So I arrived in the jungle of El Panchan in the dark so I thought I'd leave the same way, opting for a 6am minibus to start the journey to Flores in Guatemala. Feels very weird sitting in a designated spot in the dark in the jungle waiting…. The words 'sitting' & 'duck' sprang to mind a few times in the eerie silence interspersed with animal noises and not a one legged man in sight to help me out this time. Eventually my knight on his white horse showed up (man in a white van- I wasn't going to be picky at this point) and we set off for the border town of La Tecnica, where everyone on my bus took a boat to the ruins of Ya Xcilian, but I instead took a 5 minute boat ride across to Guatemalan soil at the Frontera Corozal.

Here I met a great Aussie couple Brownie & Rachael who hare on an amazing trip. They started doing a ski season in Canada, and then bought an R.V to do a road trip through the U.S & Mexico- lots of adventures on the way. Something I would love to do, but small detail of no driving license may be a stumbling block here. Anyway we teamed up and boarded my first Guatemalan 'chicken bus' to Flores. Chicken buses are essentially big old yellow American school buses, which cross the border when they are deemed too old for use in the states. They are usually pimped up in some way- lots of stickers about God blessing the bus, flashing lights and well just about anything in between, and packed to the gills with people and cargo including… you guessed it -chickens. A fantastic, fun, (never a dull journey) cheap way to travel!

So we all checked into the main hostel in Flores- Los Amigos which has the island's late night bar (1am) which of course I availed of every night. Unfortunately you do get woken up at 3.30 every morning with people setting off for the sunrise tours to Tikal. I opted against this on my first day after my long border crossing and decided to just chill and explore the island, which took about an hour as it's so small. To be honest I wasn't that impressed by Flores. It's fine to chill for a day or two but really you only go there as it's close to the Tikal ruins. So I started making my plans to get there. The rest of our motely crew (which now included Jenny another fabulous Aussie woman in her 50's who was a big shot marketing manager at home, but 4 years ago decided she's had enough and went travelling and hasn't looked back since) all decided to camp close to the ruins to get close to all the wildlife at dawn. I opted out as it had been pissing down for days and waking up at dawn in a soggy tent to hundreds of birds did not fill me with joy. I instead went to stay in the tiny village of El Remate which is half way between Flores and Tikal and set on a lake. It has a few guesthouses all of which have a dock so you can go swim in the lake. I didn't swim, instead befriended the only gay in the village who showed me his herb garden & precious stone collection (no pun intended). So I had a really nice afternoon chatting with him & he gave me some obsidian stone & quarts from his collection for good luck- lovely guy.

Next morning I set off at 5am on a minibus to Tikal and on the way a lovely family invited me to join them with their guide to go around the site. So I ended up spending the whole day (full 8 hours needed to really visit the huge site) with them. It really is incredible- the sheer size of the city is impressive and the fact that it is completely buried deep in the jungle just adds to its allure. They have restored a number of the key huge steep temples, but part of the beauty of this site is seeing the number of mounds of earth still dotted in the complex and knowing that beneath lays another undiscovered gem. Its highest point, beautifully named Temple II offers amazing views of the ancient city which you can take in whilst listening to the sound of howler monkeys and birds- pretty special place.

I went back to Flores for another night (purely for transportation reasons) and teamed up with Brownie & Rachael to head to the next destination Lanquin.