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Ray: Flores, Guatemala - Tikal and tummybugs
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We´re in Guatemala, finally, and it´s wonderful. Right by the lake here in Flores, 20 plus degrees everyday. It´s fantastic! No time to think about school. Boy I miss it, NOT. Sarah and I were having tea last night at this restaurant on the lake. We watched the sun set, looked at each other and said - this is the life.
Mind you, the last week has been terrible. I got the dreaded tummy bug and couldn´t shake it. Even went to the doctor to try to sort it out and it worked. Cost us $3 US to see him. I think I got it drinking some made up cordial at a restaurant in Puerto Escondido. A beautiful beach side town that we enjoyed and thought we´d like to go back to. The bus trips to Oaxaca and San Cristobal were horrible because of the windy roads. Several hours worth. Even Sarah felt ill.
I spent one day in San Cristobal exploring then the tummy thing hit with a vengeance. 7 days later I´m back to normal eating. Pretty frustrating as you can imagine but nothing you can do about it. San Cristobal ended up being Sarah´s favourite place and she spent the days on tours, meeting other people, horse-riding, walking, seeing shows and of course shopping. She wanted to stay and look after me but I didn´t want the both of us to be absolutely bored out of our minds. She of course can´t sit still for 5 mins so it was good that she found things to do. She got sick herself after cooking herself a meal. 2 days she suffered so we are both a little more cautious with food and drink. Eventually we left San Cristobal and made the journey to Palenque. Yes, another windy road but I had different motion sickness pills that some American girls recommended. They seemed to do the trick.
Two days in Palenque where the weather was a little different again. San Cristobal was like, 2000m above sea level so it got pretty cold at nights. Palenque was very hot and extremely humid. We stayed at a good hotel with a pool. We caught another shuttle bus to the border and after a bit of official passport stamping and fee paying we lugged our gear down to the river and hopped into this little speed boat. The 30 min ride was awesome. A great way to travel. Thoroughly refreshing. We arrived in a small Guatemalan village and waited for the local bus driver to get back from a quick journey to the other side, Mexico. A huge group of 30 Dutch travellers had followed us over, obviously in a larger boat. They had their gear picked up by some of the local boys and had two buses ready and waiting. They were off quickly.
Eventually we too boarded our bus and embarked on a 4 hour ride to Flores. The road was unsealed so it was fairly bumpy but I was just glad to be on the move again. We got a flat tire about a mile out which was fairly amusing. The two drivers laughed their way through the whole process and we wondered whether they actually knew what they were doing but they did.
I slept a bit but I also enjoyed looking at the landscape and the small villages we passed. Certainly jungle territory but the roads were bone dry and dusty. The countryside was lush green and plenty of palm trees amongst it all. There were ranches too with cattle in the paddocks and men with cowboy hats riding around on horses. Seemed strange, incongruous with the jungle right next door. We also passed a little cemetery where the headstones and plots were adorned with rainbow coloured fabric so that it stood out from a distance. Beautiful vibrant colours too.
The road changed to tar seal about 2 and a half hours into the trip. A welcome change because of the dust.
The driver informed us that ATMs sometimes didn´t work and he´d do his best to get to one that did. 4 ATMs later we found one. Need Guatemalan money you know. Anyway, he also told us about Tikal, an old Mayan site in the jungle that most tourists ventured to. He told us that there was a sunrise tour that you could get at 3.30am and arrive in Tikal in time for a breath-taking sunrise. Well, we were in straight away never mind the fact we had got up early the last two days, 5.30am, now 2.30am for a 3.30 start. The bus journey the next morning took about 1 and a half hours. We walked at a good pace for 45mins into the jungle, yes, there were clearly marked and well used tracks. Up a lot of steps to the 4th temple so that we could take in the view. There were about 70 -80 people altogether from several other tours. We were told to be quiet and to enjoy the time. We heard howler monkeys in several different areas. Man they make a racket. We thought we heard a jaguar too, replying to the noise made by the monkeys. We saw several monkeys swinging through the trees just in front of us and heard different birds screeching. But, what we didn´t see was the sunrise because of the mist that covered the canopy and the sky. It was extremely disappointing not only for us but all the others that made the journey. We were told it was a great day yesterday which wasn´t useful to us of course and didn´t make us feel any better.
We spent the day there exploring and the sun did come out at 9am so we ventured back there a little later to see what might have been.
We lay in the sun after a little lunch, watching some locals playing a game of soccer. Apparently the jungle had a number of different animals including monkeys and jaguars, and snakes but we didn´t see them. No doubt scared away by the endless line of tourists that visited during the day.
Well, thats me. The plan is to move on to Belize then back into Cancun, Mexico - across to Cuba then Jamaica.
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| 12. | Ray: Flores, Guatemala - Tikal and tummybugs - Flores, Guatemala Feb 06, 2008 |
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