Blogs from Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean

Wow where to begin? We spent a couple of days chilling and wandering the cobbled streets of Antigua. We had an absolutely hilarious last night... We went back to Rainbow Rooms for what we thought was going to be a reggae night... It was pretty dead to begin with, just us, a rude American group and two extremely eccentric Guatemalan men. We got into a conversation with them, in a mixture of English and Spanish (mostly the latter) discussing everything from race, homosexuality and the positives of being a monk in India for three year. Our hilarious conversation ended up with us all in tears - literally - from laughing and an invitation the next day to their butterfly reserve in the mountains, which we politely declined due to the slight 50 year age difference. Alice ... read more

I headed off to Tikal with the two American air hostesses I had met in the Rio Dulce. We splashed out a whole $30 a night for dinner, bed and breakfast and a sunrise tour of Tikal. We had a shuttle drop us off outside the park entrance so we could wait the 2 hours until 3pm when we could but a ticket valid for the next day. We then has about a 12km drive through the jungle into Tikal and our hotel. Due to a mix up with transport we three we upgraded to a suite and the staff were so helpful, kind and polite. The hotel was set in the jungle and howler monkeys and small strange guineapig looking creatures, parrots and toucans hung out in the jungle garden and there was even the ... read more

After a 4-5 hour bus ride, we arrived in Flores (Flore-ess). Well just outside of Flores which is an island connected to the mainland by a 600m causeway. The mob of taxi drivers awaiting our custom informed us it was a 3km walk to the island, they seemed surprised when we said we would walk, it turned out to be about 1.5km. We ended up in a small but clean hotel room, at $60 US, one of our more expensive rooms, but the hotel had a pool which was a bonus. Flores is the gateway to the Mayan archeological site, Tikal. An early morning start the next day and we were on our way out. The archeological site is impressive, it is set in lush deep rainforest, populated by wild animals; we saw deer, monkey, a ... read more

We hope everyone at home had an amazing Christmas. It was great to speak to those of you who we could get hold off and apologies to anyone we couldn´t. The technology on Caye Caulker was not so great so we tried our best. Christmas was lovely. We went to the beach, had a piggy breakfast and lunch and then went to a barbecue Christmas dinner party at night (we still had turkey and cranberry sauce!) On boxing day we did a full day snorkelling trip. We got to snorkel along the second largest coral reef in the world. We swam with sharks (I touched one) Stingrays (we all touched one) and sea turtles (super cute) Rum Punch was included and Mark and I made sure we got good value for money and both ended up ... read more

Moving towards the coast! We decided to take an earlier bus from Tikal, so that meant we had to arrange a local transport instead of the prearranged bus. (Think small chicken bus.) At 11:00 (on time!) the bus arrived and we jumped right on it. We were extremely pleased to see that we were the only ones in the bus (extra-large minivan) and had our pick of the seats. We chose the first row of seats and started to get comfortable. However, one of the hotel staff approached us and said to get into the front passenger’s and middle seats. They looked small and cramped and we thought, out load but only to each other, are you nuts? The staff member assured us that we would find the smaller seats in the front much better in ... read more

Yaxha Park today – (sounds like, ja shou). As many of you know, Clay studied the Maya in his undergraduate. He saw for the first time, today, Mayan ruins which have been unearthed. What a wonderful and fulfilling thing. Even I (Ann) have to admit that although ruins are not my thing, they are pretty cool. But let us start where all good stories must, at the beginning. This morning, we were to be picked up at our hotel at 8:30 a.m. so we made sure to get up and have breakfast and be at the appointed pick location. That location was actually way down a hill from the hotel and on the shore of a very stunningly beautiful lake. (See photos) At about 9:30, we determined that 8:30 was just a suggestion. (Remember, we are ... read more