We left Antigua on a shuttle bus to Guatemala City where we caught our overnight bus to Flores. The journey had the potential to be a very comfortable one but it was horrendous as the air con was turned on and off at intervals, the toilet stunk really badly, we ran out of oil and the holds flew open while we were on the move and boxes were strewn all over the road. (thankfully, not our bags!). To top it all off, we arrived at Flores 3 hours late!

We chose to stay in Flores for one reason only, the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Flores is an island located in the middle of Lago de Peten Itza and is connected to the mainland by a bridge. The buildings were cute and again the streets are covered in cobble stones.

We chose to stay at Hospedaje Doña Goya 2, and on arrival we had a shower and a nap before exploring Flores with a stop for lunch. The heat was very intense so we decided to stay in our room reading, sewing and sorting our bags out. Once darkness fell, Nick saw a single bedbug crawl onto the white sheets of the bed. We immediately packed up and left on a mission to find a nice hotel. Little did we know that everything would be closed and that we wouldn't find anywhere until 12am.

In our new hotel we both checked for bedbugs, showered and tried to get some sleep as we had to be up early to phone our tourist company to inform them of change of hotel as they were picking us up at 6am to take us to Tikal.

Our driver to Tikal did not pay attention to the roads which put both of us on edge but we arrived in one piece and grateful that we chose to arrive at 7am as the mid day heat would have been too intense for us.

Tikal is another Mayan Ruins, apparently not as detailed as Copan but the wow factor is that you have to trek through jungle to find the ruins. The main part of Tikal is the Grand Plaza and we sat down on the steps, ignored all the tourists and imagined how life was back then. We even had a scintillating conversation about the worlds ant's population and discussed how many ant's does one person kill in a lifetime! You're not missing much! The first pick up from Tikal back to Flores is at 12.30pm so we had plenty of time to kill - moments were passed lying on fallen tree trunks staring into the jungle canopy, sleeping or reading. All very relaxing.

We had hoped we would see some wildlife ie. monkeys, toucans etc but we didn't although we got bitten lots by the mosquitoes. After a long walk around the surrounding areas of Tikal we headed back to Flores stopping off at Pizza Hut.

Once back at the hotel, Nick jumped in the swimming pool and we were in bed by 9pm ready for our 5am pick up to Belize City, Belize to catch the boat to Caye Caulker.