Alright Folks, Well it is taking my nearly as long to write these things as it did to visit them. I need a break and am going for a night dive later on so I am off to get some dinner. I will come back a bit later to finish this off. Don't know why I have told you that as when (and if, obviously you are) you read this I will have written the whole thing and whether or not I had a break will have no relevance. Wow, I need food and maybe a wee nap. I'm back, two days later but I'm back. When we left Copan in Honduras we headed for Antigua which is near Guatemala City but far nicer. It is a colonial city, although I am not the biggest fan of Colonial cities, Antigua is really nice. The streets are all cobbled and there is a nice feel to the place. The restaurants are also all very good. The prices are a bit higher than Honduras but the choice is far better. We were there for when the World Cup started. Other than myself and a couple of others everyone was down the pub at 10am watching the game. As football is not really my thing I couldn't be bothered to drag my ass out of bed to go to a crowded pub at 10 in the morning. Obviously if Ireland were playing I would be down there and probably would have been drunk and cheering on the tops of tables by 10.20! Antigua was a nice stop to get all the usual domestic stuff like laundry and internet done. Thanks to a mix up in the laundry I got mine for free as Kit and Amanda's whites were put in with a green t-shirt! They were a bit pissed off as they had separated all the darks and whites only for the woman to bung them all in together. Being a bloke it made no difference to my stuff. It was a good excuse for the two girls to go and buy all new clothes when they got to Playa del Carmen though. From Antigua we went to Panajachel which is a little market town in the mountains. The first night we were there it totally poured down and so we all ordered in pizza. It was a bit weird ordering in Pizza but it was so nice just to flake out in front of the box and watch a movie on HBO and scoff some pizza. Other than that I just had a wander around the two the next day and than we headed back to Antigua. I was going to do some diving in the lake as it was at altitude and would have been a cool experience until I saw the dive shop. The diving flag on his wall was hand drwn by what looked like a 2 year old. Needless to say I didn't part with any money in there. From Antigua we headed for Rio Dulce. It is not much of a place to visit, but broke up the journey on the way to Flores. The journey took 13.5 hours due to a land slide on the road. Were staying in a "rustic" swamp hotel. They liked to call it a jungle retreat. But swamp lodge was more like it. The place was okay other than the zillions of mozzies. To get to and from the hotel we had to get a water taxi and so that made going into town a bit expensive. I went in one of the days to watch the England Trinidad game. Just to piss off the others I cheered for Trinidad! England were lucky to win the game and it was obvious from the game that England weren't going far in the World Cup. After Rio Dulce we went to Flores to see the Tikal Mayan Ruins, Flores was totally set up for tourists wanting to buy tat and while we were there a Japanese group were in town buying up half the place. Needless to say I was restrained enough not to buy anything. It was in Flores that I got an email from Sharlene letting me know that she had bought a house. If you are lucky she will put up some pics of it when she moves in. It is a lovely place and I am really looking forward to getting home (I can say that now) and settling in together. At 6am we left to visit Tikal and spent 5 hours there. Other than the first hour which was a bit hard going the rest of the tour was really interesting. The structures are so much larger than Copan but not as carved. It is the largest excavated Mayan site in the world. Some of Start Wars Return of the Jedi was filmed there. The place was really amazing to see. And that my readers is the last for Guatemala. The country is really beautiful and the people are very nice. Well worth a visit if you get the chance. From here it is off to Belize. Until the next time, Em