Tikal

I’m a glutton for punishment. That isn’t an opinion; it’s an actual fact. Sometimes I get these ideas in my head that seem really good at the time, but then when it’s execution time, I quickly realize how terrible the idea was, but it’s too late at that point to quit. This is how our trip to Tikal played out —> Great idea, miserable execution, but fortunately an amazing experience overall. 

Nathan flew into Guatemala the night before I hiked Fuego. Can I just give a shoutout to that guy real fast. He’s the most selfless guy in the world.

Anyway, we had rented a car, which, of course I used points for. Fun story, our original rental reservation wasn’t actually accepted. We got to the Thrifty desk and because of a weird lack of communication with the third party booking agency and them, they couldn’t give us the car. I had already used my points as a statement credit to “erase” the expense, I should add. We had to pay for the car again. Most people would be mad, but I was excited. My hopes are that the third party company we rented through will be reimbursing us what we had to pay Thrify via check, meaning that it won’t be refunded to the credit card, meaning that I was able to cash out a bunch of points plus earn more points on the car and now I should be a able to use points to pay for that second charge, so yay for that!

Okay, back to Tikal. So, we had decided to just stay in Antigua since the drive there was so far and I was feeling lazy. Then suddenly, the night before we had initially planned on leaving but now weren’t, I looked at Nathan and said “Fine, let’s just go!” We packed up the house, drove up to San Cristobal el Alto for some hot chocolate and one last glimpse of Fuego erupting and finally left early the next morning. We officially left Antigua at about 8:15am that morning. Fast forward a few hours later and we are sitting in construction only an hour and a half out of Guatemala City. The good news is that people walk up and down the line selling you drinks and treats, so, I mean, if you are going to be stuck in construction, that’s the best way to do it! But at this point, we knew google’s 9 hour route was going to be much much longer. 

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This truck represents mine and Nathan’s love for each other. Coke and Monster sitting in perfect harmony!

Fast forward almost 12 hours later and we finally rolled up to our hotel in Flores. We were all pretty done at this point. Our hotel in Flores was such a great little place, I might add. $50 and it nicely fit all 6 of us. The pool was very refreshing and the customer service desk worker dude was so sweet.

The next morning we woke up and made the drive to Tikal, which was nearly another hour away. We made it in, grabbed a guide, and immediately started exploring.

Right away Tikal blew my mind. Temple 1 and the complex it is in was absolutely incredible. I’ve visited Chichenitza and no offense but Tikal was so much cooler and this was only the very first part.

The kids LOVED it there, as well. I will add that it’s insanely hot. We brought a few liters of water with us not realizing quite how hot it was going to be. We ran through those so fast and had to waste money and resources on bottles of water. I hate buying bottled water. Anyway, Q’s shirt was the first to come off, which isn’t exactly surprising, but when Carter’s followed a few minutes later, things were getting real. Real hot.

We climbed and raced and jumped and explored alllll over those ruins. I was actually quite surprised at how willing my kids were to climb and explore everything. And just when I thought they were sufficiently exhausted and we would have to drag them out of the park from exhaustion, they were asking to climb up the next pyramid.

We finished in Tikal around 3pm and headed straight over to our hotel, Jungle Lodge. I can’t believe how good those ceiling fans felt. We made a quick lunch of tortillas and pb and j, which I proudly used my fingers to spread the condiments. We didn’t have a knife and trying to spread it with more tortilla was a big fat fail. What can you do? Finally, we headed over to the pool. That was the most refreshing experience I think I have ever had.

 

I headed out around 5pm with our guide to go see the sunset over Tikal. Although watching the sunset from the palace was beautiful, I actually enjoyed roaming around the ruins with no other tourists around. It was so quiet, into the howler monkeys decided to turn this place into jurrassic park, and the insane light of dusk illuminating everything made it feel straight up magical.

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I got back, Nathan and I had a hot, literally, to the restaurant while the kids stayed back and watched movies on the iPad.

Nathan headed out super early the next morning to watch the sunrise but poor guy just got a bunch of clouds. He said it was still a great experience, though.

And then it was over. We packed up and headed out. Another 12 hour drive looming ahead.

This time we did make a stop in Rio Dulce for lunch. We had no idea where to stop and randomly made a turn off the bridge that ended up at a restaurant that none of us had much faith in. Fortunately, we were completely wrong and it ended up being a complete win!

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We spent maybe an hour and a half there and continued on our journey to Guatemala City.

On the other hand, stopping at the side of the road for fresh mango covered in lime juice, chili powder and pepitas was an absolute fail. The mango was crunchy and hot and terrible! I had high hopes for that one, too.