Flores, Guatemala

Just thought I'd write a quick update- Eric and I made it to Flores, Guatemala at about 5 o'clock this afternoon after a six hour bus ride through western Belize and northeastern Guatemala. After catching a quick water taxi back to the mainland, we were thrilled to discover that our bus had air conditioning. Unfortunately I seem to have come down with a bit of a head cold that I'm attributing to three plane rides in fifteen hours. I slept a good amount of the journey but was still pretty miserable for a while there. Thank you, Sudafed! Except for border crossing which held a plethora of (illegal) fees and immigration hassles it was a beautiful and uneventful ride.

Crossing the Belize/Guatemala border is by far the strangest border experience I've had so far. When we arrived we were told all we would need was our passport and $37.50 Belizean dollars (about $18 US). There were no scanners, no pat downs, just cashiers and an exit around the corner. However, there were four men blocking the exit trying to get people to pay them money for cab rides that likely would never happen. After exiting Belize, we had to go stand in another line to enter Guatemala. I know for a fact from prior research that Guatemala does not have an entrance fee, only an exit. Yet, the immigration officer refused to stamp out passports until we paid him 20 Guatemalan quetzals. Not a huge fee but still, illegal. 

Another hour or so and we reached Flores! It's a tiny city in the middle of a lake, and reminds me a bit of parts of Italy. The biggest difference so far is that no one speaks English. NO ONE. Our waiter tonight literally knew no more than yes and no. That being said, both Eric and I ordered our food in Spanish just fine and left feeling mighty proud of ourselves.

We ran into a bit of luck today with our bus driver- he offered us a package deal that includes a Tikal tour, transportation there and back tomorrow morning, a private bus to Semuc Champey (our next destination), a night in a hotel there, and then another private bus that will take us all the way down to Antigua. That's a total of two tours, seventeen hours of driving, and one night in a hotel for US $70 each. So we're pretty stoked. That being said we're getting up at 2:30 AM tomorrow for a sunrise tour of Tikal, we're both exhausted, and I've got a cold to sleep off.

Goodnight friends! Again, thanks for reading.

-Kaelin