Guatemala

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Border crossing

We got picked up early to start our way over to Guatemala, bit of a bus ride then we stopped for breakfast and made our way to the river and immigration. While we were waiting for we dont know what, this older, pot bellied, grimy, loud gringo made his way over with his suitcase. For some reason, the guy in charge decided to give him our four tickets putting him in charge. Once he realized this guy didnt even have a ticket and was a bit off his rocker, he took them back.

We expected the 25 minute ride across the river to Guatemala to be on a boat but it was a skinny little fiberglass 'boat'. We slipped and squished thru the mud down the hill with our gear, almost losing our thongs as they got sucked in on the way. There were four other travelers about our age, and then grimy gringo guy. We were all seated, trying not to rock the boat, when grimy guy drops some camera part. Instead of reaching down to find it, he full out lays down on the boat floor, searching everywhere. We made our way down the river, the women washing their clothes everywhere. We'd gone about five minutes when our driver pulled over to the edge of the river. He started making signs that his stomach-no good, he need to make a pit stop and scrambled up the bank. Grimy guy was Mr Funny man, "too much tequila hey!", and then we heard the growler monkeys. Our guide came running down the hill, insisting he{d washed his hands, and on we went down the river.

Then grimy guy whipped out his harmonica and started making up little dittys. When we got to the other side and were pulling away in the bus, he was over by the group of girls, playing them songs while holding out his camera with the other hand....we think he wanted them to join his band camp. The bus we took was full so we ended up in the broken fold down seats in the rows. We stopped at immigration and continued on for 3 hrs on the gravel road. We had planned to stay in Flores for the night and continue on to Belize the next morning, but our guide was so disappointed we were not going to Tikal that we decided to change our plans. He gave us a big talk o n how we can do a sunrise tour and how they are the only company with permission to enter the park before 8am, and we bought tickets. Once we got to our hostel, we of course discovered it was a scam and everyone does tours, for a bit cheaper than we had paid. We stayed the nigh ton Flores, an island in a lake in Guatemala.

We woke up at 3am to be picked up for our sunrise tour of Tikal. We slept on the bus ride there, and were then instructed to pay our park fee and get tickets. Since we were only in Guatemala for 1 day, we did not want to takeout more quetzales than we had to, so we had American dollars to pay. The locals pay around $4 and foreigners pay $25. We handed over our dollars, and the man refused all of them except for one, because they were ripped. Not ripped in half, edges hanging off, ripped about 1mm. Which left us with no money for the entry fee in the pitch black at 4am in Tikal. We found our guide and he eventually worked the guy around, and we headed off on the walk up to the ruins. The walk up was on a muddy path as it had rained the night before and we forgot our head lamp. As you walked through the darkness, the growler monkeys were growling all over the place.

We reached the ruin just at dawn and climbed to the top, where everyone was sitting quitely waiting for the sun. Looking out, you could almost imagine you were looking at the ocean, with land popping up in between because of the blanket of clouds. The previous days had been quite rainy and cloudy, so we were lucky to see the sun. It was very peaceful and made you forget you´d had 3 hrs sleep to get there. Tikal was much more impressive than Palenque, they cover 550 sq kilometres but the central city occupies 16 sq km with over 4,000 structures. The biggest temple is 64m high. Tikal was much more structured as little communities and you could see how they lived. By the time our tour was over and we´d gotten the bus at 11 it felt like it should already be dark and we were buggered.

Here{s the photos

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70112&l=98c6e&id=609417068

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