Flores & Tikal Guatemala

On Friday, June 17th we headed to Flores, Guatemala with Jackie and Colin. After we had a pretty lame volunteer meeting at lunch, we took a crazy collectivo taxi from San Ignacio to the border town of Benque 11 miles away. This taxi was interesting in itself - it had a HUGE bullet hole in the front windshield that the driver had just fixed up with scotch tape! We got there safe and sound and crossed the border after paying the hefty departure tax in Belize. It is amazing how things change so quickly. Suddenly EVERYONE is speaking Spanish! Good thing we had Colin with us because he speaks it very well. Our classes here haven't paid off as much as we thought they would :)

Once we got into Guatemala, by crossing over the river, we searched for a collectivo mini bus to get us to Flores where we were going to spend the night. We found one and all got seats. Now I am talking about pretty much vans the size of those old VW ones that hippies used. On the 2 hour ride to Flores, we managed to squeeze 22 people in the van! It was insane and very cramped. When we were about 10 miles from Flores, our van got a flat tire and we all had to get out while they put on the 'spare' which was pretty flat as well. Guatemala is a beautiful country though!

We got to Flores which is a tiny island in a lake. It reminded us a lot more of a European city beause it had tiny cobblestone streets. We stayed at a beautiful hotel right on the lake side called Casado de la Isle which had a great pool. It was only $38 US too which was great since it was so nice! We went for a quick swim and then watched the sunset over another tiny island in the lake and enjoyed some of the GREAT Guatemalan beers. Such a nice change from the 2 beer selection in Belize - Belikin Beer and Belikin Stout. We went to dinner at La Luna which was awesome - such great decoration and so cheap! From there, we went up to the main plaza and enjoyed some coconut icecream cones and watched the local boys play pick up soccer on the basketball court. After all that, we enjoyed another swim in the pool and then crashed at 11pm since we had to get up at 4:15am to go to Tikal.

When we got up so early in the am, our wonderful hotel had no running water! Now all of you know how hard it is to wake Jim up in the morning - try 4:15am with NO SHOWER. Needless to say, we were sleepy. Good thing it was raining when we got outside and got a shower there. The collectivo bus was supposed to be there at 5am but it didn't get there till 5:30am. We were at Tikal by 6:30am. They say to get to the ruins early to enjoy the wildlife and avoid the crowds. The wildlife was one of the best parts of Tikal for me. We saw monkeys, parrots, tuacans, turkeys and tons of other crazy birds and insects. Tikal was amazing. Even though it was slightly raining, we were pretty protected under the rainforest cover. Tikal has some amazing temples you can hike up (on these crazy sketch wooden ladders) and enjoy some amazing views of the tops of the temples jetting out from the canopy of the rainforest. Jim and I hiked up El Mundo Perdido, all 72 massive stone steps, and enjoyed one of the best views I have ever seen. It was worth the trek up there! We enjoyed a little picnic up there as it had stopped raining and enjoyed watching all the parrots chase each other below us.

Once we got back to Flores after Tikal around 2pm, we decided we would head back to Belize because we didn't want to pay for another hotel and we wanted to be able to relax on Sunday. Jim and I showered in Jackie and Colin's rooms and then took off on our journey. Of course walking in the heat was made better by another $0.75 US massive coconut ice cream cone :) We had to hike way into the neighboring town of Santa Elena to track down a collectivo to the Border town of Malchor. It was crazy. We went into the center of town. Let's just say I think Flores was a diamond in the ruff. There were so many people, selling everything in every language! They wouldn't take no as an answer very well. We finally squeezed ourself into a collectivo and had to deal with some crazy people on the 2 hour trip back to Belize. We were so happy to get out of the cramped collectivo.

It very easy to cross back into Belize and we caught a taxi with exactly the $11 Belizian dollars we had left back to our house. It was nice to be home :) Guatemala is a beautiful country but there is so much trash everyywhere. People just don't respect their country. I want to say to them HELLO, tourism is your major revenue source and if you keep trashing your country, no one will want to come. Tikal was graffitted everywhere too which took away from some of it as well. It was fun though! We will hopefully get pictures online soon!