El Mirador - no Mirador - Tikal

... wake-up after 3 hours of non consistent sleep, giving a hug to Daniel who came down from Mexico to join for our great adventure to El Mirador. Jungle, animals, adventure and no lack of maladies were in the frame of our expectations ...

... leaving Flores into the north around 4:30pm we just arrived at a military checkpoint on the road ... while the commander had no issue to let us continue the elderly ranger in charge proclaimed religiously that we need a packe but it's no problem we can just go back to Flores buy a package for 400€/person and come back for a full 5 days trip another time and like that we don't need to go so fast and get a chef and some horses to carry out stuff ... after 10-15min trying to explain that there really exists a world outside of these packages I understood ... I could as well talk to a tree ... after we did some rounds in our merry-go-round game of "you just buy a package and get carriers, a chef, a guide and can walk slow" and "I don't won't horses carrying my stuff a cook preparing my meals and a guide leading me through the only and very obvious path and I really really don't have 5 days!" - I just ... gave up ...

... we turned the car and drove back into the sunrise ... after Daniel raised our mood with toast and marmelade we decided to make the best out of it and headed to TIKAL ...

... right at the entrance we encountered a group of coaty mundis ... payed our entrance fee and explored the excavation sides ... for an hour at least ... till we recognised the oppressive heat, lack of food and water and the rare sleep from last night made it not very enjoyable to work through piles of stones...

... we fell asleep in the gras after some tee surrounded by tourists and ancient pyramids...

... after our little nappy we decided to get a guide - what is a very good idea if you want to learn something about sone piles ... after some walky walky and a bunch of explanation we had another tee right at the top of the biggest pyramid while everyone else gathered at another pyramid to watch the sunset we had the rest of the park for ourselves...

... after we spotted some howler monkeys we got some local food and pitched our tent at the camp side next to TIKAL ...
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