Tikal

A kind of hot night for me last night as I woke up at 230 am and turned the AC thermostat up to save battery power. Plus, with the border crossing I had some stuff on my mind. We made it to the border in less than 30 minutes and paid $20 usd for each adult for exit visa from Belize. The kids did not need to pay. I exchanged my Mexican pesos and Belizean dollars for quetzals with the money changers that gave me a horrible rate. I turned in my vehicle importation permit for the RV and drove through the decontamination spray to enter Guatemala which cost $5.50 usd and turned my tires green-blue colored. It was free to get our visas for Guatemala but then it took an hour to get the vehicle importation permit. They wanted a copy of my driver's license, registration, title, passport, and Guatemalan visa stamp. They won't make a copy of the visa stamp even though they have a scanner copier. I guess you go to their kickback shack across the street to get it done. Fortunately I have a scanner copier in the RV. Even still, the lady said the system was slow and I sat for 30 minutes at least. I was the only one there. Maybe this is how they use the expediters to get more kick back. I had to pay 160 quetzals but they kickback shack took 40 quetzals commission. This is around $28.50.  After two hours at the border, we were through. Christine and the kids had a nice homeschooling morning session in the RV while I did the paperwork. The Guatemalans did not care about our fruits. Only Belize cares about fruits and vegetables.

At Melchor de Mencos on the Guatemalan side, we stopped to buy fruits and vegetables and find an ATM and fill up water. I had to use the water pump to get water, which, as it turns out, makes filling water much easier than looking for a water purification place and hoping they have a fitting that is compatible. Water is about $1.40 for a 5 gallon bottles.

Fried chicken and fries, on every corner, is about $2 and comes with tortillas. They offer ketchup, mayonnaise, and hot sauce. I remembered enjoying the fried chicken when we were in Guatemala 14 years ago. We almost made the mistake of buying plantains instead of bananas. The yellow plantains look similar to bananas.

From the border we had a slow drive with pretty skies and forest scenery to Tikal, or Yavin, for you Star Wars nerds.  We had been here before, but wanted to show the kids even though it was hot and humid and we would all be miserable. Best to get this out of the way since we were in the neighborhood. We already skipped out of Chichen Itza and Tulum ruins.

Tikal are some of the best Mayan ruins and cost $21.40 per adult. We got to the entrance at 1pm and put on the bug repellent and brought hydrocortisone cream and soaked our shirts to help cool off for the hike. Most people arrive in the morning to stay cool, and hardly anyone was there in the afternoon heat.

We headed off to Templo 4 which lead down a 20 minute dark wet forest hike and the floor was algae covered stones and was slippery and buggy. The kids were not excited.

From there we headed to the Gran Plaza and climbed Templo 2. Finally the kids were impressed. They explored and climbed parts of the complex that they were allowed to. Finally after an hour or so we headed back to the RV. There are campsites at the entrance but we wanted to cool off and there was a lake we had passed with campsites and a restaurant and hotel with a nice pool.

El Muelle hotel and restaurant was a little family resort on the lake with a nice stone lined entrance into the lake and shaded hammocks and a dock, which is what "muelle" means in Spanish. Some of the comments on ioverlander put it down because it is pricey but they probably don't have kids with them and they are probably looking forsomething free. We were charged $14 per adult to camp. The kids were free. I dumped out cassette toilet and we went for a dip.

As soon as Christine went into the lake it started to rain so we went to the pool. Most of the guests scattered when it started raining but we happily jumped in. The water was warm and we washed off our sweat. When the lightning was overhead, we got out to go to the restaurant and had dinner. It was a nice tropical downpour. It was forecasted to rain until midnight.

Dinner was great. I shared beef fajita with Ellie who loves steak. Ellie shared spaghetti Bolognese with Dd who had two rolls with butter. Christine had chicken vegetable soup with a side of rice. Dd was grounded from soda for a month after acting crazy at Caye Caulker so I got Ellie lemonade and Dd had strawberry drink. The price came to $44. Not cheap, but a lot of food and it was a nice place. There was actually a gift shop with normal tourist junk: mugs, baseball caps, postcards. Christine bought some postcards. After dinner we retreated to the RV and peeled off our wet clothes and tried to last as long as we could without ac, which was less than an hour. Tomorrow we start the long drive to Antigua. It may take us a couple days.