New York

Left Palenque yesterday, getting up at 5.30 to get a bus to the border at Guatemala. Was awake anyway, cos the hostel that we were staying at was right next to a road. Everyone seems to get up at about 3am and start shouting, driving about with music blaring beeping their horns, shouting electoral campains through megaphones or strangling cockrels. Is the noisiest place I have ever been. We paid for an organised tour to cross the border as it was going to cost roughly the same to do it ourselves. We travelled in a little nissan van full of all different nationalities. Wasn´t very comfortable. Spent a couple of hours doing this and arrived at a river where we transferred to a boat. Bit of confusion between times about tickets and who had paid for what. Travelled for about 1/2 hour on a sort of canoe-like boat down the river to another bus. We then had to wait for an hour, for no reason. The guy we bought the tour from said that there would be a 1st class air conditioned bus to pick us up at the other side of the river, but instead it was a clapped out old van-like machine held together by string and elastic bands and seemed to be clockwork and the air conditioning was windows that just about opened. The driver had to open a hatch in the floor and fiddle about with some wire to get it started.

We were then taken to the immigration office where we had our passports stamped and were relieved of some money. We then returned to the river to cram some more people into the bus and repeated the process. All fun and games, but we made it to Guatemala eventually.

We crept along a road made from boulders about the size of my head for another 3 hours. In the meantime we picked up another tour guide about an hour from Flores our final destination. He proceeded to shout his pitch about trips to the ruins at Tikal for the next hour or so. Hard Sell. We were even helpfully taken to two different ATM's to ensure that people bought the trips. Most people did. We didn't. Going to do that in our own time, maybe tomorrow.

Flores

Flores is a little island on a lake, and is really nice. Staying in a very cheap and slightly nasty hotel, and making ful use of the sleeping bag and midge net. There is a large gap between the roof and the wall where insects can get in. Got Geckos and spiders sharing the room with us too. Get what you pay for though, and there is a veranda that looks out onto the lake which is really nice. Getting stuck into more litre bottles of the local bevvy - Gallo, it{s very nice too. Thinking of hiring a boat and trying to catch some fish.