Flores, June 4-7

The view from my hotel - and the lake makes for a great swim as soon as you get hot too!

I rode in to town on a Sunday afternoon...or at least that what it feels like many the locals did. It’s been a while since I saw this many cowboys in one place, and with the number of stores for agriculture goods to match! On the main street there must be several hundred machetes for sale...

Or at least that’s the feeling you get in the Southern part of town – Santa Elena. Yes, once again I am in a divided town, and once again it is the northern half that has taken all the tourist trade while its southern brethren got none.

But in this case, there is an excellent reason! The town of Flores lies on a small Island, less than 500 x 500 meters in a beautiful lake in northern Guatemala. Although the town is very lovely with a lot of cobblestone alleyways and winding streets, most people don’t seem to stay here for long, instead heading for the main attraction in the area – Tikal (more on that later). Also, since this is definitely off-season, there aren’t many tourists here at all, which in turn means that it is a rather desolate village right now. But on the positive side, it seems to be quite easy to barter for living and excursions.

I’m staying at La Casa del Lacandon (no, I have NO idea what Lacandon means – the phrase book fails me there, and I have not thought about asking), a simple little hotel, but right on the water, and on the sunset side nonetheless!

I’m sure that the sunsets would normally be exquisite, but the weather we have been having is far from perfect – I probably need to realize that the rainy season is over us now. Although we rarely have rain except in the night so far, it is cloudy most of the days.

Despite the lack of beautiful sunsets, Flores would be worth spending a few more days in, but I need to move on. Before my darling Raquel left me, she gave me a few tips on Guatemala (she had spent several weeks here before we met), and I am going to take advantage of those. My main purpose of going to Guatemala was Spanish studies in Antigua and hiking at Lake Atitlán. As you may remember, I do not have the time for any Spanish classes, and as it looks now, I’m gonna cancel the Atitlán hiking as well.

You see, Guatemala is not exactly the safest of countries, and especially around Atitlán and Antigua there has been several robberies reported lately. I’m still going there (they are both supposed to be absolutely beautiful!), but I’m probably not going to do any hiking there. Instead Raquel tipped me off about an almost unknown area around the town Nebaj between here and Antigua.

Almost completely undeveloped for tourists, they have recently started a Community-Based Tourism system set up, with local guides, horses and accommodation in the villages surrounding Nebaj – in other words just like there will be in Kyrghyzstan!

Oh, and Mom, you will be glad to hear this – not only is the trekking supposed to be excellent (and VERY cheap!), but there has supposedly NEVER been a tourist related crime reported there! The more I’m reading about it, the better it sounds, and I’m really looking forward to it - thanks Raquel!

Oh, and while I am in the area anyway, I will do Grutas de Lanquin (a giant cave system) and Semuc Champey (natural swimming pools, by many rated as the most beautiful place in the country), once again as a tip from Raquel. In fact, she gave me so many ideas that I could probably stay for another month at least. But I need to head south soon unless I want to miss my flight from Panama, so I’m just going to quickly take in Lake Atitlán and Antigua on my way to Guatemala City and then probably skip Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and go directly for Costa Rica – or maybe even Panama?

In hindsight it was of course very stupid to try and do the whole area in only two months, but I never had the time to read up on the area before I had to order the airplane tickets – I didn’t even know how big the countries were! But on the positive side, it gives me a very good reason to come back, which I most certainly want to!

I can see that I have not written much about Flores itself, and that I guess reflects what I’ve been doing and thinking about. I met a lovely Australian couple on the bus from Belize, and we have spent a lot of time discussing our previous trips (and they have shown me some EXCELLENT pictures from Galapagos), world politics and so on, and not really taken the time to enjoyed the town per se. And when I’ve been alone, I’ve been looking forward and planning the rest of the trip.

And on that note – time to finish the last of my beer hear at Capitán Tortugas, and go and post this to the blog. Tomorrow I have an early (5.30!) bus to Cobán/Lanquin! It feels like I’m starting the journey home tomorrow, and although I still have more than three weeks of adventures left, I’m already looking forward to coming home and meeting many of you!