Flores and Tikal - Guatemala

We arrived in Flores and i was having flash back to my holiday in Vietnam with Carrie. Tour guides getting on the bus and trying to get you on their tours before you have a chance to pick up your bags and think.

However, we booked up for the 3am start to see the sunrise at the ruins in Tikal. I should have learnt by new that when you book tours like this you often don´t get what it said on the tin and the tour ended up costing us double what we had expected but it was worth it.

The ruins at Tikal were amazing, unfortunately the guide was not, neither was the the weather. We climbed to the top of one of the pyramids to be greated with a cloud filled sky and no sun. However we did see lots of monkeys, toucans and something with four legs, it was dark!


Sunrise in Tikal



Temple number four, the tallest of the temples

me!

Flores has been a great place to relax and after our early start it was time for a siesta. I was just settling down when someone was banging on my door. It was Jo, my friend from the ´compound´ she had just arrived and booked into the same hotel. So, some catching up and a few beers later i was totally pooped.

John, Helen and i had booked in for some more fun and games. We went to a place called Ixalupjal where we walked around the jungle canopy on sky bridges, zip wired through the jungle and then rode horses. It was a great day, a little scarey at points but lots of fun.



Me at the top of our sky walk. The jungle was amazing. This shot was taken moments before the heavens opened. We had to go into the toilet and squeeze our clothes out they were so wet.
There 6 bridges on the route. They were stable but long and very high.

John, Helen and Sara at before climbing into the jungle canopy to start the zip wire.

Helen, flying down the wire


There were 6 wires and it took us about 45 minutes to get from start to finnish. By the end we were flying down and ignoring all calls from the guy to slow down!

This was a little scarey is because there had just been a massive storm, when we were soaked from head to toe. We had just climbed the metal structure when we heard the thunder again, i did not fancy being stuck by lightening dangling from a carabina.


Helen, Sara and John after the zip wire. Totally covered in muck soaked to the skin but ready to go again, it was brilliant fun.


The three amigos. We had a little race but John had no chance as the only interest his horse had was eating.

No rest, we are done in Flores and now there is the joy of an 11 hour over night bus to Antigua.

Antigua - I stayed there for a night with Jo. It is beautiful and i will be passing back through here in the next few weeks to climg an active volcano. For now the next steps are to Lake Atitlan to do the PADI High Altitude diving specialty and relax.

xx

Sara