What a great decision this was, avoiding Flores and staying in the significantly more chilled-out village of El Remate. El Remate is a small roadside settlement on the shores of a huge lake, about 40 kilometres closer to the Mayan temples of Tikal than Flores – the usual Tikal stopover.
I just spent my time here (in between visiting the Tikal temples) swimming off the jetty in the photo above, wandering around the lake shore with wild horses, and listening to the howler monkeys from the nearby bio-reserve.