21-22 September - Tikal and Mayan Ruins

We headed back to Antigua where Karen did the Volcan Pacaya climb, enjoyed it also. We seem to be taking it in turns to be sick.

We then caught an overnight bus to see the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Staying in a hostal completely cut from stone in El Remate, overlooking the glorious Lago de Peten Itza.

Yeah, a really impressive place, our guide even explained the Mayan calendar - the solar one with 19 months - and the ritualistic one with only 260 days - and that the mayan End of the World comes about in Dec 2012!




The most impressive part of Tikal wasn`t the temples etc, but that the view from Temple IV was the view used by George Lucas in 5 seconds of footage from the original 1977 Star Wars... the bit where a guard is looking through binoculars across the moon on which the rebels have made a base, and are about to launch their attack on the death star.

I´ll let Karen tell you more about the actual ruins themselves... she`s off going through the cave system near Coban today.