Flores

We left Livingston the next day. Ben didn't have a desire to go their in the first place it was me who thought it would be so great. We took a boat down the Rio Dulce. The first hour was beautiful. The river channel was small, it was green with many tributaries, and small inlets, cliff with dense vegetation. I was told that if you didn't know where you were going you could easily get lost in the backwaters.


Ben documented the evidence that I really had scabies. This pic is before it got really bad.


Then we caught a bus to Flores our home base during our visit to Tikal. On the bus Ben ran into a couple Brit guys that he met in El Salvador. He was their 'translator' during some tour they all went on. The third of their group got incredibly sick and he was in the hospital. As they described his condition I was surprised that he actually survived.

The hostel of choice here was called Los Amigos...ok place. Flores is a little island, built around tourism with jacked up prices and nothing authentic about the place but quaint all the same. There was a small road along the circumference of the island. It was here that I got my first episode of food poisoning, on top of dealing with the horrible scabies condition. I pride myself on not getting sick. I think I got slightly ill once in India, SE Asia, and I think in China I got Salmonella poisoning but the fault was my own. My cases are like indigestion compared to the stories I've heard.

We ran into a missionary couple in the square where we purchased our deadly tacos. I watched a lot of soccer games, wandered the street market buying watermelon and mangoes. I got the mangoes for 2 Quetzals/each.


In the evenings I would walk around the island looking at the lake. I would fiddle with my camera as I watched the sunsets. One afternoon I took a dip in the water. It was quite refreshing.


Tikal the main highlight of my to Northwest Guatemala. A shuttle bus drove tourists like cattle to the sight. Since it was rainy season they made the start early, 5AM early, as to beat the afternoon showers. Ill, weak, tired, and eventually hot but overcast, thank goodness we toured around the ruins. I was so happy for modern convenience of flushing toilets and so glad they had toilet paper.



We climbed up one of the temples which had a rickety wooden ladder/staircase to the top- Temple V. Ben is slightly afraid of heights, I laughed at the snail pace at which he climbed the ladder. In my enthusiasm to climb to the top, he obliged me. We sat up at the top for quite a while overlooking the canopy of trees.



The main plaza and temple structures were vast. It covered such a large area and there was so many of them still standing, it was really amazing!




(Random note. We met an Israeli guy who was a body guard for Mark Walburg. He was paid 20Grand/month, housing included. Ridiculous!!!)