The next stop of my Guatemala trip was Flores, a beautiful small and sleepy town on an island in a lake. From there we went to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. If above picture looks somehow familiar to you it might be because George Lucas decided to use Tikal as a filming location for his 1977 movie Star Wars: A new hope. We left Flores at 4:30 AM to avoid the crowds and got to Tikal about two hours later. It’s my second visit there and thanks to the guided tour I got a lot more background info and animals to see this time.

Marissa was a particulary fond of the howler monkeys. They actually do howl quite a bit. The Spider monkeys are quieter. Neither of them threw feces on us though. Also got to see a large spider, a tucan, aoatimundis and wild turkeys.