Flores, Guatemala

We landed at Flores airport at about 9pm on 17th November. Customs declaration was quite simple. It consisted of a dog trouncing over all the luggage on the conveyor belt trying to sniff out any drugs. Once we were on the other side, we got in a taxi to take us to Flores Island. The two main reasons for coming here was to check out the Mayan ruins in Tikal, and also because the flights here were over 150 pounds cheaper for each ticket than flying straight to Belize City. We stayed in the Hotel Santana and managed to get a room with a balcony overlooking the lake for $50US. We could not see much that night, but when we woke up the following morning the views were amazing. We had a 2 hour bus ride to Tikal where the famous ruins are. We arrived at about 8am - early enough to catch a glimpse of the local wildlife. We managed to see howler monkeys, toucans and some other strange animal that looked a bit like an ant eater with fur. The ruins themselves were pretty good. We were able to climb up one of them and it gave great views of the jungle canopy. We left about midday and headed back to Flores ready for the bus ride to Belize the following morning. We woke about 6am and got on the bus headed for Belize City. We had booked on a premier class bus, but when it turned up, it was more like something that had been stolen from the scrap yard. On the way to Belize we had torrential rain a few times and as the rain came down, the bus leaked from every possible place. We should have been given umbrellas!!