Sleeper bus to Santa Elena!

With our bones still jarring from the effect of the punishing boat ride across Lake Atitlan, we prepared ourselves for the next phase of our sojourn, the star Mayan attraction of Tikal. The driver of the shuttle made reassuring noises about the ride back east but still left the door open for unforeseen traffic conditions. The rest of the occupants of the van were headed for Antigua (a couple of young women were headed to Tikal but by a morning bus the next day). 
 
It was smooth sailing through rain and fog until we hit the dreaded Chimal traffic snarl. The driver was on the phone talking as he crawled behind the endless line of vehicles on CA-1 which at this point was just a main street in the town. Following the lead of a few cars in front, he suddenly swerved into the empty oncoming lane but after a few hundred yards turned left into the town and managed to get stuck again behind another line of cars. This cleared up after a few minutes and after getting an up close look at the citizens of Chimaltenango on their narrow streets we got a good look at the well lit Parque Central. 
 
Our driver seemed to know what he was doing as he kept maneuvering through the city streets before turning back and then crossing CA-1 to the other side without getting back on. Our trusty GPS units confirmed that this was a good strategy for Antigua as it lay a bit south of the highway. The driver kept relaying some information back to us assuring us that our transfer vehicle was waiting for us in Antigua.
 
After viewing one more Parque Central and crawling behind a super slow vehicle through an unpassable curvy road for an eternity, we reached Antigua at 7 pm with just 2 hours to go before our Tikal bus departure from the Fuente Del Norte bus terminal in Guatemala City. We were quickly deposited in a tour operator’s office and after exchanging a bit of money with the staff there, our driver left us at their mercy and took off. Fortunately, the staff spoke a little English and told us to wait a little for our shuttle to arrive and that there was plenty of time.
 
Traveling in a private shuttle dramatically reduces the travel time to just a little over half an hour as we discovered. With the drama and the slow speed of the Chicken bus the same ride took in excess of an hour when we did it ourselves on New Year’s Day. We got dropped off at the crowded FDN terminal at 8 pm and this proved to be a bit too early as it was a busy and noisy place swarming with people. The waiting room was adjacent to the ticket booths and we were just told to wait till we were called to board the 9 pm bus. Every arrival and departure of a bus filled the hall with the exhaust smoke of those buses as they squeezed into the narrow parking area (space only for 3 buses). 
 
The swanky looking Maya de Oro bus was a double decker with the lower level appointed with just a handful of luxury reclining seats. The upper level was First Class which also had reclining seats but less room between them. The bus pulled out on time and after an endless series of left and right turns got onto the highway. We quickly wolfed down our pre-packed supper (muffins and drinking yogurt) and reclined ourselves to sleep after the events of the day.
 
We were expected to arrive at our destination, Santa Elena at 5 am in the morning. The first available transportation to Tikal (67 km away) would be at 6 am from a nearby terminal. As it turned out, we arrived 15 minutes before schedule and awakened just minutes before. So you can see that this turned out quite different from our previous journeys on sleeper buses!
  
We got onto a taxi to get us to the terminal for Tikal departures. This turned out to be a tour operator's office. We bought tickets to Tikal and inquired about our onward travel to Belize two days later and were taken aback to be quoted a disproportionately high figure for the distance. We realized later that this was due to Tikal's remote location. We decided to postpone that decision and just get to Tikal.

More drama ensued with us first boarding a large bus and after a few minutes moved to a smaller van which did a half hour tour of the tourist island town of Flores picking up various people from their hotels before returning back for yet another vehicle before we made our eventual journey to Tikal. After paying the entrance fees at the park entrance, we arrived at Tikal at 8 am. We knew that we will get our fill of the dawn bird life the next morning so we proceeded to our Jungle Lodge and were delighted to be given our room right away instead of having to wait till the regular check-in time. We did not waste too much time before fortifying ourselves with a satisfying traditional Guatemalan breakfast and then heading out to see Tikal.

Tikal!