Guatemala

---

Flores, Guatemala
Second border crossing under our belts we arrived in the small lake town of Flores. A small island on a huge lake in northern Guatemala. Every backpackers nightmare, our reservation at Los Amigos didn't exist! Thankfully they squeezed us in, and I mean squeezed, three beds between five people for the first night in a sweltering hot room with no working fans.. Met two lovely Guatemalan girls who had had the same trouble and ended up all going for dinner together. They were both from Guatemala city, really lovely and spoke great english thank god! After no sleep that night we were ins bus to Tikal at 4am the next morning. Tikal is north of Flores and is a huge site of Mayan ruins In the jungle, I think the most impressive of the lot we've seen. Spent six hours wandering about in there, climbing temples and watching howler monkeys and hearing them roar like jaguars! They sound vicious! Climbed up to the top of the highest temple for a spectacular view over the treetops. The rest of the crew left for Antigua that night but myself and John stayed one more night in Flores to wander about the town. Also got a Boat ride on the lake which was lovely. Got on the overnight bus to Antigua via Guatemala City that night at 8pm... Antigua, Guatemala Arrived at 7.30am and found our hostel, hostel onvisa. Met the resident dog, Bobbi, parrot and toucan. Bobbi and the parrot very kindly replaced our alarm clock every morning! Wandered about the town that day, got our bearings. Ended up staying five nights here until the day Jo, Ger and Aoife left. Beautiful place, all cobblestones streets, colourful buildings and volcanoes towering around it in the distance. Organised a hiking trip to Volcan Pacaya for the following day,one of the three volcanoes in Antigua. this was fun, not too tough, climbing a dirt road until we reached some lava rocks. Couldn't climb to the top as it is still active and only a few days earlier two geniuses tried to climb it by themselves and were killed. Got close enough to the top that the rocks got hot enough to cook marshmallows! The guides were able to start a fire by just laying some twigs in a hole in the rocks, it wasplike a furnace. Did a day trip to a place called Panajachel, a town on Lago de Atitlan just a couple of hours north of Antigua. The town was nice, the lake was really beautiful, huge. It's down in a valley surrounded by three volcanoes..yes, there's lots and lots of volcanoes in central America! Myself and John rented a couple of kayaks and set out on the lake for a while, it was lovely and calm when we left...not so much when we were trying to get back! It was painful, trying to kayak against the wind and the current, my arms were fit to fall off! Was glad to see land again. The Next few days in Antigua were spent wandering through the gorgeous markets, so colourful, selling all types of handicrafts. Also went to Chocolate museum!yum. We had to visit the McDonalds here to see the fancy interior and lovely garden courtyard we'd heard about, not like any MaccyDs at home!and no golden arches, wouldn't blend in with the lovely colonial buildings!Stumbled upon Cafe 2000 aka the unlikely O Reillys Irish bar in a desperate attempt to find a watering hole. There was a fundraising event on for a kids charity shoe place was packed, plenty drinking and dancing on the bar! Adios beautiful Antigua...

---