Blogs from Flores, Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 24

Hola mi amigos. Today is a special day, for you are receiving an update just three days after my last update! Muy bien. Don't get your hopes up though, this won't be a regular thing, I'm in town because the one cash machine that takes my stupid English Debit Card (despite the fact that all the banks have Cirrus displayed) was broken last time I was in so I had to return. In fact, due to the shortness of the time, I am going to give you a few extracts from my diario. The only update I have to the below is that I think I have a second case of the shits coming on and was very glad a few minutes ago that the internet place had a toilet I could use. 12 8 07 ... read more

Well my fine friends, after spending over an hour and a half sending brief emails, reading Rob´s blog, facebooking as briefly as I could and organising stuff for my job in October I have at last found some time to update my blog. Unfortunately travelblog.org is down so I can´t but here it is in an email form that I will add to my blog (assuming it still exists) at a later date. As I have started keeping a diary for my own benefit, the blog is now purely for your benefit, to find out what I´ve been up to, so I hope you feel honoured by my efforts. I am now in Guatemala and have been in San Andres about a week. It is a fantastic little town with a population of about 5000 people ... read more

As I leave Guatemala, I have to take a moment to reflect on this experience of traveling in a Spanish speaking country with a group of 15...of whom only 2 speak spanish. I am travelling as part of a group led by GAP Adventures. GAP as in Great Adventure People, not the clothing store. I chose this provider for a number of reasons: first because it is an organization dedicated to sustainable tourism. They maintain small groups and tours are designed so that they benefit the local community as well as the traveller. They market to adventure travelers who want a unique experience but also aim to respect the culture they will be visiting. They say,"We strive to show you the real world by taking you off the beaten track to the heart of the destination, ... read more

We headed out for Tikal on the 9th. After a long bus ride, the first hour of which Dave was standing up with his head pressed against the ceiling, and a transfer to a camieneta (shuttle), we found ourselves at a hotel near the entrance to the park (Tikal Inn) where the swimming pool beckoned. Mo retired to the room, while Dave and I took a walk to a nearby restaurant. On the way there I stopped, dumbfounded by the brilliance of the night sky. In all my years camping and hanging out in mountains, I don´t believe I have ever seen as many stars filling the night sky. It was truly a sight to behold (although neither of us were able to identify more than one or two constellations). We went straight to bed, because ... read more

Hello all!! Sorry we have been so bad at updating this blog. Its actually really difficult to find time to write what we have been doing everyday but this afternoon is a chill one so I will make the update. What were we doing when I last wrote...oh yeah, we had hiked Pacaya and finished our second day of language classes, man that seems like forever ago, haha! The third day in Antigua we slept in (finally) and walked around the town exploring the shops and finding out what else was around each little corner. We ended up finding this really cool church that was undergoing a facelift that was about 75-100 years past due. For about .40 cents we got to walk through the ruins and down in to the catacombs and see the ... read more