After recovery from a 12-hour headache just days before, we headed out to a long-awaited sight on my bucket list, Tikal. It was amazing and deserves its own post, but it was a lot of walking, climbing stairs, and mood-management with the kids, for five hours in the heat. Needless to say, we were on a high from an amazing excursion but so very tired when we finished at 6pm.

We were headed to another home rental on Lake Peten Itza for two nights before our flight to Antigua; and, as instructed the day before, we stopped by the town near Tikal (El Remate) to get groceries for the next 30 hours. We also decided to pick up some food as neither Kapil nor I were in the mood to cook after a long day. All told, it was around 7:30pm before we headed to the lake house.

The sun was setting, and it seemed like we were on a beautiful adventure as we approached the lake and continued for 5-6 miles on a dirt/rock road towards a less developed jungle area. In talking to the property owner, I knew she would be waiting for us at the house. After some serious Google-mapping, we finally made it to the lake house. This is where the real story began (my thoughts at each moment are interspersed in italics).

Upon arrival, it was pitch black and we couldn’t figure out where the entrance was. Since I had overseen this booking, I volunteered to go down the steep driveway and try to find the owner. The owner was nowhere to be found and I kept going up and down steep, rocky steps with an iPhone torch. I called the owner and she instructed me to go down the stairs and she would be right over.

How the heck are we going to get luggage down these crazy rock stairs (and more importantly, back up again at 4am, 30 hours later)?

As I passed down the “main house” with holes in the screen and a thatched roof, I thought it was for the caretaker of the property (which is common for jungle-like rental properties) so I kept going. Then I found a separate unit with a master bedroom and bath (like the picture on the VRBO website—which will not be named) but NOTHING else....and several yards away there was another one of those.

WHAT??? Three separate structures in the middle of nowhere in the jungle? Ugh…that won’t work…crap, wait until Kapil sees this.

By then the owner had arrived. She was a young, single, European woman who was very nice. First she tried to say that she didn't know we were a family with kids, which she quickly revised when I reminded her that I gave her the link to our website and VRBO booking shows the number of kids. She, then, explained (at length) that lots of families had put their kids in the “main house” (with the bugs and no AC) and the parents stayed in the master unit (comfortably with AC). After explaining that such a set up would not work for us, she offered to put a mattress on the floor of the master unit and three of us could sleep in one unit and two could sleep in the other unit.

Um, who are these parents who selfishly indulge in glorious AC and leave their kids to be attacked by bugs in the humid heat? Geez, I guess we are super soft parents. Wait a minute…is she trying to make me feel guilty about my parenting style? Chill out, Aila, we don’t need your baggage to arrive here right now, we already have enough to deal with.

Ok—breathe and think.

We are so tired….I’ll make it work somehow. But, I don’t even want to sleep on the floor…so I don’t think I can sell it to the kids. Hmm, what if I move someone in the middle of the night to the floor? I wonder if there are spiders though….WAIT…hold on…wasn’t this US $150 per night? Oh, hell no! We are not even having a conversation of stuffing 5 people in a room (or two) and on the floor!

I told her that I was concerned about spiders since my kids were prone to bites and we were at the beginning of our yearlong trip. She replied, “No, no. We clean everyday. There was only one instance of a spider nest hatching and all baby spiders coming out in one night...but nothing other than that.”

Uh, WHAT?????? (Insert SCARED FACE EMOJI here)...we are so outta here.

That was enough for me. I told her that this would just not work, and certainly not at this price point.

Thank goodness the driver (and our Tikal guide) was still with us and suggested that he drive us to Flores where we could find a hotel for less than that price. We thanked him and drove an additional hour while the kids ate a snack-like dinner and passed out in the car.

Thank the Heaven above for Roberto and Christian.

What happened? I swear I did a good job researching this place. How did she not list that it was separate structures? I am going to have to give her some real feedback on how misleading her post is. I hope we don’t have other VRBO issues.

Kapil is going to have a field day with this one…

Flores was booming—literally! The place that had room for us was above a bar/club so the room shook. When Kapil asked how long this would go on they replied that the bar closed at 2am. Kapil was not having any of that. We drove/walked (streets were too narrow) to two more hotels and found that both were full.

I was just about to ask the driver to house us at his home (lol) when the driver learned of a place that could house us just for that night and then we could move in the morning and in that one, the bar/club was across the street, not underneath. I immediately agreed...$80 per night and breakfast was included! We thanked the driver, paid, and unloaded the bags.

We are so tired…thank goodness we can sleep. I don’t even want to eat anything, I am so tired. I’m glad at least Kaysee is asleep!

I got the key and then realized the number on the key indicated room “45”—on the fourth floor! I held my breath and asked if they had any elevators or (anticipating the answer) if we could store the luggage downstairs for the night! She confirmed that there was no elevator but that we could put all 5 luggage pieces next to her in her office!

Oh shit! We just climbed like every monument in Tikal, I can’t ask Kapil to go up and down four flights of stairs six times with luggage! Ok quick fix...I’ll get toiletries and a change of clothes and pack it in that spare REI duffel. THANK YOU ANESSA for suggesting a spare duffel—God bless you. Ok we are on an adventure!

We got up to the room (where our toilet flush was broken) and laughed ourselves to sleep…to the beats of the club next door!

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PS--The owner has since refunded us our money and graciously took the feedback that her description was misleading.