First few days in Guatemala

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So our first blog entry has been some time in coming but here it is! We finally made it to Guatemala City on the evening of 4th May, the hostel we had booked for our first night was very good and picked us up from the airport, pointed us in the direction of a money changer and generally sorted us out. The guidebook advertised it as a hostel in the safe neighbourhood of the city. This turned out to be in an armed compound, army style! In addition to the armed guards and barbed wire fence surrounding it, each hostel or house had their own heavy duty fences and locks. At least it was secure but probably not the best first impression of Guatemala for us!! From there we got the bus the next day, first thing, and arrived in Flores. This was nice but quite touristy so we took a bus to the other side of the lake to a lovely little village called El Remate for a bit of R and R. The hostel there was brilliant, our dorm room was basically a wooden platform above the restaurant with a thatch roof above it. There were no walls so we fell asleep every night and woke up every morning to beautiful views of the lake. On our first full day there we went to Tikal which was amazing. It is one of the best known Mayan ruins and was once the Mayan power hub before they were defeated. We got the bus at 5.30am so arrived at about 6.00am, just in time to hear the jungle awake and we actually heard the howler monkeys waking up then saw them climbing down from the top of the trees to have their breakfast. There was loads of wildlife and because we were there so early we had most of the ruins and views to ourselves. The ruins themselves are very impressive with 5 central temples, then a lot of smaller ruins half strangled by the jungle still. You could climb up a couple of the temples to get a view of the jungle canopy and the other temples in the distance. Absolutely fantastic, will upload the photo´s as soon as I can.

Yesterday we pretty much just spent the day sweating and not moving as it was so hot, then today we got the bus to Lanquin, which took up the whole day. The journey was made a lot easier by the stunning scenery and a slightly sketchy but amusing ferry ride and driver.

Now we are in the El Retiro hostel in Lanquin. Its basically on the riverside and is a series of thatched huts. Its pretty full up so we ended up in the loft which again is a bed under the thatch. No fan or anything and it is very humid so we will probably be very glad when the dawn breaks! We have already booked to go to Samuc Champey tomorrow which is a series of pools and caves along the river so I will update you tomorrow night with our antics.

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Comments

[Isabel]

1st few days
Hello! Glad to hear from you Naomi and I were wondering how you were getting on! I had an interview on Friday and got the job so I'm going to teach in chilmark in September! Keep the travelblogs coming! xx

[Nic]

Hey!
Hey girlies, Wow fantatsic photos and some brilliant stories already! I watched Indiana Jones last night and thought of you - You know aliens built the Mayan society...! Please try and meet some arciologists! Also being in the juggle have you seen any Bert look-alikes? Miss you nicx x