Day 33 Flores, Guatemala!

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Yesterday wasn´t worth writing about as unfortunately it bucketed it down with rain all day long. We literally watched film after film.

Woke up again to rain but had no time to be sad as we were leaving for mainland today! We arrived pretty early but then had to wait a few hours for our connection shuttle to turn up! Got chatting to 2 really nice couples, Amanda (UK) and Chris (NZ) from Brisbane, and Shawn and Jessica from California. They were going to the same place as us in Guatemala but were catching a different bus so we wernt travelling with them.

Our shuttle turned up and we headed to the border. On arrival we had our passports stamped, swapped some money, panicked a bit when we couldnt find the bus, and then found out that some GUY (and his kid) had taken our seats on the bus. Although our stuff wasnt on the seats, isnt it an unwritten rule that if people get off, generally they sit back where they already had been!?! so we were stuck with the most rubbish seats at the back, next to an american guy. He was an incompatible travel buddy for various reasons.
1. he had a seat for his bag. this is a big no no when the bus is packed and one of us is already sitting on a spare fold out chair.
2. He seemed very rude intially (although this may have been our fault)
3. He actually tapped Em on the shoulder while she was listening to her ipod, so that he could tell her about his conservation work with Jaguars. Tasha had conveniently nodded off by this point, leaving Em chatting to an old boring man about the pros and cons of Jaguar poaching.

After swapping buses and watching our luggage being hurled ontop of the bus..precariously balancing for the remainder of the journey, our driver did a bit of good salesmanship and persuaded us to stay at Las Amigas, which turned out to be really nice with a huge courtyard area to relax in, loads of delish veggie dishes, hammocks and lots of low lanterns to set the scene! We were also persuaded to do a trip to Tikal tomorrow (apparently we´re very easily persuaded). Had a brief nose around the island (Flores) then came back for a game of cards where 2 dutch guys got involved...a doctor and a dentist! gosh. but they got a little bit creepy when they drank more and more so we went to bed early for the WORST nights sleep due to some DUDE playing his guitar at 12am, car radios blaring at 1am, and a drunk guyleaving the dorm light on at 2am. A 4am start the day was DEFINATELY what would help this situation.

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