We set our alarms at 3.30am for 4.30 pick up from our hotel to see the sunrise at Tikal National Park and Archaeological Site. We had been told that this is the best time to go, as it is cooler and less crowded, which increases your chances of seeing the local wildlife.

Last night we had realised that for the last few days we had been going through the wrong door to our hotel: instead of going through the customer entrance we had been going through the family entrance at the back, even ringing the bell to go through their living room! I don't think they knew enough English to tell us to go to the other door! Anyway, the point is we realised we didn't know which entrance our tour guide was picking us up from for our transfer to Tikal: cue lots of running down the side alley of the building between the two entrances to check the driver wasn't waiting at the opposite one! We started to think that maybe we had been stood up/ripped off by the man who had sold us the tickets, but the driver rolled up 35 minutes late - it turns out Guatemalan arrival times are just as flexible as those of their Belizean and Mexican neighbours!

We drove along in the twilight, past lush green forest and blue lagoons - one pool even had a tropical mist swirling over it! Driving through the small village of El Remate, there were huge domestic pigs just walking loose along the road side! It took just over an hour to get to Tikal National Park, so we arrived just after 6am. It was a good time to get there, as it was cool but the light was just right for Matt to get some really good photos. We had a four hour guided tour with an English-speaking guide called Ronaldo Gonzalez, who pointed out loads of interesting plants and animals to us amongst the Mayan ruins - we even saw a wild crocodile in a lagoon!

Walking amongst the Mayan ruins, we saw lots of spider moneys swinging through the trees, but we didn't stand underneath them, as apparently their favourite trick is to poo on the heads/faces of unsuspecting tourists looking up at them! We also saw a group of toucanets perched on the branches of a mahogany tree, and even a wild turkey hiding in the bushes. We saw a Mayan ruin from each type of architectural design in the park, and you could climb up many of the structures. It was so weird walking up a slope and seeing a majestic Mayan structure rising up from the jungle canopy. We climbed up the biggest structure in the park (Temple IV), which is also the tallest pre-Colombian structure still standing in the New World at 212 feet high. I forced myself to climb up there even though my head was spinning and it was worth it as the view from the top was incredible: you could see the other structures poking up from the jungle skyline.

As we got there so early, and it was so quiet, it was really quite eerie being in the park, especially with the roar of the howler monkeys in the distance. This, coupled with the fact that part of the site is called 'The Lost World' made us feel like we had spent the day in Jurassic Park rather than Tikal!