On March 5, we made our way to Flores, which is an island in Lake Peten Itza. The trip started with a trek to the border as we crossed from Belize into Guatemala. Getting through immigration and customs was pretty simple and we headed into Flores. (The highlight of Flores was Tikal, so all the pictures with this post are from that Mayan site.)
We arrived in Flores, checked into our hotel and went to lunch. Afterwards, somebody in the “bad kids” group discovered a bar with a happy hour that started within minutes of our discovery so we went there and had a few drinks. Afterwards, while others went swimming, I went onto my computer, since I was able to plug into the next-door hotel’s internet, and I played on my computer. At around six, we went out for another drink. We got back at 6:30 for a meeting with the rest of the group. In the meantime, I left my computer plugged in while we drank.
Sometime within the thirty minutes that we were gone, somebody had removed window panes from our window and broken into our room. As far as anybody could tell, the only thing that was missing was my roommate’s computer. The thieves nearly had to step on my computer in order to get to my roommate’s computer, but mine was left untouched. In addition, things were taken out of my small backpack but nothing was missing, despite the fact that I had about $200 in a small baggie at the bottom of my bag. The only justification that I can think of is that my roommate’s computer is small and was easy to hide by the thieves. At the end of the day, though, nothing of mine was stolen and I considered myself to be very fortunate.
The next day, we headed to Tikal. Tikal is a very interesting Mayan site. Unlike many of the Mayan ruins that we had visited throughout Mexico and Belize, much of Tikal has been reconstructed only to a very limited degree. It is a very large complex but many of the temples and other structures are in various states of disrepair. Still, the structures that are still standing are quite impressive. We also got to see some exotic birds. I found it interesting that the Australians in our group seemed to be very intrigued by woodpeckers and hummingbirds since those are so common in the United States. I was much more interested in the Toucans myself.
Come to think of it, maybe we went to Tikal the day before our room was broken into. That must have been the case because after our room was ransacked, I requested to be moved to another room. Since there were no more rooms available in the hotel, we were moved to the hotel next door. This turned out to be quite an upgrade. My roommate and I ended up getting a room with large beds, comfortable pillows and air-conditioning. We also had a huge balcony. The “bad kids” decided to take advantage of the balcony by buying beer and heading upstairs to drink. When the beer ran out, we emptied out the vodka that I had been carrying around since Mexico. For the record, vodka goes better with Gatorade than it does with Orange Crush.
That was pretty much it for Flores. Other than Tikal and being robbed (or at least my roommate being robbed), there wasn’t really much to report. The next day, we were heading to an island on the Rio Dulce and that is where I’ll pick up next time.
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