The whole thing was faster than anything we had experienced before. We weren't asked anything, didn't have to fill out anything, no one wanted to see our luggage, no one even looked at us properly. Buenas Dias, stamp in the passport, have a good trip.

Flores is not actually a real city, but just a small island located in Lake Peten Itza in the north of Guatemala. The actual city is on the other side of a small bridge between Flores and the mainland and is called Santa Elena, although apparently everyone simply refers to the whole agglomeration as "Flores". In any case, you always have to go to Santa Elena if you want to do anything other than buying souvenirs or getting drunk. There are no real shops, no ATMs, nothing in Flores. The island is mainly inhabited by tourists, and accordingly quite expensive. That's why we stayed in the village of San Miguel on the other side of the lake. From there we had a wonderful view of the lake and Flores. Our "hotel" was once again a run-down place run by a family. It felt like there were 20 people working there, and everyone was very nice, but unfortunately they were completely overwhelmed with everything. Although we didn't get the room we had booked, we were lucky because we at least got a room. A lady who arrived after us was asked to sleep in a tent in the garden because there had been a mix-up with the bookings. Similar scenarios could be witnessed almost daily when new guests arrived. Unfortunately, the people there were only able to help us with booking the usual standard tours. If you wanted to do something more special that wasn't on the standard list of ALL travelers, they were already at a loss and didn't even seem to understand Spanish anymore. On the day of our arrival, there was a complete power failure for the rest of the day. So we sat on the terrace with candles and made the best of it. Luckily, we had charged all our electronic devices the day before in Belize, so we didn't get bored. Alternatively, you could listen to the tourist boat, which offers evening lake tours and lights up in all sorts of LED colors and provides information about the sights at such a hellish volume that you can hear it even on the other side of the lake. So we were able to witness this spectacle every evening, so there was no need for us to take a trip on the boat.

To get to Flores or Santa Elena, you always had to take a ferry, which is a small boat operated by private boatmen. There are also special ferries where cars can fit (probably up to 2 per boat), as well as smaller ones for motorcycles. The crossing is relatively cheap and costs 5 Quetzales (about 70 cents per person)
Due to the heavy rainfall of the past few days, which apparently also occurred here, half of the island was flooded. It was not possible to enter the outer street that runs in a circular ring around Flores, at most you could swim in it.

The first two days we spent some time in Flores and Santa Elena. We took care of things that had been left undone for a long time, bought some things, got a local SIM card, tried to exchange the remaining Mexican Pesos, which we had unfortunately forgotten and suddenly found again (which was unfortunately a pretty hopeless and nerve-wracking undertaking), and otherwise lazed around a bit on the terrace of the hotel, where there were still nice people to meet.

On the third day we went to Tikal, a must on every Guatemala traveler's list. Most travelers go on a sunrise tour. However, we decided not to do that. First, we would have had to take the ferry to Flores at 2 in the morning to catch the bus, and second, we had already seen too many Mayan ruins to put ourselves through that, and third, I vividly remember a similar endeavor in Angkor Wat, where it ended up being cloudy and we didn't see much of the sunrise in the end. In addition, you can only watch the sunrise and sunset as part of a guided tour, as the site is not regularly open at these times, and we really didn't feel like following a stressed-out crowd at this place. No, we decided to "sleep in" and take the bus at 8 o'clock. Yes, 8 o'clock, we repeated to the bewildered hotel staff. No sunrise tour, thank you.
Instead, we decided to stay there all day, as we didn't have anything else to do in Flores and took the bus back at 6:00 p.m. The only earlier bus would have left at 3:00 p.m., but the complex is so huge that you can easily spend a day there and take a walk in the forest. For example, it takes about 45 minutes to walk back to the entrance from the farthest temple, the well-known Temple 4.
And we had the same phenomenon as in Palenque: the influx of visitors disappeared, so in the afternoon it was much quieter and more pleasant. However, in the evening the groups for the sunset tour arrived.

Tikal was once one of the largest and most powerful Maya cities and is definitely different from the other Mayan ruins we had visited so far. On the one hand, there are high and steep pyramids, which are very different in style from the ones we had visited before. On the other hand, only a few buildings and only 2-3 pyramids are completely excavated. The excavated Pyramids 3 and 5 are really beautiful and provide wonderful photo opportunities. The other pyramids are still buried under soil and forest, so from below they actually look like large, steep hills.
The special thing is actually the view from the top of Temple 4, which is about 45 meters high (of course the tourist highlight), from where you can see the tops of the other pyramids above the jungle. That is really beautiful, but that's about it. The pyramid doesn't come into its own from below, as it is not excavated as I said. Interestingly enough, we got into a conversation with two young women from Holland on the top of the pyramid (the ascent is not too difficult thanks to a wooden staircase), who were traveling from Flores to Mexico. And so it happened that we could exchange at least some of the remaining Mexican Pesos that we just couldn't get rid of at a good rate for Guatemalan Quetzales on the top of Temple 4.

The rest of the day we wandered around in the seemingly endless forest and enjoyed the atmosphere. There were also animals to see from time to time that crossed our path.
The absolute highlight happened when we had already left the site and were waiting for our bus in front of the entrance. Suddenly there was a strange noise and a young man drew our attention to a tree: There sat, in the wild, live, in color and in a perfect pose: a toucan. He sat there for an eternity, on a leafless branch, and let himself be extensively photographed by the few people who were lucky enough to be there. Truly wonderful...