The day before we were set to leave San Ignacio, I asked our hostel staff how much it should cost us on the bus out of town to the border of Guatemala and they told us that we should just take a cab because it would only cost us about $5 Belize each to get to the border and we didn’t have to mess with the bus. So when the first guy we approached asked for $50 Belize, I laughed in his face.

We started walking further down the road and not ten feet later another taxi is asking us where we’re going. We tell him the border and he says it’ll only be $40. We were going in the right direction it seemed. The third guy in line finally quoted us what the ride should have cost, $10 for us both. We threw our bags in the back of the trunk and were on our way. Fifteen minutes later, we were at the Guatemala/Belize border and ready for our first land border crossing of the trip.

A guy greeted us and was offering to exchange our Belize money into Guatemalan Quetzales. I didn’t see an ATM anywhere, so I exchanged our money out.  I should have either negotiated with him because I checked the exchange rate later and found out he made about $15 off of us.  Not bad for about ten minutes worth of work. Oh well…we’re learning.

We then stood in what we thought was the correct line to get out of Belize and into Guatemala. Nope. A guy came up to us and told us we had to go to a desk where a lady sat behind the counter. We had to pay an exit fee and an environmental protection fee each since we weren’t Belize citizens. Luckily, I had heard about this before and knew it wasn’t a scam, but we lost our place in line and had to go to the back. It took about 30 minutes to get out of Belize and then it was on to the Guatemalan border.

We started getting approached by guys asking us where we were going and offering to take us there for $50 American dollars (!) Holy crap that’s expensive, I thought. After we got our passport stamps, we started walking to where I could see some buses. A kid no younger than 10 approached us and asked if were were looking for the collectivo and I told him we were. So he started walking with us to show us where we were going. I knew I’d have to give him a small tip, so I handed him fifty cents American and he seemed pleased with that.

We got to the bus station and this is where I had to start using my Spanish. I asked how much and he said it would be $60 Quetzals total for both of us to get to Flores which works out to about $7.85 American. That sounds a whole lot better than $50. I asked when we would leave and he looked at his watch and said right now. So we left, initially with just Mandy and myself on the bus. Here’s where the ‘collectivo’ comes into play. The bus began to drive all around the town picking up passengers who were all paying less than us I noticed, but I didn’t care. Their dollar is worth less than ours and it’s what they can afford to pay.

We eventually got full and headed towards Flores, stopping along the way to let people off the bus and get more people onto it. My initial impression of Guatemala was that it was so incredibly green and these little towns we were driving through were so incredibly poor. Lots of speed bumps and turns and uphills and downhills had Mandy’s head was spinning. She had taken Dramamine before we set out and it was helping, thankfully.

We made it to Flores and small tuc-tuc taxis were waiting to take us the rest of the way to the island.  We decided to walk, which was stupid.  They were only asking about $5 American to take us and we should have taken them up on it.  We were hot and exhausted by the time we got there.  We checked into the famous Amigos Backpackers hostel, where we proceeded to get ripped off for four days.  It wasn’t that the hostel was bad…It was great actually..they had their own bar and restaurant.  They closed everything down around 8 in the evening and sent everyone else who wanted to keep partying upstairs where they were away from the rooms.   They also just knew they could charge more than any other hostel on the island and get away with it.  I was getting the happy hour ‘deal’ on two Cubra Libres (Rum and coke with lime) for $30 Guatemala.  But as we began to walk around, we noticed other places advertising the same drink for $9 each.   We tried to book a bus to Semuc Champey twice and all the buses were full.  We ended up moving to the Green Monkey hostel on the main street in town.  For the exact same price we were paying at Amigos for a 6 person dorm and shared bathroom, we got our own private room with our own private bathroom.  We should have discovered this place sooner.

Flores was nice.  We just happened to spend an extra couple of days there we hadn’t planned on and it started to wear on us. It was getting annoying that we couldn’t leave when we wanted to.  We know Flores very well and if you need a suggestion on where to stay or where to eat, we have you covered.

We took a little boat out to the edge of the lake where a local Guatemalan man has life figured out.  He’s built a diving platform and two rope swings and even has an area with hammocks and tables you can chill out at.  It’s a great spot on the lake.  He charges people $10Q per person to come and play on his own personal land and jump or swing into the lake.  He also sells tequila shots and beers and his wife cooks a few small snacks if you’re interested.  Basically he sits there and collects money from tourists who come onto his land and play around on his rope swings.  This guy is my spirit animal.

We also took a trip out to Tikal, which was the highlight of our time in Flores.  These are Mayan ruins that are the second largest in the world.  It took about an hour and a half for our bus to get there.  We opted for the sunset tour which left at noon in front of our hostel, as opposed to the sunrise tour that left at 3:30 in the morning.  I’m not friends with 3:30 in the morning.

Our guide was great and knowledgable and we were overwhelmed between the information being fed to us and the actual activity of walking amongst these ruins.  My phone beeped at me at one point about halfway through the tour and told me I had walked an unheard of number of steps before.  It was worth it.  We got to see the famous monuments that were in Star Wars that, in the movie took about 5 seconds of film, but I can see why they came all that way for just a few seconds. I’ve never seen anything like this place in my life.  Howler monkeys howled the entire time and every time we turned a corner, another huge pyramid would greet us.   While on our 40 minute break, we noticed a guy staring at the ground so we walked over to see what the deal was.  A huge hornet had paralyzed an even bigger tarantula spider and was dragging him away!  At first we thought they were fighting, but it was pretty obvious the spider wasn’t moving at all.

We finally got a bus out of Flores that was supposed to have left at 8 in the morning but didn’t because of a screw up with the booking.  This was a 14 person bus, but they had booked, and were seriously trying to get, 17 people onto this bus.  Mandy and I had gotten there early (on time) and had claimed our spots.  By the time others started showing up, it became clear this was a ‘not my problem’ situation and we just sat in our seats and waited for the bus to leave.  Eventually, the 3 extra people decided to take a later bus and we left Flores for the most beautiful place we’ve ever seen on earth (so far), Semuc Champey, Guatemala.