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The journey to Flores was an interesting one. We started off on a 5am chicken bus adapted for Lanquin roads, this one was even smaller than normal, not that that meant there were any less people on board - I spent an hour and a half bouncing uphill half on the wheel arch and half on a very large lady's lap. She thought it was hilarious and kept saying stuff to me in really fast Spanish, waiting for me to look as confused as possible, and then laughing her head off. Then her friends joined in speaking at me and laughing so I spent the journey the butt of some joke that I have no idea what was about.
After this experience we spent a while lost in Coban (just West of Lanquin - not nice) before another micro chicken bus whisked us off to who knows where. Somewhere, several hours later along the highway, our bus and another swerved to a halt, we were piled off, reloaded, taken off in another direction to who knows where, only this time the bus was so full there were people even climbing all over the roof. Chris was dying to get up top but unfortunately (luckily?) he was too squashed in to move.
This bus dumped us at a river side and some people put us in a long boat and then after that on to another bus (by this point we could have been anywhere) but eventually we made it to Santa Elena, which is on the lakeshore to Flores island, and we caught a taxi over.
Catching the chicken buses meant we beat the tourist shuttles so we managed to check in to the best hostel on the island (it is brilliant, and was full within the hour.) We spent the afternoon doing nothing except chill out, eat mounds of fantastic vegetarian food, and drinking cocktails. Next morning saw another 5am start this time to get a shuttle up to Tikal ruins. It is recommended that you visit early as it is a natural reserve and a lot of the wildlife disappears once the tourists pick up mid-morning. We were there by 7am and saw the tree the Mayans believed joined earth, the underworld, and heaven. It was bizarre - HUGE, but with no brances until a big canopy about a mile up in the sky and butresses the size of a house. After this we wandered around with a lot of peacocks and caught sight of a few madly coloured birds. The biggest problem we had after this was that no-one had had any breakfast so we were about as energetic as 4 old ladies. Climbing huge pyramids was like climbing a mountain and each few lasted about an hour while we all got our breath back and tried to ignore other people eating sandwiches. After this things deteriorated a bit, Chris spent a while being a sort of Mayan viking, finally resulting in undressing himself at the top of a pyramid which seemed to perk him up a bit. We found some doritos, climbed one last pyramid on the burst of energy, then came across some racoon type things which we played with for a bit. We were back in the hostel by 2pm and all ready for a good nap!
That evening we walked around Flores but it is a tiny place and the weather wasnt great so we didn't swim. Spent the last evening eating enormous puddings and drinking a final Gallo beer before our inevitable return to Mexico in the morning.
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