Visiting TIkal

Advice about visiting Tikal. Most visitors to Tikal seem to spend the night in Flores or in San Ignacio (or even further away) and come in by bus in the morning. They arrive about 10 AM, see what they can see over the next several hours, and then get back on their buses at about 3 PM and head home.

We spent the night in the park, and, if you can swing it, we’d recommend it highly. There are three hotels in the park and one of them even offers hammocks, so that staying can be very inexpensive. Spending the night means, first, that, during the hottest part of the day, you can eat lunch and relax. Second, it means that you get to wander around in the park from 7 to 10 in the morning and from 3 to 6 in the afternoon, when almost no one else is around.

The first time we were there, we got up at 4:00 AM for a sunrise tour. The mist that morning meant that we didn’t actually get to see the sun rise, but it didn’t matter. We were happy anyway. Waiting for the sun, we sat at the top of Temple IV, listening to the howler monkeys (very spooky) and the parrots (very, very noisy, raucous even).

When we went back to Tikal with Ben and Rachel, we all hung out at the top of Temple IV for a sunset. Because of clouds, we didn’t get to see that either, but again it was a joy to sit quietly above the tops of the trees, looking out over miles of jungle and nothing else, and listening to the forest sounds. Just us and a guard and only one or two other people around.