Blogs from Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean
May 9th 2012
It was an early morning for us today. Our sunrise tour started at 4:15 AM. At about 4 AM the howler monkeys started roring. We put on our head lamps and walked to the main lodge where we met our guide Chino. The lodge was suppose to make us breakfast to go but something got lost in translation and they weren't made. We walked into the jungle in the dark to temple IV. This temple had a set of wooden stairs going to a platform near the top. We sat there for about an hour and watched the sun come up. Then we followed our guide to a bunch more temples. We went back to the lodge for breakfast. We went swimming and took a nap before packing up and going to San Ignagco, Belize. We ... read more
May 8th 2012
Today we went to Tikal using a shuttle we booked when we arrived in Flores. There was some confusion as the company we booked with didn't show up and we went with a different company that traded in our voucher. We arrived and checked into the Jungle lodge. We have been really lucky because we haven't had any of our hotels booked in advance but it is the low season and there are hardly any tourists. We toured part of Tikal on our own today but by 1:30 it was so hot we had to leave. Back in the room we met the resident lizard we promptly named short tail Willie. We hung out at the pool for about 2 hours. The water was hot but felt good after the hot walk. We then went to ... read more
Flores, Guatemala
Published: May 8th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
May 7th 2012
Today we slept in late and then walked to Santa Elena for breakfast which is the town on the other end of the bridge to Flores island. We bought some water at the grocery store and caught a taxi to Ixpanpajul National Park. The cab was basically a motorcycle with a back seat. It seems most of the cab drivers have never been to Ixpanpajul and don't know exactly where to go. We arrived and paid and it turned out we were the only customers there. We spent about an hour and a half walking the path with the hanging bridges. Part of the way through we say some monkeys sleeping in a tree. They were just flopped over the branches and one of them had a baby clinging to it. We went up to a ... read more
Belize City to Flores, Guatemala
Published: May 7th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
May 6th 2012
Our trip began with a flight from Miami to Belize City. We picked up our bags and made it out of customs fairly quickly. We got right in a cab and headed to the marine terminal to catch a bus to Flores, Guatemala. we should have gotten money from an ATM before we left the airport but the airport was so small we were outside and in a cab before we even thought to look for an ATM. at the marine terminal we bought bus tickets but we had two hours before it left so we took a cab tour of Belize city and had lunch from a local restaurant that looked like the back of someone's house. Nothing is open in Belize City on Sundays so we were lucky the cab driver knew where to ... read more
Playa Del Carmen to Flores
Published: April 25th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » FloresApril 25th 2012
After a day of recovery on Tuesday in Playa following the blue parrot beach club me and the boys went to cenote cristalino, another fresh water pool. We spent the day throwing ourselves off the rocks into the water, I was the only one man enough to go for the dive, nailed it, got a call from the GB dive team in the afternoon asking if I was about for London in the summer, they reckon I am more talented than Tom Daly. Not surprised!!! We met a couple of Belgian lads back at the hostel and went out to the blue parrot beach club with them on Thursday. They were good lads, one of them was freaking mental and spent most of the night trying to convince us to go to a Mexican strip club. ... read more
April 21st 2012
Stress free boarder crossing again due to our early morning start and the fact that it was just as cheap to take the taxi instead of the bus, so we did just that and had door to door service at the time we wanted to go to the border of Belize and Guatemala. By 8.15am we'd filled out our tourist questionnaire and paid our exit tax and were in a shuttle bus waiting to travel the 140kms to Flores... ( think we got a bit ripped off but after Belize this place is so cheap you kind of don't mind....) Rather than the chicken buses we have become accustomed to we got to ride in a people carrier that was brand new, only us in it and it reminded me ... read more
Guatemala, Flores
Published: April 16th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
April 14th 2012
The 4am wakeup call to catch our flight to Flores came around much too soon. It didn't help that we had stayed up dancing to a live salsa band the night before at our hotel the Westin Guatemala. Luckily the flight to Flores was under an hour and we were picked up from the airport by 9am. We were soon on our way to Tikal one of the most important archaeological sites of the Mayan World, Tikal, means “Place of Voices," was built during the Maya Classic Period. Tikal is considered the second largest city in the Maya world. Tikal has the distinction of being the first site in Guatemala declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. We walked the complex of Temples and Acropolis for around 4 hours in the hot sun, the humidity ... read more
Tikal and Flores Island
Published: March 19th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
March 19th 2012
Beauty ' your name is Guatemala. Today we went over and saw the MAyan ruins of Tikal. A totally profound and sweaty experience. Entering the park is fairly easy as tours are arranged through various travel agencies. The ride takes about an hour from Flores Island and provides a nice introduction to the jungle and the community villages along the way. The ruins were fantastic and the walk through was lovely, even in 80 degree heat. Yeah ' you heard me ' the whitest girl on the planet ' say that 80 degrees in the jungle isn´t too bad. Be still your heart! At a leisurely stroll you can see all that the ruins currently have to offer including the El Grande Jaguar, the Lost City and Temple 4 of Star Wars fame. The ruins are ... read more
Adios Flores ISland!
Published: March 20th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Santa ElenaMarch 19th 2012
We are currently waiting for our bus to whisk us away, first back to the city and then on to Antigua and Lake Atitlan. I´m sitting here in a cute little internet cafe, listening to the hum of a fan, the sound of mopeds and tuk tuks and feeling the heat rising off of my crispy, burnt skin. Today was a good day! We were able to take a boat ride over to the next island and swim and tan ( or fry ' you know ' tomato, tomato, aye ' when you type them you don´t get the different inflections but you know what I mean, wait, where was I?) Ah yes, here I am. This island is beautiful. I haven´t been swimming in over a year or two, so jumping into the lake was ... read more
March 3rd 2012
"Tikal was the capital of a conquest state that became one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya.Though monumental architecture at the site dates back as far as the 4th century BC, Tikal reached its apogee during the Classic Period, ca. 200 to 900 AD. During this time, the citydominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica such as the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico." See e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal " img=http://whos.amung.us/w... read more
