Flores and Tikal

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First stop Guatamala- Flores- to see the unbelievable Tikal ruins.

The journey there was all the way from Caye Caulker via public transport, it was fairly straight forward as I have done a lot of travelling on the "chicken buses" ie puboic buses of Belize, but coming in to a Spanishe speaking country was a bit of a culture shock, as well as actually walking across the border!

Flores is almost an island in the middle of a lake in northern Guatemala. It is pretty, with cobbeled little streets and a European type feel as oppose to any other town in Belize. It is attached via a causeway to the main. Town of Santa Elena, which is the opposite to Flores and s busy and contains no tourists. I arrived there and met a lot of people that I have met along "the gringo trail" (as in the trail of tourists through Central America).

The day after arriving I spent at Tikal and did the early tour which left at 4.30a, and started at 6am. This was not early enough to see sunrise, but early so that you had the whole grounds to yourself and it was a lot cooler and easier to wonder around. out of all the ruins that I have seen, Tikal was different. Like lamanai, it was in the middle of a jungle, but a lot bigger, more magnifient and better kept- you could easily get lost and be wondering around the jungle for weeks looking for the exit. The temples were massive and most of them easily claimable. It is estimated that over 100, 000 mayans lived there at its prime time. This is before rainforest destruction and many bad seasons of crop which lead to them dying out. The Mayans were so advanced for their era and built these beautiful structures which are even now hardly imaginable. In the evening I went for sunset over the river with a few other travellers and ate some tacos. I spent the evening in Los Amigos hostek which was really fun and traveller friendly.

The following day I spent wondering round flpres and chilling out. I caught a boat to the. Other side of the lake to a place called San Miguel and walked around to a beach and a view point. This was a really nice way to see the whole town and had no tourists whatsoever.

All in all Flores and Tikal were fun and beautiful, leading me on to my next adventure. Semuc Champaney.

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