Next on our busy trip was a visit to the Mayan Ruins of Tikal. We had to take a shuttle from Antigua to Guatemala City, and from there take a plane to Flores, and then another shuttle to the Hotel Tikal Inn in Tikal National Park. In keeping with the “early to bed, early to rise” motif of this trip, the national park only has electricity for a few hours in the morning and at night (basically, bathroom/shower time).

The walking guided tour takes a few hours, and takes us through the jungle to the Grand Plaza and all the Temples seen in many textbooks and movies. My pictures don’t do them justice; they really need to be seen. Most of the temples have wooden stairs that allow you to go to the top to see the views.

Our tour guide Annie was actually a last-minute fill-in. The normal guide (bilingual in Spanish and English) had called in sick; Annie is their Spanish and French guide. So Heidi had to do some volunteer work as a translator.

The forest and hotel grounds are populated by many leafcutter ants. It is quite interesting and amazing to watch them bring leaves back to their colonies. During our stay at the hotel, it was always amusing to see a long line of “walking leaves” making their way across the sidewalk to some place on the hotel grounds.