29th August 2009 - 4th September 2009 The trip from Flores to Caye Caulker involved an easy bus trip crossing the border into Belize and to Belize City for the boat trip. I didn't quite expect what I saw out the window through Belize and could hardly keep my eyes on Back to the Future 3 on the computer. As Belize is on the Caribbean Sea there is a totally different vibe to Guatemala with descendants of African slaves and British pirates making up the country's l...

27th August - 29th August 2009 From Lanquin to Flores there is a mammoth amount of speed humps that slowed everyone almost to a stop and made it a painful drive. As a lot of the people treat the roads like a race track and they don't have the money to have police around every corner like they do in Victoria instead they use the speed hump and you can find them in the middle of nowhere on a country road. Davo is the only person I know that would be able to mainta...

19th August - 23rd August 2009 We arrived by chicken bus (well four chicken buses actually) from Sipicate to Lake Atitlan. The bus dropped us off in one of the lake towns called 'Santiago' which was a pleasant surprise as it was a nice Maya town with some great little market stalls to look through. After grabbing a quick bite, one of the best sandwiches and cakes of our lives, we headed off by boat to San Pedro where we were to spend a couple of nights. San Pe...

15th August - 17th August 2009 It took a long time for us to get to Monterrico but two buses, a tuk tuk and a boat trip later we arrived at the black sand beach. We were greeted as we walked into town by a nice local who helped us find some accommodation on the busy Saturday night. A lot of Guatemalans travel to the beach for the weekend so it would have been a lot harder to find accommodation had we not had his help. There was a catch though as he wanted us to ...

17th August - 19th August 2009 Arriving in Sipicate we were surprised to find the resort all but empty. We were able to rent a beach bungalow right on the water for only 150Q, just over 20AUD. We were pleased to be at a beach with some decent surf so after a night relaxing on our balcony with the only two other young backpackers at the resort we rented a surfboard. Within the first five minutes of Sammy taking it out into the water the rough surf had snapped th...