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Published: December 1st 2006
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trip map
here's a rough giude to where we've been over the last week or so. starting at Caye Caulker the green line traces our journey to San Ignacio then over the border into Guatemala stopping in: Flores, Tikal, Rio Dulce, Guatemala City, Antigua to Panajachel and back to Antigua again. Guatemala:
Flores and Tikal
The border crossing from Belize into Guatemala was a bit interesting. They have a compulsory bribe of about 3 dollars you have to pay to be allowed across and apart from that they barely look at your passport and the actual border looks like a market. We just kinda meandered through the throng of people and were told that if anyone wanted to search our bags we would know about it… we didn’t even see one official while on the Guatemalan side of the border.
Anyways, no-one was searched or shouted at so we got back on the bus and continued to Flores in Guatemala. Flores is a little tiny town built on a hill in the middle of a lake and the streets are concentric circles which made the town more confusing to navigate than you might think. We used Flores as a base to explore the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Guatemala has quite a low humidity at this time of year but the clear skies mean that when the sun shines it is absolutely roasting. This was the reasoning behind our 5am start when we visited Tikal; we could be in and around
Border crossing?
We didn´t even notice we had passed immigration and customs. Building on the right. before the heat (and the vanloads of tourists) spoiled the day.
We arrived at the park at about 6am so the sun was not long up and we went for a wander with our guide and he explained the history and the wildlife of the area to us. The ruins are actually situated in the middle of a natural park/protected nature reserve so there were lots of birds (woodpeckers, toucans and the national bird of Guatemala the quetzal) and howler monkeys making heaps of noise. We thought they were jaguar. Really. I took a video so you can hear the noise but you can’t really see the monkeys apart from as dark blurs moving a bit. The video setting on my camera sucks.
We were allowed to climb the temples here, though we actually climbed wooden stairs set onto the side of the temple as the temples would be dangerous and the climbing would damage the stone. The views from the top were stunning and Ross tells me this is where they filmed a bit of one of the star wars movies.
We were finished in Tikal before lunch and went back to our hotel for a well
Flores1
Locals tending their boats at one of Flores´ jetties. deserved nap. That’s about all we did in Flores really apart form eating and drinking beer and cocktails. It was fun. We left the next day to ride chicken buses (all will be explained later…) to Antigua in the south of Guatemala.
Ross:
Ah Guatemala… if only all boarder control was this easy. We arrived in Flores and took it pretty easy our only real objective on this stop over were the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Leaving the hotel at 5 am we found the park blissfully deserted. The ruins look fantastic all of the surrounding jungle that engulfed and hid the city for a thousand years has been left relatively intact with only paths, the plazas and the temples themselves cleared of vegetation. It’s a great sight to be wondering along a jungle path and then to see a massive stone temple rising out of the jungle in front of you. The place teems with wildlife so if you get bored of the ruins there are plenty of beasties to hunt to keep you occupied. The highlight of the ruins was once we had ascended Temple IV (doesn't seem to have any other name), the summit (at
Flores2
View from the island of Lake Peten Itza 64m) is the highest point of the city and rises well above the jungle canopy giving an amazing view of the other temples sticking out of the canopy and verdant jungle stretching away to the horizon in every direction to meet the brilliant blue sky. The icing on the cake however was the realization that I was looking out at the rebel base on Yavin IV (sad I know but great for a Star Wars freak) no Millennium Falcon or X-Wings though dammit.
Got freaked out by the Howler monkeys, they were really cool, Claire’s video doesn’t really capture it but it’s still pretty good. A great day had by all. Not really much else to say about Flores although people seem to have a penchant for carrying pump action shotguns as fashion accessories, and as long as you’re not firing it the police seem ok about you casually wondering around town.
Another chicken bus ride to Rio Dolce awaits. Huzza.
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Craig Webster
non-member comment
Rawr!
Those monkeys are ace! I want one! And a hammock - they look really comfy. Video works fine although it's not immediately obvious how to open it. I'm going to watch Star Wars again and try to spot where the X wings went.