After being in Flores for a few days, we finally gave in to the repeated attempts from our hostel owner and booked a trip to Tikal.
Tikal is one of the largest and most well preserved Mayan sites in the whole of Central America. There is evidence of settlements going all the way back to 400BC!
We were little worried about how many other tourists we would be bumping into, nothing spoils a place like queuing behind a few hundred other people waiting for that special selfie-shot!
In the end we booked onto the ’sunrise’ tour, meaning a 4am wakeup before a super bumpy bus ride into the park.
To our surprise we had the place pretty much to ourselves!
We walked through the overgrown jungle, and headed to the main temples, climbing up the stairs to an amazing view point above the treetops.
We would definitely recommend a morning visit, not only is it emptier, but you also get the surreal experience of listening to the Howler Monkeys, roaring to each other across the jungle (they sound like dinosaurs!)
We were blown away by the size and complexity of the ruins, The Tikal complex is huge: stretching over 16km you could easily spend a few days getting lost amongst the temples.
6 hours in the sun was enough for us though, so sweaty, tired, and slightly sunburnt we headed back to the entrance and caught the shuttle back to Flores.
❤️
