Part 20 - Flores and Tikal, Guatemala

The Guatemala / Belize border is only a few miles from San Ignacio, so I leapt into a terrifying colectivo (shared taxi). The taxi was terrifying, not because of his driving, but because his windscreen seemed to contain more crack than glass, and I was convinced the whole thing was going to crashing in every time we hit a pothole. 

Every town, city, and province in Central America is legally required to have one of these signs

I wasn't sure how easy it was to cross the border, but apart from having to fork out $20 to leave Belize (not sure what they would do if you had no money left), I waltzed into Guatemala without even showing anyone my passport or dazzling them with my Spanish. At which point, I realised I was in the country illegally, so sneaked back and got my passport stamped. 

Me on the border bridge. Doubt I'd have been smiling quite so much in a Guatemalan jail.

Once in Guatemala, another shared taxi took me to Flores, a lovely wee island filled with hotels, restaurants, and nobody who could speak the Queen's King's English. 

Some guy struggling to climb a big hill on Flores

The owners of my hostel were lovely, and despite their lack of English and my lack of Spanish, we had several nice chats (well, I thought they were nice. They might have thought differently). I was a bit worried that my hostel was going to float away in the night.

Tikal is one of the major Mayan attractions and is about an hour away from Flores. I was supposed to get picked up at 3am for the sunrise tour, but due to a breakdown in communication (and definitely not my lack of Spanish), nobody arrived, so I went back to bed and had a tour during the afternoon instead. The upside / downside of this was that I had the tour guide to myself, although despite him speaking excellent English, he tended to go off on mad tangents and rants and I was never quite sure what he was talking about. 

Tikal is quite amazing though - a huge city in the jungle which was only discovered relatively recently, and there is still quite a lot still under thick foliage. It is filled with temples and pyramids, but is as much famous for its wildlife as its buildings. 

Ocellated turkeys

These are "Howler Monkeys". Never actually saw any of them, but you could certainly hear them.

Next, back to Belize for one night only (which doesn't merit a blog post cos I didn't do anything), and then off to Panama.