Crossing a River into Guatemala

It was 9:00pm when we bought our lancha tickets to take us to Guatemala. The boat headed the opposite direction to Yaxchilán and the ride was only about 30 minutes to Bethel, Guatemala.

The view of the jungles on both the Mexican and Guatemala sides were amazing.  The wind running through your hair, etc.

Our boat docked at the bottom of a steep sandy hill. A young Guatemala boy right away grabbed our two heavy luggage bags and managed to bring them both up to the tienda at the top of the hill. The walk up was fairly long.

Meanwhile, a lady was offering to exchange our Mexican pesos for Guatemala quetzales at a 2:1 exchange rate which seemed a bit high but I don't think she was robbing us. She led us to a blue shack at the top of the hill where she sold us the bus tickets for $100 quetzales. When I inquired about the 10am bus she explained that there had been a 10am bus, but when a bunch of tourists showed up direct from Palenque at 9am the 10am bus left with them on board. The next bus was to leave arrived at around 10:10am and was told it was our bus, but that it wouldn't leave for a couple hours when it was full.

Meanwhile, we settled into a set of hammocks and met a couple from Toronto and we talked on and off.

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At around 11am they let us on board the bus, the seats were large enough, but our knees touched the seat in front. It was 11:15am when we left bethel.

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Our bus stopped at a bank to allow the passengers to withdraw money. The driver had to put a rock underneath the wheels to prevent the bus from rolling away. Also because there were no buses going to Tikal the tourist guide called me a taxi which cost $400 quetzal.

I said goodbye to my friend and went off in the taxi. On the way the taxi driver had to put gas in the car, so he pulled into a bus station, stopped next to a gas pump, but left the car running. He exited the car while the attendant gassed up. All the while the car started rolling back a bit, about maybe 6 inches before the driver got back in the car. BTW, the interior of the doors have all been ripped out. The radio is missing, the engine runs very badly, otherwise the car is ok.

Within 15 minutes on the highway we run into a police traffic checkpoint. The police signs the driver to pull over. The driver provided the officer with his papers upon being asked. Almost right away the officer asked the driver where his papers were to operate as a taxi. The driver also didn't have a sticker on his windshield. 
Some interrogations ensued as they asked to check the trunk and under the hood. A few minutes later the supervisor appears obviously informing of the driver's need for the papers and sticker to operate as a taxi. Of course the drivers excuse was that the car belonged to Miguel.

I didn't know if I was going to need to call another taxi. Or if I'd left stranded on the side of the road.

It wasn't long when the driver returned to the car. Obviously, not happy with the potential situation I asked him, "¿estamos bueno?" his answer was a grouchy yes.

Otherwise the travel to Tikal was quite smooth, except for the smell of gasoline emanating from the car. And somewhere along the way the driver had to slow down to fix the passenger's door which wasn't well latched.

At one point I think we must have been travelling at about 100km/h, so I checked the car's speedometer and it still read 10km/h.  So either the speedometer was broken or they go by a different metric here.

The driver, oddly enough, hocks the horn at everyone we pass by.

It was around 5pm when we entered the jungles of Tikal national park. Along the way to the hotel, about every kilometre or so was an animal crossing sign of a different animal, such as: turkey, snakes, deer, monkeys, some kind of large cat species, etc.

I finally arrived at the hotel Tikal Inn at 5:30pm after some walking due to the reconstruction of the parking lot with locking bricks. As I walked into I meet one of the people who works there who guided me to the reception where the man told me that electricity was turned off after 4pm; I'm assuming due to renovations elsewhere.

During check-in first thing I was told is that my name was on the list for the 4am tour the next morning. After some debating with myself accepted the fact that I'd have to get up earlier to meet everyone at the front desk.