Big Orange Backpack

Since I last wrote I feel like its been forever. Excuse my lack of an apostrophe through this entry, I cannot find it on the keyboard. On Sunday we traveled down to Chetumal, which is the southern most city of Mexico. We arrived at 6pm at the bus terminal, and we asked when the bus would be leaving for Flores, Guatemala. We were told it left at 5am, but we had to be there at 4am in order for them to ensure that there were going to be enough people on it in order to run the bus. We decided to sleep in or around the bus terminal, since we would only spend a little time in a hostel bed before having to leave again. We walked around Chetumal, and took our first real look at the ocean. After watching the sunset on the pier, we went and had an amazing pizza meal. I ate too much pizza that was apparently loaded with garlic, and I threw up all over the sidewalk. It was a crowning moment in my time in Mexico, I have to say. We went back to the bus station and saw some Menonites, apparently theres a large community in Mexico of them. We ended up deciding to sleep in the park, and we laid out towels and a sleeping bag that Juan had, and we ended up watching Juan play a game of futbol (soccer) before slowly falling asleep. We only slept for two hours at most before the stray dogs in the park started barking and woke us up. We went into the bus terminal and waited for our bus for a few minutes, and met an Israeli "couple" (a guy and girl traveling but who were not romantically an item) who were also going to Flores. On the way into Belize we lost Juan. He had apparently snuck past the Mexican authorities, and thought he could bribe slash sweet talk his way into Belize because he didnt have his passport. He was wrong. He was turned away from the Belize border and he had to sweet talk his way back into Mexico, which was far more successful, apparently (he emailed Vanessa after getting back into Mexico).
We ended up going through Belize City on our way to Guatemala, and we spent 45 minutes in Belize City itself. It was far more run down than I anticipated, very Phnom Penh-esque. I really felt as though I got a good sense of Belize, it was lush and beautiful and very different than Mexico or Guatemala, I felt as though they were indeed distinct countries. The border into Guatemala was a bit frightening in its ghetto-ness, I was at first a bit nervous about coming into the country when the border was so disorganized and frantic. The bus (which was already a minibus) broke down very close to Flores, and for the last hour or so we were all stuffed into an even smaller bus. Finally, we arrived in Flores, and came to the Hotel los Amigos with the Israeli couple that we met. We had been awake (save the nap in the park and a few naps on the bus) for 24 hours, but we were starving and desperately needed to change our clothes and shower. We walked through Flores after dropping our bags at the hostel looking for an ATM machine and passed by the lake which surrounds Flores Island. We stood there deciding that we would first go to the ATM, then get food, and then go swimming. However, while us ladies were standing there, Roi, the guy Israeli, was stripping down to his underwear behind us and jumped into the water. The four of us stood there, admiring the lake and thinking how much we wanted to go in before we gave in and stripped down and got in too. It was unbelievably beautiful, and completely refreshing. We then walked towards the ATM, and on the way met a group from Quebec. Its been confusing already speaking Spanish English and Hebrew, but when I threw French into the mix, my brain went on overload. As we were at the ATM we were passed by a funeral procession, and I really wanted to photograph it because it was so interesting, but I held back. We then went to a wonderful restaurant on the lake and had great food and happy hour margaritas, which were the best Ive ever had. We came back to the hostel and passed out, having been awake for 36 hours with only a few naps in between.
This morning we woke up at 4:30 and went to the Tikal ruins. It was loads of fun, and we were climbing and hiking through the jungle for about 3 or 4 hours. Were about to have lunch, and then go rent a canoe for the lake, and go onto another, smaller island to a beach with almost no-one on it. Weve changed our plans a little, and were leaving Flores a day early. Tomorrow were traveling to Antigua, and the next day well go to Isla de Atitlan (on the recommendation of Eric of Singapore), and then well return to Antigua for another day before making our way to Copan in Honduras. Its great fun and Im loving every minute of it!