The trip started at a corner in downtown Cobán at 6:00 am, due to some advice that that is the only time that buses leave for Flores. I'm personally skeptical about the data but, if wrong, it would definitely not be the only flawed information received on this trip. This particular leg of the journey marked my second microbus ride, Gabe's first, and Connor's first in Guatemala. It definitely lived up to expectations. Far more cramped and uncomfortable than my first, this was also almost twice as long, a little over 6 hours. At one point all the bench seats designed for 3 were made to fit 5, and there were 10 people standing in the bus. Gabe pretty succinctly summed it up after we got out: "Dude, that was SO horrible." After this ride from hell we arrived in Flores to find (from a man who owned a bus company leaving for Belize City the next morning) that there were no more buses to Belize City until the next morning. In our defense, he was literally the only person at the bus station to talk to, so even if he wasn't legit, we had no other options. The lack of a ride forced us to stay the day in Flores, one of the more famous places in Guate because of two special traits. It is the stopping point for any trip to Tikal, possibly the most famous Mayan ruins in the world, meaning that almost every tourist to Guatemala passes through, and it is one of the three well known lakes in Guatemala. We didn't have money for Tikal, and, although I find them nice, am less than blown away by the concept of a fresh water lake. I've seen a few before; I have no need to pay for a motor boat tour of another one. Therefore, Flores didn't have much to offer us.
In its defense it was a nice lake
Although the scenery was pretty nice, there was not much to do on the island of Flores. We got a cheap hostel, and chilled for the rest of the day, which was probably for the better because Gabe got pretty sick with some stomach problems, and we had a bus to catch at 5:00 the next morning.The bus ride into Belize City was quite a bit more comfortable than any I have taken in Guatemala thanks to the law in Belize that you can only carry as many passengers as there are seats in the car. Seems like a pretty reasonable law to me. The comfort of the ride allowed us to catch up on some sleep, and when we arrived in sunny, dirty, crowded Belize City we were ready to hit the beaches. That is, after a 30 minute boat ride to Caye (pronounced Key) Caulker. Somehow, in the hordes of people and hotel owners and people trying to carry bags for a tip, we found a pretty cool guy who owned a hostel near the center of the "town." We got ourselves a little cabin for pretty cheap and began our beach vacation. As a true testament to our serious dedication and skill, we managed to spend the next 3 days doing almost nothing. We lounged on the beach, met people, and drank plenty of Belikin, Belize's most famous beer. It's not a spectacular brew but, as they say: when in Rome, drink cold beer on the beach. Or something like that.
Thanksgiving happened to occur while we were on the island, and although it was not necessarily a traditional thanksgiving, it was definitely one to remember. While there was no flag football game or dog shows on TV, the beach served as a pretty acceptable alternative. Instead of turkey, all we could find was Chicken,
but we definitely made do with that!
and the new found friends had to serve as our impromptu family, but we made it work. We even went around the table and said things we were thankful for.
Besides lounging on the beach, we also met a lot of people, on the beach, in the bar, and at the hostel. Lot's of very cool people, from the Iranian who had been at the hostel for 3 weeks to the Finnish guy who had been traveling the world for 14 months after quitting his job as a truck driver. I had some pretty awesome conversations with these people, ranging from the Iranian telling me that it would be better to use my physics knowledge to build bombs than alternative energy for third world countries because we shouldn't be meddling with peoples lives and forcing our way upon them (blowing them up is somehow better), to a German and me discussing common prejudices against each others countries. While there were many interesting people and interesting stories, by far the most numerous comments we got were on how rude Americans are and how bad our government's foreign policy is. It turns out that quite a few people in the world have very strong opinions about Americans that they are not afraid to share. I even met one Canadian girl who, after finding out that I was from the USA, spent a full 5 minutes telling me how Americans are so rude and every time you travel you can tell who is American. Obviously MN manners are different than Canadian manners, because that in itself actually seems rude to me... oh well, chalk it up to cultural differences.
Despite the less than warm greeting by a few people, most people we met were really awesome, and the beach kind of speaks for itself, this was a really great vacation. However, all good things must come to an end.
I decided to take an alternate route back to Esquipulas, both in order to see more of the country, and in order to avoid those really horrible microbus rides. Because of this I decided to leave the beach a day earlier than my travel buddies, just in case I had problems and needed to spend an extra day on the road. I was told (yet another piece of dubious information) that the only bus to Punta Gorda was early in the morning, but that for an extra $2 it was possible to get one that went direct to PG without stopping all the time. actually, from the central bus terminal of Belize City, that there are no direct buses, but that they do leave Belize City all day until night fall. I could have slept in. It actually ended up being for the best that I planned for an early departure. I caught the earliest sea taxi from the Island, which was 8:00 am, and from there, after wandering around the city for awhile, got conned into paying a guy about what a taxi would've cost me to walk with me to the station and show me where it is. I got there at about the perfect time though, 30 minutes before the bus left, so I was able to settle in nicely. The bus ride was longer than expected, and I arrived in Punta Gorda just after nightfall. It turns out PG does not find many uses for streetlamps, and I ended up walking dark streets with all my stuff. I stopped in the first hotel I found, and I think I payed to much for it due to my obvious desire to get my stuff stored somewhere safe before exploring any more. It was my first ever solo stay in a hotel though, so C'est La Vie I guess.
After getting everything put away, I decided to explore everything that PG had to offer. It turns out that can be done in about 10 minutes. So I had a nice dinner at a deserted diner where the three workers were very nice, and bored, and kept me company while I ate. Upon returning to my room I realized that I had left the key inside. To make matters worse, the night guard had lost his keys, and the evening worker had left without leaving the extra keys within arms reach of the window so he could grab them in an emergency (apparently that's their back-up system). We waited around for awhile trying to get a hold of the boss, who would not answer his phone, when finally the guard asked me in desperation, "don't you know how to break in or something?"
Well thank you for asking sir, I don't think so, but I'll definitely try.
And try I did. It turns out someone else had had the same predicament in the same room (maybe) because the window panes were held in place literally with only scotch tape. They were easy enough to remove, as was the screen, and viola, within minutes I was back inside my room, determined to not leave anything valuable inside if ever I decided to wander again.
Due to yet another piece of dubious information, I was under the impression that the only boat to Puerto Barrios Guatemala was at 12:00 noon. So I decided to wander the city and catch the sunrise before heading back to the room for a mid morning nap. As I was heading to the room I caught sight of some people getting onto a boat. Turns out they were getting on the 9:00 boat for Puerto Barrios. oops. I ended up on the 12:00 boat, which broke down twice on the way, and got into Puerto Barrios around 3:00. This was notable only for being the first time I've entered a country by boat. Kind of a cool accomplishment. I felt like one of the discoverers of the new world, except instead of a sailboat I had a twin motor sea taxi, and instead of coming for copious amounts of gold and land, I'm volunteering for free.
A shot of the Guatemalan shore in the distance
I was assured that after yet another 5 hour microbus ride (this one surprisingly comfortable though) I would be able to catch a bus from Chiquimula to Esquipulas (about 45 minutes away). The microbus driver who told me this apparently forgot that it was Sunday and there are no buses to Esquipulas. Whether or not he knew this at the time is irrelevant as I found out after waiting for a bus on a street corner in Chiquimula for about 45 minutes. Eventually a half drunk Italian sailor who spoke 5 different languages (English included) wandered by and decided to befriend me. After admonishing me for thinking about traveling at night (it was only dusk when I started waiting at the corner) he gave me all sorts of tips about this part of the city, which he knows well because he's living at the "hotel buen precio" (roughly translates to cheap hotel) and working as a tattoo artist. I eventually decided that, even though I was so close to home, dark had settled over the city and the street corner's population was taking a turn for the worse so it was becoming necessary to get off the corner and find a place to hunker down. Hotel Buen Precio it was. For the rest of the night I dodged cockroaches and bed bugs, and caught some sleep before the 6:00 am bus into Esquipulas. My travels successfully concluded with my first meal of beans and corn tortillas in about two weeks. I can't really say I missed that.
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