After a long, arduous day of traveling via bus from Bacalar, I arrived in Flores. Flores is an incredibly small island in the middle of a lake. It’s possible to walk the whole city in an hour or two; it’s really just a stopping of point to go see Tikal.
After I arrived, I managed to message my hostel, which was located on the other side of the lake, so that I could call the shuttle/ferry to pick me up. This wouldn’t have been so hard with phone data, instead, I used wifi at another hostel and found out where to get picked up and met the boat there.
The next day I went to Tikal. I took a bus there and was joined by two German girls who I met at the hostel. It wasn’t so hard to get there, although upon arrival I realized I had lost my ticket. The strange thing is, however, that our “guide” had left to go gather more groups and pawned us off on others. Me, not having a ticket, was left stranded trying to figure out what to do. Luckily, I ran into my old guide about 20 minutes later.
In a place like the states, it might have been easy to prove that I had bought a ticket. In this case, I had bought my ticket at the airport to avoid the line, and the park entrance is 17 km away from where you could buy a new ticket.
Anyways, after talking to the guide, I realized that I was shit out of luck. The guide suggested that I could sneak in if I hugged the ropes off to the side and avoided the gaze of the guards. So, that’s what I did. I made it in through the gate by standing in the middle of the group, where I’d try to stay for the remainder of the day. I even put on a rain jacket, despite sweltering humidity, under the guise of protecting from mosquitos but really covering up my bare wrist, which didn’t have the entrance bracelet. I guess it made the day more exciting. However, the ruins didn’t need help, as they are staggeringly impressive and stand high above the rainforest canopy, offering a nice climb and view from massive stone temples of old.
Don’t worry, I made it back alright, despite not having a ticket. My bus driver, Pablo, remembered me but made fun of me a bit for having lost both tickets (which obviously I had been holding together) My guide even bothered to escort me out of the park, so we would be low key.
After I returned, I walked Flores to enjoy a little festival that was going on. There was a little fair up on the top of the island, where there is a basketball court and little center. There were food and beer tents with some assorted games and vendors. There was a band playing what seemed to be covers (since people knew the words) but they weren’t very good. Not a festival for me to hang at, I headed back to the hostel to sleep and prep for the long windy road to lanquin, the city nearby semuc champey.