Blogs from Flores, Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 21

Today we visited Tikal, a massive Mayan ruin in the middle of dense jungle. I finally saw a Howler Monkey in the flesh after hearing their scary sounds at other ruins. I've been warned that I will be waking up to their noise when I'm in Puerto Lempira. Apparently Spielberg used their howls for the dinasours in Jurassic Park. After Tikal, we drove to Rio Dulce and caught a boat to our hotel located on a small island. Our bungalow sits over the water. Heaven!... read more

We left Belize for Guatemala this morning. We got to Flores after lunch. It's an island in the middle of Lake Peten Itza with not much to do. Our hotel has a pool so most of us stayed as close as possible to it because the lake looks a bit suspect to swim in.... read more

Well my stay in Belize was short and sweet (1 week!). After Caye Caulker I made my way south to a lovely beach called Placencia in a sheltered bay with calm waters. However, after 2 days of bad weather (with a lot of places closed because it was low season) I moved on. I seem to be having quite bad beach luck on this trip! I wanted to go to a lovely little island called Tobacco Caye, but again, there was no point going in the rain, so on I went again. Next stop was a town near the border called San Ignacio. From here they run all sorts of cool tours to the surrounding area......... but unfortunately because it was low season there was only 1 trip running. I wasn´t that fussed on going in ... read more

Es regnet wie aus Kuebeln und wir konnten uns gerade noch ins naechste Internetcafe retten. Das mit der Kayak-Tour hat uebrigens nicht geklappt. Es war trotzdem eine sehr schoene Zeit im Hotelito Perdido. Abends haben wir noch ein Skorpion gesehen, dass mit Namen Phillip als Haustier aufgenommen wurde.... Dann sind wir nach Tikal/Flores weitergefahren, wo wir im Hostel dummerweise unser Dope verschlampt haben. Erfreulicherweise haben wir Clyde aus Suedafrika wiedergetroffen, der sich letztlich von San Pedros Reizen losreissen konnte. Statt der gaengigen Tikal-Sunrise-Pauschal-Tour haben wir uns entschieden eine Nacht dort zu bleiben und so nachmittags den Sonnenuntergang und den Sonnenaufgang erleben zu koennen. Tikal ist im uebrigen der Knaller. Ruinen von Maya-Tempeln im tiefsten Dschungel. Affen, Tucans, Papageien soweit das Auge reicht - grossartig. Herrscher wie King Double Mo... read more

hi all, I was asleep on the 9hr night bus to palenque and it was about -4 degrees due to over AC use and i was woken by a military looking dude wielding a shooter telling everyone to get off the bus, it was around 4 in the morning and all bags where taken off the bus by 10 or so military and searched. not sure who they where or what but eventually we where allowed on our way. wierd. got to palenque to a beautiful sunrise at 6am and checked in at the maya-bell in the jungle (tents, cabanas and hammocks). Palenque was beautiful and spent the morning roaming around the amazing ruins, the museum was really good too and had lots of artifacts from BC. turned the fan on in my cabana and it ... read more

Guatemala...Into Country number 3 already! We crossed the border from Belize to Guatemala on Monday (I think - seriously losing track of what day it is now..) and into the island of Flores. We weren´t expecting much of Flores, as the guide book said ¨ít sux arse¨ (it seriously says that) but it was actually pretty cool. Found a hostel with a rooftop terrace complete with hammocks and a lake view, and spent a few days here chilling out. Randomly met another Kiwi girl while swinging in the hammocks one afternoon, she is doing a similar trip to the first part of ours, so hopefully we will meet up again in Honduras. Ventured into the ruins of Tikal which are set in some wicked jungle. Saw too many monkeys to count, a coatis (related to a ... read more

Well having been up for a good 40+ hours I finally arrived in Guatemala City, a joyous place to behold boasting lots of traffic and drivers with a deathwish / a habit of overtaking on blind bends. Thankfully an easy shuttle bus trasfer took me door to door in Antigua nicely in time to meet up with the rest of the group and a nice comfy bed. Yesterday we kicked it off in style by moving on from Antigua (fuelled by delicious breakfast bagels!) to see some sandstone (unusual - they´re mostly limestone fyi kiddies) Mayan ruins in the middle of a banana plantation. Thirst was nicely quenched with some fresh coconut juice then we hit the road again for a good few hours to our lodging for the night at Rio Dulce. We had fantastic ... read more