“The people have been located, although slightly dehydrated, and have been stabilized,” Gustavo Ara, regional director of the Volunteer Fire Department in the department of Petén, near the border with Mexico and Belize, told AFP. The individuals identified as tourists were Ana Gretel Adelaida Haeussler Pivaral, 40 years old; Patricia Haeussler Porras, 68 years old; Valentin Christian Arnau Carpentier Haeussler, 6 years old; and Antony Cedric Patrick Carpentier, 41, according to a statement issued by the Guatemalan Tourism Institute.
These visitors got lost last Wednesday in Tikal National Park, a prominent Mayan archaeological site in Guatemala. Ara explained that the four individuals were found in the same park, at a distance of approximately 5 kilometers from the central archaeological zone of the complex, which is located between the municipalities of Flores and La Libertad, in the department of Petén.
Images provided by relief teams showed tourists being assisted in vans and ambulances before being airlifted to Guatemala City, the country’s capital. Tikal Park is located more than 500 kilometers north of the Guatemalan capital. With its impressive collection of pyramids and temples, Tikal has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 and is located in the remote province of Petén, a region where groups linked to drug trafficking operate.
It is not the first time that a similar situation has occurred in this park. In January 2022, a German tourist named Stephan Baitz, 53, was found dead in the same park after spending two days missing after separating from the group that accompanied him.