Suzanne here... So on to Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state. The bus journey there was fine, and we then caught a local bus from the bus station heading into town, or so we thought. After about 30 minutes I started to wonder. In fact, I started to wonder if we were even in Guadalajara. We´d presumed we were as everyone had got off the bus, but I´d not actually seen any signs confirming it... None of the road names matched up with our map. How bloody stupid were we going to feel if we were in completely the wrong town? Luckily the road names matched up at last and we reached the city centre. Turned out the bus station was 9km from the centre and well off our map. We wasted time looking around for ... read more

Suzanne here... It took four hours to get to Puebla from Oaxaca, on a nice comfortable bus. The price of bus travel here still smarts, but you do get more luxury. The bus station was way out of town so we confidently got a local bus to the centre. We assumed that lots of people would get off at the centre, or at least that it would look like a centre. Failing that bus drivers usually give you a shout. Well we waited and waited and... you get the picture. By the time we were the last people on the bus we realised that something had gone wrong. Yes, we'd totally missed our stop. The first time that's happened. Oh well, we got on another bus going back the way we'd come. Unfortunately, our bus driver ... read more

David here... We got up early and headed straight to the bus station in Corozal to jump on a bus to Chetumal in Mexico. We arrived at the border after about 30 minutes and got through the Belize departure very quickly, paying B$37.50 each to leave the country. We then got back on the same bus that had waited for us and got taken to the Mexico border. The queue here was massive. We got our FMM form from an official at the front of the queue and then walked round to the back of the building and the end of the queue. We filled out our arrival cards and waited...and waited...and waited. In all, it took about 90 minutes to get through into Mexico and by that time, our bus had already left. We jumped ... read more

Suzanne here... We arrived in Belize City early afternoon and could have made it straight over to Caye Caulker. We thought about it, BC has got a bit of a bad reputation. Still, we thought we´d stay a night and see for ourselves and pick up some shopping we needed. We found a hotel and then wandered around the town. Hmm. Not the prettiest place, and I lost count of the number of times people tried to sell us drugs or ask us for money. We´ve been asked for money all around the world. As tourists we´re obviously seen as rich, and poor as we might feel at times, relatively speaking we usually are. I totally understand people asking for money, but we made a conscious decision not to give on the street, but rather to ... read more

Suzanne here... Few people come to Guatemala without visiting the main tourist attraction of Tikal. However, for a while it seemed that we'd do exactly that. A State of Emergency was declared in the area after a massacre by a Mexican drug cartel. The UK Government were advising against visiting the area, and anyway we've tried to avoid being massacred on this trip. When we got close enough that we had to make the decision Peten was still under emergency measures. However the Government were no longer advising against going and the police and military presence had been dramatically increased. We're not foolhardy and we don't take our safety lightly but we decided that actually, with the extra measures in place, it was probably a safer time than ever to see the area. For a chance ... read more