Today was a long 560km ride from Antigua to Tikal in northern Guatemala so I got going early as the highway between the two places runs through Guatemala city. Guatemala is a beautiful, green and lush country. Roads are good so a great place for motorcycling and drivers are mostly courteous.

Days ride…

Stop over the Rio Dulce..

Going to Tikal means that you come down off of the cool altitude offered by the mountains and down into the coastal plain where the temps rocket to around 40C. I arrived at Hotel Tikal Inn set right next to the ruins at around 2pm only to discover that not only does my room not have AC but the entire hotel only has electricity between 6 and 10pm so the ceiling fan in the room is operational for that time only!!

Not everyday that you see a road sign for “crossing Jaguars” and like I said before, “we aint in Kansas anymore””!!!

I decided to do the sunset tour of the Tikal ruins as I am only spending one night here and will do the sunrise tour in the morning as well which enables me to see the aspects of the ruins that the sunset tour doesn’t cover because this site is some 16 square kilometres!! There is good reason why Tikal is considered the pre eminent of the Mayan ruins, not only in size but the structures are incredibly impressive for a city built two thousand years ago.

Temple 1 at Tikal!!

Temple IV in the background!

Panoramic over the Grand Plaza..