respectively, so if you want to see a portion of the
ruins that day, you would do well to take the earlier one. Departures back
toward Tikal and Santa Elena are at
6:00 and 6:30 AM. Getting to Uaxactún
The
two buses to Uaxactún arrive in Tikal at 3PM and 5:00 PM after leaving Santa Elena
two hours earlier. This is a change, in that there are used to be just one to and from Uaxactún each day.
These arrive in Uaxactún around 4 and 6
respectively, so if you want to see a portion of the
ruins that day, you would do well to take the earlier one. Departures back
toward Tikal and Santa Elena are at
6:00 and 6:30 AM.
I enjoyed the bumpy 10 Quetzal jungle chicken bus ride along the ancient causeway between Uaxactún and Tikal, but the only way to be reasonably sure of sitting down and enjoying it with a good view on the way to Uaxactún, would be to get on the 1:00 PM bus in Santa Elena. By the time it rolls into Tikal on its way north, it is most likely to be standing room only.
Leaving Tikal at 3
PM gave us enough
time on arrival to drop off packs at Campamento El Chiclero,
to tell the lady what we wanted for supper, to pick out our rooms
and to see the uphill ruins before dark. Had we been up to it, we could probably
have hustled over to the other ruin portion and at least seen a bit of them. We did also get to see the
small but impressive ceramics museum right where we were, so staying
at Uaxactún was a pleasant portion of this trip.
There is also at least one other place to stay in town, which is called Aldana's,
which also has camping. A small group of Europeans came in on the same bus
as we did and stayed there. We bumped into them at the site and their only
comment on it was that they would need to eat at the comedor. I also saw
something that suggested another place to stay on the southern edge of town, but
it seemed a bit far from everything for being useful, except in an emergency.
Though my view was quite limited on the way up, the next morning, I got an excellent
one of jungle before Tikal, much of it in Tikal Park and the rest is virtually undeveloped. We
took the bus back the whole way to Santa Elena, though obviously after going past
the park, there is a lot of evidence of settlement.
People could see Tikal over two days without staying in the park by heading to Tikal the first day, leaving a pack at the Visitors' Center for 1 Quetzal an hour, then taking the 3 PM bus to Uaxactún and spending the night there. People could then see some of the ruins there. In the morning, they would head back to Tikal early and get a good view of jungle along the way. When ready to return to Flores, they could hop one of the shuttles or buses back.
OR they could leave their things at their hotel in Uaxactún and see more of Tikal the next day and return again to see the rest of the ruins at Uaxactún. Then you could just take a morning bus all the way to Santa Elena and not have to bother with finding a shuttle.