KyleJared

After one more day in Lanquin at the highly suggested El Retiro Lodge, we hopped a shuttle from Lanquin to Flores – our base for our tour of Tikal. I've started to learn that posted arrival times are rarely ever met as we left at 8 am and arrived near 6 pm (the trip was supposed to last 7 hours). We got off the shuttle with a hostel called La Union in mind. As we were waiting to get our bags off the roof, the tourist agency that ran the shuttle did all they could to convince us to stay in the hotel directly across the street from their agency. Tactics included providing a tour of the hotel and room commitment-free and then waiting an extreme amount of time to untie our bags from the roof ... read more

Since it's always a guess when I'll have a good internet connection down here and whether I'll actually be able to get a blog entry up, I've maintained a journal in which I've kept track of the trip and from that I plan to continue this blog online. That being said, the first line I wrote in my journal after arriving at our hostel in Lanquin may have been a little exaggerated, but was, “I'm pretty happy right now that I'm not dead, have not been robbed, nor assaulted in the last 24 hours.” The trip was my first experience of how variable Central American travel can be, and I have no doubt that there will be more like it and worse. Leaving San Pedro, we took an 8 am shuttle to Lanquin. In reality, our ... read more

After arriving in Guatemala City (or Guate) as all the locals refer to it, I immediately cancelled my fake return ticket. For those who I haven’t told me return ticket strategy, here’s the background. Most Central American countries have very old laws stating that anybody entering the country must have proof of onward travel, though none of them have checked for this for many years. Most airlines don’t care either, but some airlines (Spirit) will not allow you on your flight without a return plane ticket on some airline. In order to get around this, I went onto Continental.com the night before my flight, booked a return ticket, and cancelled it as soon as I got through Guatemalan customs. I found a coffee shop with internet in the airport while I waited for ... read more