Flores

We left the comfort of our nice little Outpost and went straight to the Guatemalan border. It was a little bit nerve racking because Guatemala is more dangerous than Belize and nobody speaks English. But we managed to get on the local minibus to Flores, where we had planned to stay the night. It was an interesting ride because the bus was full (or so we thought...) when we got on so we ended up in the front with the bus driver. There were about 8

 seats on the bus- all of them were full, but the bus driver kept stopping to pick people up! At one point there were about 18 people on board, but we were comfortable because we were in the front with the driver. We were practicing our Spanish with the driver, dodging the horses and cows crossing and just standing in the middle of the road. An hour and a half later, we arrived at Flores. It is a little island that looks very European; cobblestone roads, mopeds and motorcycles, colorful buildings, narrow roads, strings of clothes hanging out to dry from high above... Absolutely beautiful!

We got to our hostel, Los Amigos, and got settled into our 8 person dorm room. The hostel has a very backpacker vibe with hammocks, shared bathrooms, and travelers from all over the world. It is really neat, but the island is just so gorgeous that we put our stuff away and headed outside to explore the island. We were looking for a place to have happy hour at a restaurant on the lake when we saw a single, 2 person table on the sidewalk across the street. It was too cute to pass up, so we sat down and immediatly a server from a restaurant about a block away came to bring us menus. We ordered some Guatemalan beer and soaked up the beauty of the island and the sunset. Then we found an internet cafe and Skyped our parents to let them know that we are alive and well. ;) It was the first time that we had talked to them because Skype is banned in Belize because phone communciation is so expensive and they were losing buisness to Skype. And we are able to update our blog because using the internet is MUCH cheaper here, about $1.20/hr compared to $5/hr in Belize. We then found the only restaurant that was open at 10:30 at night and split a delicious plate of spaghetti and called it a night.



This morning, we woke up early and went to a little restaurant on the water for breakfast and coffee. The meals are really cheap here, we got one of the most expensive dishes; a green pepper omlette, black beans, and toast, and it only cost $4. We needed a big meal because we will be spending the next two nights in Tikal, a Mayan ruin, which we will be camping at. There are no restaurants up there so we bought a loaf of bread, some peanut butter and jelly, a gallon of water, and that will be our meals for the next couple of days...  We will let you know how it goes!


Love,

Rachel and Darren