Guatemala

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Well leaving the beach in Belize was hard but we had been there for over a week and it was definitely time to move on.. We headed for the Guatemalan border with Jeff (our canadian friend) via Belize city which is a bit dodge. Our first stop in Guatemala was Flores, which is a nice old town sitting out on a lake and reminded us a lot of the towns we visited in Croatia. We booked a trip for the next day to the ruins at Tikal with a scottish guy Stephen and his kiwi girlfriend Elise that we met on the bus to Flores. We decided that we might as well go for the sunrise tour just in case we might miss something, and anyway it would be a better idea to spend the (cooler) morning wandering around the ruins rather than the sweating afternoon. This meant getting up before 3am, being squeezed into the tiniest minibus for an hour's drive to the ruins, a 45 minute hike in the dark to the highest temple and then a climb to the summit, all before dawn. We realised that we probably wouldn´t see the sunrise at all since it was cloudy, but it was still really amazing to see the top of the other temples through the morning mist and hear the animals waking up..especially the howler monkeys which sound like lions roaring. Tikal was really amazing, and had lots of temples that you could climb, including one VERY steep one which I couldn't really enjoy cos I was terrified that everyone stepping over me at the top was going to fall off..

After Flores we headed up into the highlands to Coban and took a trip form there to a park called Semuc Champey. There are some amazing limestone pools there and a river running underneath. I don't know if it's reassuring or not but all the tourist attractions in Guatemala are guarded by a couple of guys with pump-action shotguns..? We spent the day at the pools and when we booked the trip we were offered a 'free' night's accommodation at a jungle lodge beside the park...we decided it was free so why not! We ended up being stuck in this 'rustic' accommodation in the middle of nowhere for the whole day, with nothing to do except play cards, there was nobody else staying there and we couldn't even go to bed early cos the beds were damp and stinky (and I was afraid that tarantulas were going to creep in through the HUGE gaps in the plywood walls). We had to wait until the next afternoon for the bus back to civilisation so we headed back up towards the park and found some caves across the river where you could do a 'candlelit' swim/walk through these caves with a tiny candle and a 12 year old guide. Health and safety is not an issue in Guatemala..at the end of the cave there's a huge waterfall that you can climb behind (in complete darkness) and plunge into afterwards. (I didn't do it but Terry and Jeff did) After the cave experience there's rope swings out onto the river and then you can take an inflated car tyre tube and float down the (fairly rough) river, again with a 12 year old guide...very funny stuff, but terry lost his shoes and his tube trying to 'catch some rapids' coming around a big rock (got a bit of a fright) and myself and Jeff had to hang on to some branches so as not to be swept a few miles downstream while our guide ran back to find the tube (which didn't show up). It was great craic but there's absolutely no rules in this waterpark!

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