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In Guatemala I spent one day in Tikal. Tikal is a park in the middle of the forest with a lot of old Maya ruins. I've seen other Maya ruins earlier in Mexico, where I visited Chichen Itzá, but Tikal was absolutely a better place to visit.
I chose the early morning tour to Tikal, which meant that I was picked up at my hostel in the nearby city Flores at 4.30 in the morning. Then after 45 minutes in a bus we arrived to Tikal.
There are two ways to discover Tikal, with or without guide. I chose the guided tour, and I would definitely recommend that to other visitors, cause that's the easiest way to see as much of the area as possible. Furthermore our guide, Luis, was very familiar with the area, since he had been working there for 30 years, so it was very interesting to have him showing us around.
Around the ruins you see lots of animals like monkeys and different exotic birds. We even were lucky to see a huge tarrantel, which Luis (the guide) knew where and how to find. That was at the same time a nice and scary experience.
The ruins were huge and beautiful, and as it is in Guatemala there are no restricted security installations which - like the tarrantel - gives you both positive and negative. It was indeed a very authentic experience, but at the same time you got scared at some times, and especially at the top of ruin 5, the atmosphere among the visitors was very intense. Going up and down the incredibly steep stairway, people were singing songs to calm themselves down, and at the top everyone wanted to stay as far from the edge as possible.
Maybe the guide's story ten minutes before was part of people being afraid, too, as he told a story about a young German girl who lost her life falling down one of the ruins.
Anyway, the experience of Tikal was great all in all with beautiful nature, amazing ruins and lots of animals. I guess I was lucky though, cause it is possible to find yourself in Tikal in massive rain or in seasons with thousands and thousands of mosquitos.
To return to the comparison with Chichen Itzá in Mexico, I highly recommend Tikal. Because of the souvenir-salesmen-free-zone, because of the beautiful forest and animals, because of the better variety of ruins and because of the lower temperature due to the shadows from the many trees.
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