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Published: July 30th 2009
Flores, Guatemala. A touristy island many stop at on the way to Tikal or Belize. It’s very quiet and nice view with a lake surrounding, but very expensive and catering to tourists. On one street is all of the souvenir vendors who sell the same items (shirts, postcards, handbags, small crafts or Central America memorabilia) for comparably the same prices, though a few shops you can get them to barter the price down a bit. To get here, we took a ‘luxury’ bus across the border, just needing a stamp and passport check to cross, easy enough. Then we took a bus to the town of Santa Elena where we took a 5 minute drive in a tuk-tuk to Flores. Flores is an island connected to the mainland by a road bridge. The roads are being constructed by cement and carefully placed brick and I imagine in a few years will be a luxury spot for vacationing tourists. The hostel we planned to stay at was booked up (luckily) but we did eat there and discovered it was full of annoying tourists and the adjoining restaurant had rude waitresses making us wait over an
Flores
Guatemalan Island inside a lakehour for our food. The milk shakes were really good, although overpriced. And the food was pretty good and big portions, but all vegetarian.
The first site we saw here was “Cueva de la serpiente” which is a really nice cave that has many passage ways leading to the same places, pretty easy to get lost in, but lots of fun to walk around in. The following day we took a bus early morning to Tikal, the most famous Mayan ruins. We all climbed big ancient temples and got magnificent views of the surrounding areas. We also got to hear howler monkeys and saw spider monkeys as well as toucans, many different birds, and a single male coati we had been waiting all day to see . Back in Flores, we took a small boat across the lake to where ARCAS is to check it out. We were very impressed with the site, many cages where better built efficiently, including trap cages incase an animal gets out of the main
cage. They used separate cleaning utensils for each cage which I was very happy about. We talked to a few people there, one of the workers was very knowledgeable, even knowing the scientific names, and they said they always have a vet on-site. They are trying to release many of the animals which is a good thing. For dinner we had Burger King…. Nothing much interesting about that. Not much for Guatemalan experience but cheaper than any of the meals here!
The following morning we headed to Belize, spending the night in San Ignacio, a small town near the border, where the bus we were on kept stalling out every time it stopped and a handful of large men had to give it a push start in the pouring rain! Everyone on the bus (except Helenka who got wet) was laughing about it and making jokes and amused by the quality of the bus. Belize is much different than the other countries; for one thing, everyone speaks English, although it is a bit difficult to understand as it is mixed with Caribbean English. Most the people are African-Caribbean or mixed. Many people approach us asking if we want to
buy marijuana. We took a bus to Belize City, then quickly found the ‘water taxi’ to get to Caye Caulker, one of a few touristy islands that is full of white folks on vacation looking for beach, sun and water sports. Our only reason to go to Belize was that I wanted to snorkel, which we did do. At first we were afraid if we’d even find a snorkel tour guide but all along the main street was about 20 shops doing snorkelling and diving, all at the same times, to many of the same places, and for similar prices. No competition here. The snorkelling was amazing!
We took a boat out in the crystal clear water that from a distance was beautiful blues and greens and was told to put our gear on and jump in. I didn’t like that part as they didn’t tell us how to use the mask or how to get used to breathing before we went in to it and many of us never snorkelled before. It took me a few minutes to catch on but Step was miserable for our first stop. The guide took us around a bit and pointed out
fish in corals and many in schools. At our second stop, we swam with sting rays, brushing past our legs and swimming under us. The guide took one out of the water and let us touch it, but Step refused, and I agreed with him in that it is a wild animal and shouldn’t be handled, but hopefully people will gain an appreciation for the animal or desire to save the corals having a personal experience like that. Our third stop was less eventful as all I saw was sand and grass and a few corals with several species of small fish. After our trip, we caught the water taxi back, spent the day sunburnt in San Ignacio in a guest house where we got Pepperjack cheese on a salami sandwich, so delicious! The following day we painfully took our bags in a taxi to the border, then a mini bus to Flores where we have been lying in agony from our sunburns ever since. Step got the worst of it getting blisters on his shoulders that spread to his back, but I think it was well worth it from snorkelling, I don’t think he
agrees!
We’ll wait for these sunburns to heal before we head to ARCAS for a few weeks and see what happens from there.
^Út Í Óvissuna^
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