Arrival in Belize

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Starting off on my trip to Belize and Guatemala I was a bundle of nerves. I had never travelled by myself before and I was very intimidated by the thought of navigating airports and catching connecting flights, as well as travelling for two weeks with a bunch of people that I had never met. But all went well. I made it to my destination with everything intact and quickly realized I would be travelling with some great people.
Our first night was spent in Belize city getting to know eachother and going over the itinerary and other details of the trip. The next morning we got up bright and early (or at least what i consider to be bright and early..7am) and caught a bus to Flores, Guatemala. This was a nice little island town situated in the middle of a lake. Our hotel was on the outer ring of the town and had a nice view of the lake from the balcony and the swimming pool. My room overlooked the street, which was not an unfortunate thing because it allowed us to watch the parades which seemed to go by every half hour or so. The locals were in the middle of a week long celebration so there was lots of activity going on during all hours of the day and night. I seriously dont think that the townspeople slept at all while I was there. The firecrackers never seemed to stop anyway.
We used Flores as home base for a couple of days and from there took excursions to a little town called san jose across the lake, and to the ruins of Tikal. In San Jose we visited a small spanish school and took a spanish lesson from some local kids. They also showed us where they make an assortment of shampoos, lotions and soaps which i think were sold as funding for the school. I bought a facial cream and it works amazingly well. Afterwards we all piled into the back of a pickup and drove up a very steep hill (i thought for sure sara was going to fall off the back of the truck) to the schools' medicinal gardens. Here the kids who gave us our spanish lessons showed us the different plants they use in all the lotions and stuff they make and told us the different medicinal uses each plant had.
Our next excursion was to Tikal. We really got up early for this one because we wanted to get there right at 6:00 when the park opened, and the ride there took about an hour. Our guide Pepe was awesome. He is a university professer and taught most of the other guides who were working in the park. He was incredibly smart and funny and had no problems answering all of our questions. Tikal was beautiful...and huge. I think i got more excercise exploring these ruins than I have in the last five years. We climbed up to the top of some of the temples and I would like to say that the view was incredible...but it was foggy so we couldnt see much. When climbing one of them we left all of our bags and rain gear at the bottom because it was too difficult to climb and carry our stuff, so of course when we got to the top it just started to pour rain. The steps were steep and the rain made them very slippery so we couldnt hurry down. We all had to go back down very slowly and by the time we got to the bottom we were all drenched and looking fabulous i might add. It was worth it though, I've never had an experience quite like it. We spent the whole morning exploring and climbing before heading back to flores for a hot shower and a well deserved nap.

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Photos

local revellers
this particular parade was at 6am, complete with firecrackers and music. It was certainly an interesting way to wake up!

transport
just before heading up to the medicinal gardens

temple of the jaguar
tikal ruins