Flores - Politics and Ice Cream

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The bus for Flores leaves Rio Dulce fairly regularly - every 1 1/2 hours. We had decided to catch the 9am. At 8.30am we met Alexandro he was driving to Flores and offered us a lift. Alexandro is currently a tobacco salesman but would like to be President of Guatemala, really interesting conversations in the pickup on the nature of democracy, the quality of the education in Guatemala and the mess that the British left in various parts of the world. Alexandro finishes his political science degree next summer.

The police only stopped us twice, each time Alexandro had to explain that the many boxes of rolling tobacco in the back of the truck and show papers. For the last part of the journey we were accompanied by a policeman and his revolver, I think he just wanted the lift. The trip was one of the most interesting so far, took only 3hrs, and Alexandro didn't want any money for petrol, we bought him lunch instead.

So the three non-smokers and the tobacco salesman arrived in Flores. Flores is a small island town in Lago de Peten Itza connected to the town of Santa Elena, by a manmade causeway. I wouldn't want to stay in Santa Elena, but the Hotel Mirado del Lago is nice, cheap(ish) and has great views of the lake. Well the Hotel Mirado del Lago has a few draw backs, the main one being the heat at night. The rooms were consistently 28 degrees Celsius at night, really dificult to sleep without the continous use of a fan.

We went out, ate ice cream, bumped into the two Scots that we had met in Semuc Champey, Neil and Melony. Three Scots, a Dane and me the Englishman ate in a restaurant and talked the night away.

After asking around the masses of tour operators in the city of Flores, the quoted prices for my next trip to Belize City was $30. I was almost about to pay this exorbitant amount when asking at the hotel I discovered that the hotel would sell the same ticket to us for only $9. We bought the ticket at the Hotel Mirador del Argo.

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