Surviving the scam at the Guatamalan border we find our way to El Remate, a quiet town near to Tikal, a large Mayan ruin about 40 miles into the country. Digs are found and food is sought. We've met up with Kornelius again and we're sharing a room, it makes it nice and cheap.
Dinner is in the front garden of someone's house. There's kids and chickens and pigs and dogs running round. Chicken is killed to order! The food is delicious and we vow to return.
Our purpose for being here is to see Tikal, at 5am we're getting on a minibus to be greeted by Canadian Kerry. Turns out they're usually a lively crowd thats on the bus but they obviously don't do mornings. Tikal is great, the grand plaza is very impressive. The ruins were discovered in the 1800s and there's some very interesting pictures in the museum along with the tomb of Ah Cacao (Lord Chocolate), along with all his jade and ceramics that he was buried with.
From El Remate we head to Lanquin with the lively Aussies, way up in the mountains, it takes 13 hours to get there and we arrive in the dark so have no idea what the place looks like. We pass on Zephyr hostel as that's where the party is at (yeah, we're getting old) and head to El Retiro. The next morning, we're quite blow away by the view from our little cabin.
Huge omelette for breakfast and then off for a walk in town looking for a lift to Semuc Champey, a series of pools up in the mountain where the river disappears into a cave and comes out a different colour. We share a lift with an Argentinian couple and the driver agrees to wait for us for 2 hours. We climb up and up the side of the gorge to the mirador at the top - wow - it's a knackering hour and a quarter climb but its worth it. Just 15 minutes down and we've earned a dip in the pools.
We're booked on the 6am bus tomorrow morning to Antigua, its cold and its pouring, back down the mountain we go.
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