Quick Trip to Tikal

This journal talks about Tikal and the surrounding towns of Flores and Peten Itza, places worthy of a visit on their own.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting there: Even for those coming to spend just one day in Tikal from Belize, I recommend staying at least 1 night in Flores. Flores itself is 40 miles from Tikal and is the best jumping-off point to the park with buses, tours, and taxis available to take you to the park's entrance. Your hotel can help you arrange any of these. To cross the border from Belize, it is best to hire a taxi to take you to the border from Cayo (San Ignacio) and then walk across the border, where you can hop on a chicken bus or in a taxi to take you either to Flores or Peten Itza to spend the night. The chicken buses felt safe to a tourist, although crowded, but its very cheap!

Flores itself is a small island in the middle of Lake Peten Itza, and once you're there everything is walkable.

Tikal was one of the great cities of the Mayan empire. It was abandoned over 1,000 years ago and has become overgrown by jungle, painting a vivid picture of an advanced society's demise followed by the reclaiming of the land by nature. It is an awe-inspiring site. The Mayan empire was once the most developed civilization in the New World, before the Europeans arrived in North America. One of the details that makes this area so interesting is that no one has inhabited the area since... the ruins remain buried deep in the jungle, giving it an extra air of mystery and discovery. Until the mid-1800s, in fact, knowledge of their existence to Europeans and North Americans was limited to rumors. Tikal was inhabited approximately between 800BC and 900AD and supported as many as 100,000 inhabitants at its peak. See the pictures attached of the huge pyramids, organized into plazas, varying in size and date. They are unbelievable to witness from the ground, and you can climb some of them, giving you a birds eye view of the vastness of the area and the surrounding jungle.

Tikal is an amazing experience. We spent one very full day exploring the park, and found that there was a lot to see. It is do-able in 1 day, but 2 or even 3 days could be spent walking around and exploring without getting bored, especially if you hired a guide.

We did not hire a guide (on a student's budget) and did not find that we were missing much. The maps provided by the park are very detailed, and we were able to use descriptions of the history in our guidebooks to enhance our experience. Basic knowledge of the Mayan story is nice to have and will make the experience all the more powerful, however, the sheer size of the site alone is striking.

Flores is a picturesque\ town outside of the historic site of Tikal. A small island on Lake Peten Itza, Flores is an experience in itself. Filled with budget hotels (from $5 a night), great restaurants, and even better shopping, it is fun to explore and small enough that you can cover the whole town in just a few hours.

Leave some time (and money!) for shopping here: textiles are beautiful and often hand made. Hammocks, blankets, etc... are all beautiful and much cheaper than in Belize, due to the fact that they are all made in Guatemala.

On the way from Flores to Tikal, this very small village is the other option for where to stay when visiting Tikal.

Although VERY small, it is beautifully situated right on the edge of the lake, and has a few cute lodging options in addition to a few stores and restaurants worth checking out.