Yesterday we traveled from San Ignacio, Belize to Flores, Guatemala. We took the fifteen minute taxi ride to the border in the smallest van I've ever seen! It was so cool! If I could buy one of these in the states, it would be a great little car. Anyway, once we went through customs... which consisted of paying to get out of Belize, walking one hundred yards, and then paying to get into Guatemala.... we were immediately hounded by all kinds of people trying to get us to buy stuff. Touts, they call them. They tout their products. We were approached by no less than twenty people trying to get us to buy a taxi to whatever town they thought we would want to go to, exchange money with them(at a terrible rate) or buy some kind of tour that they were selling. It was chaotic and hectic to say the least. I know they're just trying to make a living but when you have twenty people hollering at you, you tend to start ignoring all of them. I do, anyway. With the help of a nice local, we were able to find the correct bus to Flores and exchange enough money into quetzales to get there. It was a nice, two hour drive through the countryside. We dropped off and picked up passengers all along the way. It was much like any other bus system you've been on except it was actually sort of a minivan and you didn't pay until you reached your destination. Once in Flores, the driver was kind enough to wait until I pulled some cash out of the ATM then took us to our guesthouse. We read about the guesthouse in our travel book and luckily they had a room for us. One of the bonuses of this place is that it has a rooftop lounge with a great view of the lake. Heck, every place has a pretty good view of the lake. We settled into our room then headed to the roof for some hammock reading time. After sunset, we found a local Italian restaurant where I had the best steak pannini sandwich ever! Seriously. Dear Diary, today I had the best steak pannini sandwich ever. After dinner we walked around the island. Literally. Around it. It such a small island that it took about twenty minutes to walk around. Flores is so clean. And the streets are narrow with cobblestone streets and colorfully painted buildings. I've haven't been to Italy ,yet, but I've seen plenty of pictures and movies with Italy in them. This place reminds me of how I think many places in Italy might be. I'll have to compare notes when I finally make it to Europe. Today was a lazy day for us. We took a small "ferry" (read skiff) across the lake from Flores to the peninsula across the way. We hiked to the other end of the peninsula to a local beach to go swimming. Then to the end of the peninsula to a platform that allowed great views of the surrounding area.
After getting back to Flores we took a walk across the bridge to Santa Elena. That's when you realize you're in a third world country. Garbage everywhere, uneven and broken streets as well as sidewalks, tons of mangy stray dogs and..... markets. The hustle and bustle of a busy little town. Even though it was dirty, there were plenty of smiles and everyone was very friendly. We mad it back to Flores just in time for sunset and ice cream. That pretty much ended the day. Now we're facebooking, blogging, and studying Spanish and reading. Tomorrow is Tikal. Another Mayan ruin. Ciao!
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