FLORES/TIKAL, GUATEMALA

I was the first of the 45 people to board the bus to Flores, Guatemala, but the fact that there were only 40 seats made it a less than ideal ride for a few folks. The “travel agents” who aggressively sell the unreserved seats on the bus don’t seem to have to reconcile their numbers with actual seats. This is the sort of thing that was already beginning to bug me about Central America. The guy on Caye Caulker who sold me my bus ticket showed me a photo of the bus I would be traveling on. The real bus was similar to the photo in that they were both enclosed and had four wheels, but the similarities ended there.

Once everyone was more or less seated and we were underway, some young frizzy-haired guy sitting in the aisle up front pulled out a harmonica and started playing it (badly). He must have seen a movie or read a book where some guy did that and people clapped and sang along, or did something other than hate his guts or pray that he accidentally swallows the thing. Thankfully, I think he soon noticed the dirty looks and he stopped.

While Belize is an English speaking country, Guatemala is not, at all. From the very moment I walked across the border complex to re-board the bus, I encountered blank stares from nearly everyone I asked for help. True, it’s their country and it’s their prerogative to speak or not speak any language they choose, but a large portion of their more affluent visitors speak English and even a lexicon of 100 words or so would handle most tourist needs. I’ve actually gone out of my way to avoid learning Spanish in my life, but my few-word vocabulary was actually far better than almost everyone who even works in the tourism industry in Guatemala!

The long distance bus arrived in the Tijuana-like town of Santa Elena, which borders the lake upon which the tiny island town of Flores lies. I guess the big bus won’t fit on the streets of colonial Flores, so they had us get off and then pile into a small van. It was obvious to everyone that we wouldn’t fit, but it took 20 or so confusing minutes before they fetched another van for the dozen of us still standing there. The ride into Flores then took about 2 minutes and when I later walked back to Santa Elena to use an ATM, I realized it was less than ten pleasant minutes by foot all along.

I hadn’t booked a room before arriving, but the nicest hotel in my Lonely Planet guide seemed affordable at $20+ per night so I figured I would try that first. When the bus guys asked where I was staying, I told them I was going to try the Hotel Villa Del Lago and they acted like I had said The Four Seasons. They all said, “Oh, VERY nice!” as if I must be a zillionaire. This worried me a bit, but I decided to try the place anyway. If it was even close to $20 per night I figured it would be fine. It was a beautiful little hotel in a quiet corner of the island and the desk clerk knew just enough English to let me know the rate would be $14 per night. I handed him a $20 and he gave me back my change in local currency and the room key and I didn’t even have to give my name.

The reason the bus guys knew a little English, as it turns out, is that nearly everyone in town is a travel agent too. Flores is the staging ground for nearly every tourist’s trip to the granddaddy of all Mayan Ruins — the nearby Tikal. This was also my reason for being there, of course. Everyone kept insisting that it was best to get on the 5 a.m. bus to Tikal, which again, made me suspicious. The roundtrip bus ticket for the hour-long ride was only $5, but why were they so insistent? It turned out they were right. I groggily got myself to the bus out front at 5 a.m. and we got inside the Tikal reserve a bit after six. I was happy to agree to a $10 English-speaking tour from a local guide, along with 5 other Americans. The guide took us to a small restaurant/shack (with no running water) for coffee and breakfast before we began.

Tikal was a huge city built by Mayans almost 2,000 years ago deep in the jungle, but for some reason it was abandoned about 1,000 years ago only to be rediscovered in 1848. Archeologists have uncovered and restored much of it and it’s now by far the region’s biggest tourist attraction. Guidebooks recommend spending two days there to fully appreciate it at dusk and dawn and to fully explore it, but to be honest, I was pretty ruined myself after the 4-hour tour. Yes, it IS impressive, but I think a lot of people get a bit carried away with their unbridled worship of things like this.

I was just as fascinated with the spider monkeys swinging in the trees above us as we walked. Also, the sound of the howler monkeys (that we never actually saw) is much more walrus-like than wolf-like.

I had about 45 minutes to kill before boarding the bus back to Flores so I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich from the same place I had breakfast. It came with a cheerful side of watermelon, which would later be my undoing.

Twenty or so other sardines and I were wedged into the shuttle van back to Flores, but since I had already developed a distaste for these bus rides, I was literally dropped off on the side of the road in front of the airport on the way so I could catch the 4 p.m. flight to Guatemala City I had booked the day before.

Once again, I found it bizarre that virtually no one spoke anything other than Spanish, especially since this tiny place was actually an international airport. None of the locals seem to be able to afford to travel by air, so every single passenger was a foreign tourist and almost all of us seemed to be English speakers. I guess it’s part of the culture, but there was really no information being given in any language for a long time, and there are no status screens or boards anywhere in the airport. Five different small airlines use this airport and all of them have flights to Guatemala City late in the afternoon, one after the other.

I was booked on a 4 p.m. flight (one way, $65) and promptly at 4:10 p.m. there was something over the P.A. system that must’ve been a boarding call and I followed other people holding the same ticket as me out onto the tarmac. Fortunately, only about 10 minutes later we were all on board and the dual prop plane was on its way. My stomach was already a bit queasy in the terminal, but the strong smell of kerosene or some other sort of fuel on board the plane made me feel worse. The flight only lasted an hour, but it couldn’t have been over soon enough.