´I have an idea´says Emily ´Lets get out our travel hammocks and camp at the Tikal ruins, that will be fun´

So off we go with a slightly reluctant Dave (probably an age thing) on an afternoon bus to the famous Maya ruin site of Tikal in northern Guatemala equipped with our hammocks, mosquito nets, sleeping bags and lots of insect spray.

We arrive and find a campground full of drunken people who disperse after a while (which was nice) then we set up our hammocks.

Now this is the first time we have got these out of the packaging, probably not the best time to experiment as it is already getting dark and it this doesn´t work then we are homeless in the jungle!

After some fiddling we get things set up and just about manage to cover the hammocks in the mosquito nets to protect us for the inevitable onslaught on bugs (also there are crocs, two types of poisions snakes and tarantuas in this area).

So we are all set and ready to go. We then head off to use the campsite toilet and washing facilities and discover that the lights dont work (or the toliets) so we are fumbing around in the dark when two strange men appear and say we must pay 100 Quetzels for the campsite. Now this is what we have paid for our private double bedroom treehouse in Flores, so quite alot you may say for just as spot in a field. Emily used her best Spanish to debate this however they were not for turning. After paying up we suggested that working lighting and working toliets should be included in this price. Their response was ´Take it up with the Guatemalan government´ - Nice!

So off we go to our hammocks, it is now pitch back and bugs our out to play so we decide to call it a night as we are planning to be up a 5:30am to get into the Maya ruins.

So here is how the night went:

21:00 - Get in our hammock (lightning commences for the whole night)

23:00 - Finally fall asleep

23:45 - Get woken up to very loud roaring sound all around us, contant roaring and movement for a good hour or so. Now although startling, we already came across howler monkeys in Belize so luckly we knew what they were. It is an increadible noise and can be quite frightning (sounds like lots of angry dinosaurs surrounding you)

02:00 - Howler monkeys finally pass, night sky is completely clear. Lots of jungle noise, and still the whole sky flashes every 10 seconds or so

02:00 - 04:30 - Unable to get back to sleep so end up lying there in our hammocks and nets watching the night sky, Dave ends up watching the transit of the stars (never spent 2.5 hours looking up before!) and sees two massive metors burning up in the atmosphere.

04:30 - Finally fall asleep again

05:30 - Alarm goes off and the sun has come up

06:00 - Head off into the park feeling very tired!!

So an interesting night !

Was an experience, might leave it a while until we attempt it again.

However we did get the opportunuity to use all our cool equipment people brought us, not only the hammocks and mosquito nets, but also the ´travel john´ disposable toliet, super cool tiny towels and mosquito coils etc. Thanks all that brought these for us. We would of been in trouble without them!

So off we go into the Tikal National Park for some early morning Maya exploring.........