A Trip To Tikal

Travel & Shit

Absolute rookie error, in all my research I didn’t catch that the ticket office was 17 kilometres from the actual site. When we arrived the colectivo driver asked us if we’d bought tickets online and because we hadn’t we had to get out, buy them, then wait for the next colectivo. The queue was quite big at that time, we arrived at 6am and this seems to be the time that the tour groups rock up. The next colectivo driver waited for the two tourists on board but to be fair there was no queue. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20 so if you’re jumping on the 5.30am from El Remate then buy online. Yes, there’s a small charge if you’re paying with a foreign card but this is less than the cost of catching two colectivos. If you’re getting on the 6.30am from El Remate then either buy online anyway or hope the driver is nice enough to wait for you at the ticket office. You’ll need your passport too in order to buy tickets and thankfully I did know this or I might have just sat down and cried like the drama queen I am.
There’s a small shop selling drinks and snacks and a restaurant which was open for breakfast so you’re not in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. A guide offered a tour in English for US$20 per person here too which is cheaper than the guides at the site who quoted us US$75 for both of us, he didn’t have transport though so you’d still need to wait for the bus.

Can we all just take a minute to appreciate this massive cock?

We did think about taking a guide but unfortunately I don’t retain information these days. As soon as a guide tells me something it goes in one ear and tumbles unceremoniously out the other. We decided to just buy the Q25 map and use the info in the Lonely Planet to get around which worked for us and it meant we could collapse in the shade any time we wanted to.

This is a beast of a ceiba tree. The Mayans believed it was the tree of life with the branches stretching up to heaven, the home of the gods, and the roots delving down into Xibalba, the underworld, the home of the dead. The truck represents life here on earth.
We saw loads of coatis snuffling around the place. A guide said they were pests but he’s obviously never been to Iguazu Falls, these guys were the epitome of polite compared to the thieving bastards there.
Templo VI, Temple of the Inscriptions. So called because it has the history of Tikal inscribed onto its roofcomb (the top sticky up bit) in hieroglyphs. It’s right out in whoop-whoop, this one. Don’t be too devastated if you miss it, you can barely make out the inscriptions these days.
Palacio de las Acanaladuras. Palace of the Grooves. So called on account of the grooved vertical panels surrounding the inner courtyard. It was residential and has bedrooms with built in beds which look about as comfortable as a punch in the mouth.
Templo V. Apparently the first great temple built in Tikal, in 600AD, by the 22nd ruler of Tikal who went by the name of Animal Skull. Mayan leaders were metal as fuck. This temple has rounded edges which I think looks awesome, but look how terrifyingly steep that staircase is! Ancient Mayans were absolute lunatics. If you look closely at the bottom of the steps you’ll see a lesbian for scale.
Templo II, Temple of the Masks. It was built by Jasaw Chan K’awiil as a mortuary monument to his wife which is kind of sweet. If Tarrant outlives me and doesn’t build me a fucking pyramid I’m going to haunt the shit out of her. You can climb up this one for cracking views of Templo 1 and the Gran Plaza.
Templo II’s roofcomb.
Templo II from the Acrópolis del Norte.
Templo I, Temple of the Grand Jaguar. King Ah Cacao (In modern English, Ooh! Chocolate! (Obviously I made that up)) is buried here. It’s thought he might have drawn up the plans but it was his son and heir, who succeeded him in 734AD, who built it over his tomb. He was found with stingray spines which were used for blood letting because ancient Mayans were not to be fucked with, jade, pearls and carved bone. As seen from Templo II.
Templo I
Acrópolis del Norte. Really fucking old, even by ancient Mayan standards. There’s evidence that people were here as far back as 600BC. They just kept building on top of older structures until 800AD when it ended up with twelve temples, mostly curtesy of Ah Cacao.
There was also this fuck off great big wall mask.
The Acrópolis Central seen through the ball court. They’d play a game here involving keeping a ball off the floor with their arms, legs and thighs. Loser gets sacrificed. I can’t see there being any major, intercity leagues for this.
Acrópolis Central. A complex of loads of rooms that might have been residential, but only for posh folks. Some think the tiny rooms were used for rituals but royal palace apparently makes more sense as rooms were altered, perhaps to accommodate changing families.
We climbed up some steps and this little monkey face poked around the corner. We stared. It stared. It came around the corner and I backed the fuck away because I remembered the macaques at the Monkey Forest in Ubud. Then he stood upright and walked around us like a fucking human whilst making eye contact and daring us to do something about it, then rapidly scarpered and joined its mates who were making their way along the ruin below us.
Plaza de los Siete Templos. Basically a huge plaza with seven temples down one side and three administrative centres down the other. On another side there’s a triple ball court which is unique to this complex but it’s not been excavated so it’s basically four piles of dirt and trees.
Perdido Mundo. Lost World. Obviously this set Tarrant off singing the Jurassic Park theme tune. You can climb up the big pyramid for some excellent views towards the Gran Plaza and Templo III.
The aforementioned view from the Perdido Mundo pyramid. There’s something so wonderful about Mayan ruins poking out through jungle canopy. That’s Templo IV over yonder.
Templo III. Temple of the Jaguar Priest. Only the top bit has been cleared. You can’t see it from the floor on account of the trees but it does poke out above the canopy so you can see it from Perdido Mundo and fuck whatever your legs have to say about any of it.
Templo IV. The tallest structure at Tikal at 65 metres, it was built by Yax Kin, the son of Ah Cacao. You can climb it in the bastard heat if you like. It’s actually very much worth it. They’ve put wooden steps in so you’re not dragging yourself up ridiculous Mayan steps built for people who consist entirely of legs. This is the view from the top.

We’d bought the extra tickets for the museums but they weren’t really worth it so we fucked it off in favour of buying tacky magnets. As we were heading to where we were dropped off to wait for the local colectivo a bloke got our attention and convinced us to get in his air conditioned van. It suddenly became abundantly clear how I’d be abducted and murdered. Puppies are so 1990, just offer me AC and I’m there. To be fair he was giving us the same price as the local transport and we didn’t have to sweat to death whilst being pressed uncomfortably close to strangers so yeah. Calling today a win.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”


Parque Nacional Tikal, Petén, Guatemala

Stayed at: Guesthouse Posada Ixchel, El Remate

Guesthouse Posada Ixchel. We very much enjoyed our little patio once we were doused in DEET. The woman who runs it is really lovely and gives you all the info for getting to Tikal including the link to book online. We had our own bathroom and our room was spacious. There’s a kitchen you can use with free drinking water. Great place to stay close to everything.

Useful shit to know…

How To Get From San Ignacio, Belize To El Remate, Guatemala

  • You can take a bus to Benque but it’ll drop you around 1.5 miles from the border apparently, then you need to take a taxi from there.
  • It cost us BZ$2.50 each to get as far as Xunantunich and that’s not far from Benque so it won’t cost much more. I don’t know how much the taxi would be for the last little bit.
  • We opted for the easier option of a taxi all the way to the border.
  • You have to look for the ones with BVO written down the left hand side of their green licence plates.
  • We were told it should cost between BZ$5 and BZ$8 per person. Our guy charged BZ$7 per person. It took about 25 minutes.
  • The border crossing is a piece of piss. On the Belize side you hand over your passport and US$20 or BZ$40.
  • They give you a receipt and you go to a second window to get your exit stamp.
  • Cross over no man’s land. It’s not obvious, just keep walking. You’ll be approached by taxi drivers and money changers. We were offered a better rate for our US dollars here.
  • Once you find immigration (the cambio guys will direct you in) you get your stamp.
  • That’s it. No question asked. Guatemala gives no fucks as long as you’re entering from a non-CA4 country or you have time left on your CA4 visa.
  • Walk for, like, 300 metres or something, over the river, then take a left turn to look for the microbúses to Flores.
  • Tell them you want to get down at El Cruce for El Remate and they’ll drop you in the right place.
  • It cost Q40 each and took an hour and 40 minutes including a ten minute stop in town to get more passengers.
  • We were dropped on the road heading towards Tikal. It was just over 2km to our hotel so fuck walking that in this heat. We waited a short while for another microbús.
  • This cost Q10 each (way too much) and took mere minutes. We were dropped right outside our hotel.

Things To Know Before You Visit Tikal

  • To get to Tikal from El Remate you can wait anywhere along the main road and flag any colectivo with Tikal written in the window. It costs Q30 to go all the way to the site.
  • We were told that on Sundays public transport is irregular and sometimes only the 5.30am colectivo will go to Tikal.
  • They generally pass through at half past the hour. There’s no point in catching anything earlier than the 5.30am as the ticket office doesn’t open until 6am.
  • It took just over half an hour to get to the ticket office but he did stop to buy breakfast.
  • The ticket office is 17 kilometres from the site. If you’ve not bought your ticket online you’ll need to get out here and buy them.
  • Our driver wasn’t going to wait which is fair enough, it took a while. He charged us Q25.
  • This seems to be when all the tour groups from Flores buy their tickets so there was a bit of a queue but not ridiculous.
  • Foreigners need to show their passport to buy the tickets.
  • It cost Q150 each, plus Q30 for the museums which aren’t really worth it.
  • We waited for the next colectivo which passed by just after 7am. He waited for the two foreigners on board to buy their tickets.
  • It cost Q15 each to go the rest of the way.
  • We were offered a guide for US$20 each whilst we were at the ticket gate. The guide at the site quoted us US$75 for both. Apparently there are group tours for Q100 each but I don’t know how you’d get onto one of those.
  • The site is huge! There’s shade in the form of trees should you need it and there are three places with toilets and people selling snacks and cold drinks nearby.
  • Information boards exist but they don’t tell you a lot. You can buy a map for Q25 which also has a tiny bit of info. We used Organic Maps to get around and the Lonely Planet for information. If you do want a guide I think a tour from Flores would be the most cost effective way.
  • There’s no phone signal at Tikal.
  • To get back to El Remate we just headed to where we were dropped off but a guy offered us a ride in his tourist shuttle for the same price as the local colectivo (Q30) so we went with him.

8 thoughts on “A Trip To Tikal”

  1. Hi! Thank you for all the info, your blog is very helpful! How often does the colectivo drive from El Remate to Tikal? Where is the bus stop? Thanks in advance

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    1. Hi mate, they’re hourly apart from on Sundays. When we were there which was 2023 they came through around half past he hour, but we were told that on Sundays probably only the 5.30am one would go to Tikal. There’s no bus stop really, you can flag a colectivo down anywhere along the main road. Do double check these details with your accommodation in case anything has changed in the last couple of years 😊

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  2. Hi, thanks for the great post with useful information. What would you say is a realistic time to expect to be back in Tikal/El Remate if doing a day trip?

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    1. Hi Lewis, I think we were back in El Remate around mid-afternoon. I know I have a photo of me petting a dog at our hotel at 3.30pm that day 😀 We did get to Tikal very early though, just as the ticket office opened. I’d definitely recommend getting your ticket online if you’re going independently, you won’t need to get off the colectivo at the gate then.

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  3. Absolutely loved your writing style, so informative and straight to the point with a pinch of sassy talk 🤭
    We are planning our trip to Tikal and this answers most of my questions. Will probably stay in the same guesthouse but not sure if we should book the place in advance as few people recommended just show up and book directly with owners.
    My wife is archeologist so definitely interested in a guided tour. Did you have an option to book one directly from the ticket office (like official guide) or was it a choice of private guides waiting before the gates?
    Happy travels and keep the cool blog running

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    1. Hey mate, we did book in advance as there aren’t loads of places to stay, but also there weren’t many other people staying there. August isn’t a super busy time though, I’m not sure what it’d be like in the high season. As for a guide, we were offered one at the gates near the ticket office for $20 each, and once we were at the ruins we asked for an English speaking guide but we thought $75 was a bit much. There weren’t a lot of guides though. We expected to be descended on but only one guy offered and we had to ask around once there. If I were to do it again I’d probably stay in Flores and do one of the group backpacker tours. They’re a lot cheaper. But you might get more information if you go with a private guide rather than traipsing around with 20 backpackers 😊

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    1. Hey mate, we must have spent four or five hours there. If you just want to look at the pyramids that’s all pretty flat and easy to walk around. If you want to climb them and you don’t have mobility issues you can just take your time. They’ve built proper steps, you don’t have to haul yourself up huge, uneven Mayan steps. Of course there are parts where you CAN do that but you don’t have to. I think you can have a good experience there regardless of your fitness levels.

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