Flores, Guatemala

  Flores, Guatemala
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Guatemala here we come!!!
To all those in Musgraves... we´d like to say "Hello from the far car park!!"

Getting from Belize to Guatemala was a doddle. Got the water taxi to Belize City and from the marine terminal there a bus bound for Flores, Guatemala left within 20mins. They said that the bus journey would take us 4 hours, it ended up being 7 hours!!!!!
The border crossing was a breeze. Having being stung at the Mexican border there was no way that Sarah McGarry was going to let it happen again. The Guatemalan immigration officer wanted 20 Quetzals (about €2) off of us..... unfortunately we told him we didn´t have any money to give him... none... nada!!! He didn´t even question it... just stamped our passports and we went on our way!!! I know that €2 is nothing... but it´s the principal of it... its corruption !!!

01 At the Belize/Guatemalan Border

Once we entered into Guatemala the road turned into a mud-fest!!! PURE MUD for 30kms before hitting paved roads.... thank God it wasn´t raining, otherwise we´d have been sleeping on the bus, awaiting for a tractor to pull us out of the mud bath! When we got to Flores, the bus driver brought us all to the ATM machine and dropped us off at accommodation too.

Flores is a cool little town on an island in the middle of a lake, connected to the mainland by a causeway. The roads are all cobbled and the people are real friendly! Most people stay here for a day or so, using it as a base to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal in the middle of the jungle. We stuck around for 3 days and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere.

We decided to do the sunrise tour to Tikal, a 3.30am start!!!! When we got to the ruins, it was obviously still dark. After a bit of walking we climbed to the top of one of the temples to watch the sunrise and hear the jungle waking up. There were about 30 or so tourists sitting at the top of the temple with us. The guides told everyone to be as quiet as possible and listen out for the howler monkeys, the toucans, the parrots and all the other wildlife that lives in the jungle.

15 Floating above the jungle, oh... and some ruins

It was amazing..... you´d never guess what the loudest animal in the jungle was that morning.... THE F*CKIN HUMAN BEING!!!!!!!! The noise of people coughing, opening their bags (zzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppp), the turning on and then the turning off of digital cameras (beep, beeeeppp) and the absolute ignorant people chatting away to each other, we barely got to hear any of the animals.... I swear.... if I got my hands on them!!! Virtually everyone was sitting there with their digital cameras at the ready.... waiting for the "BIG MOMENT".... not realizing that they were IN the moment, listening to the animals waking up..... it´s not as if a flock of toucans are waiting stage left ready to fly in formation in front of the waiting cameras... bring in the monkeys!!! Annoying!!!! (Rant apology!)

Anyways.. when compared to the likes of Palenque, Tikal is only OK. The ruins are spread out over a wide area and you really do need a guide to lead you around. What is amazing though are the number of ruins that are overgrown by the jungle and the number of ruins that are in mid restoration, it really gives you an idea of how hard it actually is to A) build the monuments and B) to restore them!!! However, after seeing the ruins at Teotihuacan, Palenque, Chichen Itza and Tulum we were totally "Ruined" (pardon the pun) and maybe this was the reason that we were so negative about Tikal.

23 Christmas is coming!...Flores

So... our first impressions of Guatemala.... in terms of money and costs this place is the bees bollox!
This is the first destination on our trip so far that feels like REAL travelling... to be straight up.... WE LOVE IT!!
We´re gonna be here for Christmas... so we gotta love it!!!

Dinner in a restaurant: €2- €3
Local "Gallo" Beer: €1.50 (can be cheaper)
1 hour on internet: €0.80 approx
Double room with private bog and TV: €10 (you can get even cheaper!!!)

Next up.... Coban for a stop off before the colonial town of Antigua for the festive season.