The hairs on our arms stood on end as we sat shivering in a bus at 4am on our way to Tikal. The famous Mayan ruins, built based on the suns position. Arriving we were thrilled to find out we each received a FREE tea or coffee. So we carefully selected our drinks, sat down and enjoyed the pleasure of a FREE drink. But then, much to our dismay and shock, the waiter chased after us and accused us of stealing our drinks - embarrassing us in front of the entire group! Once pointing out the sign which told us the drinks were included we still ended up paying for our FREE drink...grrr!

Although bringing hiking boots and multiple pairs of shoes travelling, we managed to end up being the only people stupid enough to be trekking in flip flops. As a consequence of which, we were bitten alive by countless ferocious ants. We climbed many Mayan ruins- but to be honest after seeing one, they were all pretty similar- but the views made the 600steps up vertical ladders worth it. Our tour guide- a typical Guatamalan sleazy man- failed miserably in his attempts to chat us up. There were moments when we felt like we were in jurassic park, when we heard the distant but bellowing roars of the howler monkeys.

We spent the rest of the day catching up on our sleep after getting up at 4am since a crazy thunder storm prevented us leaving our room even in our rain macs.

Emma considered the danger of our room that evening as she was falling asleep- that is the glassless window in the bathroom as previously described. Perhaps this explains the following situation. So, during the night Emma dreamt about a little Guatamalan lady climbing through the window to enter our room. Meanwhile, Liz woke up desperate for the toilet so quietly crept to the loo. But... Emma woke up seeing the 'guatamalan lady' aka Liz Elster, and screamed for her life, resulting in Liz also screaming from pure shock. Emma proceeded to scream 'who are u?' And started crawling towards Liz's bed for protection, shouting 'help!'. Presumably waking the whole hostel in the process. After realising the case of mistaken identity we were both laughing hysterically for the following hour, resulting in Emma spluttering her water all over herself. Eventually falling back to sleep, the event of the night was just as a hysterical in the morning.

As usual we almost missed the bus to take us to Lanquin in the morning. Literally having to flag it down as it was driving away. We spent a long day travelling eventually arriving in Lanquin after driving down many windy roads.
The scenery was lush and hostel was beautifully positioned next to a river. We were surprised to realise that the majority of the hostel were israeli,and after a eating dinner at an israeli shnitzel place, we chilled at the bar with our new israeli friends.

Early next morning we headed to Semuc Champey,a national park standing in the back of a truck holding on for dear life as we bounced around due to bends and rocks. Our group of four israeli, two english and a spanish guide resulted in us speaking a concoction of languages, giving us brain ache!

We headed into the pitch black bat ridden caves clutching a candle each with our flip flops tied with string to our feet ( yet again...the wrong shoes!) The water was FREEZING (like the Goldstein's showers!) and we had to swim whilst keeping our candle above water and our shoes on our feet. This resulted in Liz hysterical laughing causing Emma to laugh and thus consume gallons of filthy cave water almost choking. The caves were tiny in some parts and the water varied in depth and current. We thought our guide was mad when he made us slide through a tiny hole underwater. Liz unfortunately got caught on a rock in the hole so got to enjoy an underwater view of the caves, while Emma plunged rather than slid through the hole. Everyone made it to the other side, only a contact lense and a torch drowned. We were thrilled to see the light at the end of the caves. It was only after that we thought this would fail health and safety in anywhere but Guatamala.

To apparently warm ourselves up in the sun we went tubing - sitting in a rubber ring down the a river. However this wasn't very relaxing as the water was freezing an we missed the exit point and had to call 'Ayuda' (help) to the guide to rescue us, which thank god he did.

The afternoon began with a treacherous hour hike in flip flops through the slippery mud. The view however at the top of the crystal clear pools in the valley made our sweating and panting well worth it. We were rewarded by being able to relax and enjoy the pools once we had made it down to the bottom. A great day ended with aching muscles which felt like a gym workout!