El Remate - Relaxing beside the lake

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  El Remate, Guatemala
Sunday, October 19, 2008

Our journey from the Mexican border to Guatemala was the longest yet. We passed into Belice in the early hours of Tuesday morning and continued to drive until we reached Belice City, the old capital. It was strange to hear people speaking English again, especially the pigeon English the locals were talking. The place had a rough edge to it and I was glad we wasnīt spending the night. As we traveled further west, towards the Guatemalan border, the landscape changed from swamp to jungle. What struck me most of all about Belice was the houses which were mainly old wooden structures on stilts and painted an array of bright colors. The people love their music and wherever we stopped it seemed like someone was always having their own little street party. We reached the border in the early afternoon and so our Belice encounter was brief but fun.
The border experience was fun, with all the money changers fighting for your attention and all the locals selling their goods. It really did feel like we had finally arrived in Central America. This was raw, this was the Central American way of life. We are currently in El Remate, in northern Guatemala, staying in a great hostel overlooking a beautiful lake. This is the first time in a long time we have been able to fully unwind and we are enjoying it very much. We have been here six days now and are finding it hard to leave. Our hostel room is raised on stilts and from the open windows we get a lovely view of the lake and surrounding jungle. I would love to own a place like this. I could picture myself and Mish running something similar, enjoying the quiet life.
Just up the road from where we are staying is Tikal. We visited the ruins yesterday and were blown away by them. The temples creep high above the jungle canopy and when we finally made it to the top of temple 4 and 5 we were rewarded with an outstanding view of the other ruins and surrounding jungle. It was from one of  these very temples that a scene from Star Wars was recorded, back in the 70īs, where you see a rebel soldier standing on top of one of these temples, surveying the surrounding jungle. Naturally, being the Star Wars geek that I am, I had to get a picture of me doing the same thing on top of the same temple. Itīs sad, but for me it will remain a highlight of my trip, haha. While walking around the ruins we managed to spot a few different species of monkeys, many types of tropical birds and a few rather strange looking mammals and some nasty looking spiders. We had to tread carefully because the beasties were everywhere. This was a whole different ball game in a truly wild jungle setting.
Guatemalan people are very friendly, most things are very cheap and the food we have eaten so far has been very nice. We are going to head south tomorrow, but on our way will will stop off at Flores, a small island, further up the lake. Itīs pretty in a built up kind of way but we will probably just mooch around for a while before getting a bus south towards central Guatemala. Iīm looking forward to a few weeks traveling around on the notorious chicken buses, cheaper, but somewhat more dangerous than the Mexican buses. I think we are gonna have a lot of fun with these old rust buckets.

XX

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I think I see a spaceship...	Local boy fishing on Lago Peten Itza	Main plaza temple	Temple 5
Temples in the jungle mist	The Massassi Outpost on the 4th moon of Yavin.	View from our dorm

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