Week 5 Guatemala and Belize

Tuesday. 6:30am ... yawn ... "Are you sure our bus is at 7:30?" ...
"I think so"
With doubt in our minds we rushed to get out of the hostel to catch the bus to Antigua just in case it left at 7:00am ... the bus didn't turn up until 8:00am. Typical! At least we had time for a much needed coffee!

I was sad to leave Lake Atitlan - such a beautiful place. I was pleased that we had decided to stay here for a few days.

Roland admiring the view....

We had the collective all to ourselves

On the way to Antigua we climbed up very steep mountain passes.  At times I thought the engine would burn out and we would start rolling backwards ... I shut my eyes!

4 hours later we arrived in Antigua.  A beautiful colonial city which is surrounded by 3 volcanoes and easily explorable by foot. Many earthquakes have occurred here over the years, which in turn has given this city quite a unique character. Cobbled streets are lined with cute little bars and restaurants, with the odd boutique hotel thrown in.  You can easily forget that you are in Central America! It would be fair to say that Antigua is geared up for tourism.

Booby fountain

After a lot of walking we were both hungry! Following our noses we discovered a 'hole in the wall' type of place, and the food smelled delicious! For 50Q we had 2 mains and 2 drinks - bargain!!!

Wednesday. Another early morning, this time it was a 6am start to make our way to Pacaya - an active volcano which last erupted in 2010.  With pictures of lava advertising this trip, we were exited!

The drive to Pacaya took 1.5 hours and then we had to trek up the volcano for another 1.5 hours before we got to the lava field. Alas, we didn't see flowing lava, but we did toast marshmallows from the heat emitted from the surrounding lava rock. It was really quite amazing to be this close to an active volcano, and we were both happy to have made the trip.

Clouds are hiding the volcano! Its there, I promise!

Apparently......

Nature's sauna - it was hot in there!

They were yummy!

Clouds roll in as we left the volcano.

Thursday. Today we were leaving Antigua in the evening so we spent the day wondering around areas we hadn't seen yet. We also made the walk up to the viewpoint which had amazing views of the city.

We found a great little restaurant which was where all the locals seem to congregate for lunch. We had BBQ chicken with an extra portion of sausages on the side (60Q). Now this is something I didn't expect Guatemala to produce...amazing sausages!

A first class ticket to Flores cost 280Q. The journey was 12 hours long, leaving Antigua in a collective bus and changing over to a 'luxury' bus in Guatemala City. During the changeover we chatted to a very friendly guy from Belize who convinced us that we should visit Belize.

Friday.  We arrived in Flores at 6:30am. Before we even had a chance to check into our hostel, Café Arqueológico Yaxha, we had agreed to join an organised trip to visit Tikal, leaving at 7:30am. With a quick shower and a bite to eat it was back on the collective bus for another 1.5 hours to Tikal (100Q).

This time we paid for a guide (80Q) and joined a Guatemalan family and a young English/Bulgarian couple who were currently living in Mexico. The guide was a good choice as we learnt a lot about the Mayan culture and importance of the Tikal ruins. He also knew the surrounding jungle very well and took us on 'short cuts', pointing out wildlife along the way.

From 1950's!

He, however, did not spot the massive tarantula resting on a tree. Roland spotted it - 'Oh My God, look at the size of that gross thing'. Of course the guide thought it would be a good idea to pick it up.  He nominated me to be his 'assistant' and placed it on my hand. Never in a million years did I think I would hold a tarantula, considering that I'm  completely scared of spiders!

The ruins themselves were different to all the Mayan ruins we had seen so far and were really impressive, especially when you considered how old they were!

Saturday. It was hot hot hot! We woke early to go and grab breakkie at Cool Beans - the pancakes were amazing!  Roland was distressed that he kept being bitten so we left as soon as we scoffed them down.

Flores is tiny! We explored the whole area in a couple of hours. Definitely a nice place to stay for a day or two. We organised our trip to visit Belize and booked our tickets for the 5am collective bus (125Q each) leaving the following day.

While updating Facebook we discovered Lauren and Doug were also in Flores - what a coincidence! We arranged to meet up in the evening at their hostel Los Amigos for a few drinkies and something to eat.  Again, we all had a great time.  A couple of Americans (with interesting opinions) also joined our group.  With 2 for 1 cocktails costing 15Q we were all well lubricated by the end of the evening.

Sunday. Why did we drink last night?!? It was not fun waking at 4:30am to catch our bus to Belize City. We both felt like zombies and hardly spoke the whole journey (probably because I slept the whole time as usual).  Border crossing was really easy and hassle free and by 10am we were waiting for the boat to take us to Caye Caulker (return ticket 35BZD).

Border, and our bus!

Remember me telling you about Roland getting bitten at Cool Beans? ... well that bite (which was suspected to be a spider bite) caused Roland's foot to swell up as if he had gout. Poor Roland! By the time we reached our hostel - Dirty McNasties - he had to rest his foot in bed.  I played 'nurse' and scoured the island for some sort of medication and food to bring back to the poorly Roland. Being Sunday I couldn't get any medication so ice and chicken stew was all I could find to ease the pain until Monday.

It rained for most of the day so we really didn't do much. I went to bed really early while Roland read.

"Roland! What are you doing?!"

Roland had woken me up by flashing his torch in my face. And after seeing his facial expression, I jumped out of bed immediately. There were loads of them - horrid large flying ants everywhere (which I later discovered were crawling all over me while I was sleeping). We had no idea where they were coming from but they only seemed to come out when the light was off. So after our killing frenzy, I got in my 'snoowky' (my affectionate term for my sleeping bag liner) and we left the light on all night.

Monday. First priority was to change room. Which worked out quite well - ended up getting a bigger and better room for the same price. Roland's foot was even bigger! It looked as if it might burst! We went straight to the pharmacy as soon as we could to get some antihistamines, which seemed to help almost immediately.

It was a really sunny day so we decided to go to chill out by The Split. Great place to people watch and splash about in the sea while listening to some reggae. We both tackled the sea current to swim across The Split (it wasn't that hard!). 

We also met a nice couple from Brighton here and ended up spending the evening with them scoffing down fresh lobster at Rosie's Grill and Bar for 30BZD - it was amazing!

We also discovered the joys of sand fleas. We both got bitten what seemed to be a million times, and to top it off, they seemed to love Roland's fat foot!

Blinking insects.... It was only a matter of time before we had our first cockroach encounter, and tonight was the night! I spotted the dirty thing crawling up the wall just as we were about to go to bed. We both stood half undressed staring at it...

Roland: "How are we going to get rid of it?"
Me: "I don't know, we can't squash it, because all the babies will come out"
Roland: "How long will the babies take to grow?"

I decided the best way to get rid of it was to cover my hand with a plastic bag and attempt to catch it.

First attempt and I got it! Roland quickly opened the door and I flung it out on the balcony. That is where it stayed for the next few days.