We're now over a full week into our journey around Guatemala and are fully immersed in the culture and language (not really though).Unlike Belize, no one in Guatemala speaks a lick of English which makes things interesting for us.Our first stop was in Flores, in the northern lowlands where the humidity is always 100% and you can't be outside during the heat of the day.Flores is a tiny island in Lake Peten that is the main jumping off point to access the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal.We caught a 3 am bus to the ruins and watched the sunrise from atop the highest of the pyramids in Tikal - breathtaking and completely still as we listened to the wildlife come alive - howler monkeys roaring in the distance, tucans landing on trees directly below us, a few jaguars possibly roaming below the jungle canopy.After that our tour guide led us through mazes in the jungle popping out periodically to climb a few more pyramids.

From Flores, we took a 10 hour overnight "luxury" bus to Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala.Antigua is a city surrounded by volcanoes and it's streets are all made of cobblestone.We thought it'd be fun to climb one of these active volcanoes with a tour group one night.We arrived at the base of the volcano at about 4 pm and started the 1.5 hour trek straight uphill in what seemed to be the brunt of a tropical storm.High winds, heavy cold rain and lots of fog did not make this a pleasurable journey.We were rewarded at the top by the heat of flowing lava.You´d be amazed how quickly a stick catches fire when poking lava.Unfortunately we have no visual evidence of this as the pouring rain made it an impossibility to take the digital SLR out of the case and our little Canon camera did not successfully make the journey as it was overcome by the rain gods.We now had to somehow make it back down the slippery volcano - in the dark with a tiny flashlight.A few falls here and there but when you're that wet it really doesn't matter.We thought we were home free when we were safely on the bus back to Antigua - we thought wrong.Apparantly the road up to the volcano is only wide enough for one large vehicle at a time.We now know this because as we were passing a large truck, our bus slid off the side of the road into a massive ditch."Everyone to the left of the bus" was the first attempt."Everyone climb out the emergency exit" was what followed.You'd think stranded on the side of a dark road in Guatemala in the rain would be dangerous but we felt completely secure with our bus driver strolling around carrying his well polished sawed off shotgun.Long story short - after about 2.5 hours of 6 Guatemalans digging up the road to free the bus using machetes and a single shovel and with the help of a large truck pulling the bus as all us passengers sat on the flatbed because they "needed more weight for traction" we finally made it back to our hostel just in time to dry off and pass out.Our final day in Antigua was full of shopping around for a replacement camera - not cheap here - and topped off by some traditional salsa dancing taught to us by our private instructor Julio. Now this little guy knew how to shake it. After just one hour of lessons we're ready for our next challenge - So You Think You Can Dance?

Having had enough of big buses, we opted for a minibus to bring us to our current location in San Pedro La Laguna situated on Lake Atitlan and surrounded by no less than 9 active volcanoes.Accomodation here is about $8US for a private room with a bathroom and shower…we could get used to those prices.We'll be around the lake for the remainder of the week before we head into Chichicastenango for their famous weekly open air market and then finish off our Guatemala tour on the black sand beaches of Monterrico on the Pacific coast.