Coban to Flores and Tikal

Coban to Flores and Tikal

1/03/2010

17 13 18 N 89 37 27 W

Our entire day was spent in a mini bus traveling from Coban to Flores.  Flores is a "frying pan" island on the Lago de Peten Itza.  It is very small and very pretty with cobble stone narrow streets mostly made up of restaurants, travel agencies and artisan shops.

We caught a shuttle bus to Tikal ruins site at 5am - the site opens at 6am and we wanted to see the sun rise over the temples.  The site closes before sunset which was a disappointment to us.  It was cool in the morning - a pleasant change from the heat we had become accustomed to.  

Tikal was wonderful, impressive, incredible, amazing etc etc - what can I say.  The archeological sites are hidden amongst the thick jungle through which climbs spider and howler monkeys - the latter seem to think it is a good idea to defecate on humans as they walk past as a territorial sign - Don and I walked around any paths with heavy branches overhead!!  We could see the result of some of the debris from missed targets !  We spent 6 hours exploring the ruins - there are very little restrictions to exploring this area - ruins can be explored thoroughly, pyramids climbed - there was one high temple where climbing was prevented - that measure taken after a few tourists fell to their deaths.  Some temples had makeshift steps connected to the top of the structure - these steps being rickardy to say the least. 

We were glad to have made the effort to endure the long journey and many hours of bus travel to see these ancient marvels.