El Remate, Guatemala

As has become our preference, we decided to fly to Flores instead of suffering a long bus ride to Guatemala.
We based ourselves in El Remate and woke up super early to catch a mini-bus to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal. At the gate, we joined a tour and spent a few hours getting an overview of the main sites. Then, we spent time exploring the ruins on our own. It’s the start of the rainy season here so the crowds were not large. In fact, we walked to some of the more remote ruins and had them completely to ourselves
The ruins are impressive, especially the central plaza, for their architecture and remote, jungle location. John enjoyed seeing his memory of the Star Wars scene filmed here, come to life. Check out this clip

https://youtu.be/vVJbmQgt2kc

Many structures have been excavated and restored, but many others have been left buried by the jungle with no plans to uncover them (so that they won’t be further degraded by the rain/environment).
In addition to enjoying the ruins, there were lots of howler and spider monkeys around as well as toucans, woodpeckers, hummingbirds and other critters. By noon, we were absolutely soaked through with sweat, and ready to get out of the heat.
Even though we have a couple more stops coming up in hot, humid places and we enjoy the unique critters (especially the monkeys and birds) and sounds found in this environment, we decided, jointly, that we would not likely make plans to return to jungle environments. The heat, humidity, mosquitos, etc. are just not for us.Read more