A beautiful lake to swim in and amazing sunsets.Jul 19, 2011
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| Flores Guatemala. 19/7/11 A beautiful lake to swim in and amazing sunsets. It was a short ride to the border where we did the usual border formalities, passports, stamps and fees to get in and out. We changed some money at a fairly good rate a got a taxi to Flores, which didn’t seem too expensive, and seeing as there weren’t any buses to be seen, seemed a fairly good choice. There were a few army and police check points along the way, and large sections of the road were missing and full of large pot holes which would swallow a truck. The island of Flores is small but quiet. It’s surrounded by a clean, warm and clear lake, with a causeway connecting it to the twin town of Santa Elana. It has narrow cobbled streets that crisscross the island heading up to the highest point of the island where a church and basketball court can be found. Also a music school where out of tune Titanic songs can be heard on new trumpet players trumpets over the town. There’s a heavy police and military presence on the island. Around the church were a hand full of army and police men and women. Along the harbour side where most of the cafes and hotels backed on to the lake, police patrols during the day and at night army foot patrols and 4 pick-up loads of soldiers, one with a machine gun on top. Hopefully there as a deterrent and not because they were expecting anything. Every bank or major shop has at least 1 armed guard. The shopping mall by the cause way to Flores had 7 or 8 armed guards. We had booked to go on a trip to Tikal. A large Mayan settlement that was at the heart of the Mayan empire from 600 BC to 900 AD. It was central to the settlements in Mexico, Belize and Honduras. It was an early start. We were picked up at 4.30 am and made our way 1 hour north with a mini bus load of tourists. Our bus was the first at the gate. The guide had been a local to the area living in the jungle and grew up in and around the Tikal temple area. He also seemed to be a history teacher and seemed to be a guide in his spare time. We walked around the various ruins. Only 20% had been un-earthed and restored, some of the ruins costing around $25,000,000 US to unearth and restore. One of the ones that had been uncovered was an impressive 76m high, the tallest. Only the top 20% had been unearthed and it was a long climb to the top on some very rotten wobbly stairs. There had been a number of accidents in recent months. The structures are built out of limestone and when it rains becomes very slippery. The guide had gone to rescue a tourist 8 months back when she had panicked. She had jumped at him and they had rolled to the bottom, sustaining broken bones and bruises. Luckier than other people had been only a few months earlier. This one we weren’t allowed to climb up. The view was good from the top. You could see some of the other temples peeking out over the tops of the jungle, and the jungle spreading for as far as the eye could see. There was plenty of wild life to watch, Spider and Howler monkeys, Toucans, Parrots, a gib nut, rabbit-ish type rodent, as well as scorpions and spiders. The spiders mainly lived in holes covered by webs and hunted at night, unless their webs were disturbed. The guide tried to coax a few of them out, but they weren’t playing and they were only small. After a few more ruins he found a tree, and by the base of the tree brushed away a few leaves, and there was a spider the size of your hand. He picked it up and let some of us hold it. One Irish guy who had a phobia of spiders, held it and looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. He did well, and gave us all a good laugh watching him freeze with terror. After 5 or 6 people had handled it without being bittern it was time for me to hold it. It was after most of us had held it, that he turned it upside down, and blown on it. That was when it exposed its teeth, very long and very sharp. It was time to start heading back to the exit via some jungle, single file paths. The guide had warned us not to drag behind. 2 Dutch tourists had stayed behind to take some pictures and had then taken the wrong path. They were lost for 2 days in the jungle before another tour group happened across them. They had to tie themselves to branches at night so they could sleep and not fall off. We all kept together for these detours. We passed some huge trees with big buttressed roots, big enough that you could carve a passage through the bottom to walk through, and the tree still be standing. We got back to the hostel and had lunch and an afternoon sleep before heading to the water front for a swim. Just as we got there it started to rain and all the tourists disappeared, which meant that we had the whole jetty to ourselves. After a while the rain dried up and it turned into a nice afternoon. We were joined by some local kids, who were very proficient at diving and somersaults, which made the rest of us look like fish out of water. It was time to check out the next morning and that evening we were to head to Guatemala city and then on to Antigua. The bus that should of picked us up at 8pm, so we thought, didn’t pick us up until 8.30. It went to a bus station on the other side of town where we were told that we had to get off as this was the wrong bus. It wasn’t the easiest because nobody seemed to speak English. We were left waiting on the platform watching our nice shiny, double decker, with free drinks and dvd disappear off out of the car park. Half an hour later an older bus limped into the bus station and broke down in the middle of it. They didn’t seem to be able to get it into gear. Another half an hour passed and they seemed to have fixed the problem. Everyone boarded and we were on our way. 7.5 hours in a freezer, we didn’t get much sleep and by the time the bus made it to Guatemala City we were close to hypothermia. From there it was another hour’s ride in a mini bus to the centre of Antigua, The Spanish Colonial Capital for many years, until to many earth quakes kept flattening it. |
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