An old Mayan cultural center over 4,000 years old - One of the great centers of the Mayan civilization, buried deep in the jungle.
(Open daily 0600-1800, US$19 per day, payable at the national park entrance, 18 km from the ruins (park administration, T7920-0025). An overall impression of the ruins may be gained in 5 hours, but you need at least 2 days to see them properly. If you enter after 1600 your ticket is valid for the following day. If you stay the night in the park hotels, you can enter at 0500 once the police have scoured the grounds. This gives you at least a 2-hr head start on visitors coming in from Flores. At the visitor centre there is a post office, which stores luggage, a tourist guide service , exchange facilities, toilets, a restaurant and a few shops that sell relevant guidebooks. Take a hat, mosquito repellent, water and snacks with you as it’s extremely hot, drinks at the site aren’t cheap and there’s a lot of legwork involved.)
With its Maya skyscrapers pushing up through the jungle canopy, Tikal will have you transfixed. Steep-sided temples for the mighty dead, stelae commemorating the powerful rulers, inscriptions recording the noble deeds and the passing of time, and burials that were stuffed with jade and bone funerary offerings, make up the greatest Maya city in this tropical pocket of Guatemala.
