north to tikal

welcome to el petén,
where the busses are smaller,
the jungle thicker,
and the mosquitos, thankfully, seem to be on vacation.

leaving the central part of guatemala and heading north...out of the mountains and into the jungle. most of the bus rides begin at 5 or 6 in the morning. it´s good practice for my summer job to get up early every day for one reason or another. most of the roads around here are paved, which is a nice surprise. this road ends at the river in the town of sayaxche - then just a quick ride accross, and back into another microbus. (oh man these newer toyota minibusses would make the sweetest campers, but they don´t sell em up north...i think it might be a safety thing, although they surely can´t be less safe than a 30 year old volkswagen.)

so i was heading north, ostensibly to visit tikal, and to find something cool to do for xmas. i thought a trek through the jungle to a more remote mayan ruin might be a lovely substitute for family and friends. plus, i had met a nice german guy with the same idea.


sunrise at tikal was gorgeous. sunset was maybe even better...tons of parrots zooming back and forth and making a crazy ruckus...spider monkeys swimming through the tree branches...


some guy at tikal


a temple in the midst of discovery - either that or the rolling stones are coming to tikal next week?


templo uno



well, jonas and i tried to make the jungle trek. we booked and paid for the trip and then the guides didn´t show up. nothing too shocking or disappointing - as the trip drew near i started to have some doubts about the quality of the company taking us, so in the end i was happy to not go with them. as a result i had 5 extra days and another shot at creating a cool christmas. the upside of the failed jungle adventure was that we did make a 3 hour drive out to the end of the road, where i at least got to enjoy this family altar/decoration on the wall of one of our absentee guides´ houses.


so then it was back to flores, a strangely, (and un-guatemalanly) quaint village on an island. there was some sweet night football going on in the main park in town.













the dogs of guatemala series is coming along nicely...here you will only get a couple of teasers.

that was it for flores. jonas and i decided that since we had already planned to spend xmas together in the jungle we might as well hang out some more and we headed to el remate, a more mellow and local type of spot on the other side of the lake.