We got up at 530 am set for our long day of travel. Our first bus was at 615 am and we were armed with the step by step directions we had gotten from Chef Linton. We were determined to do it the cheap way and had a step by step break down of cost. We were glad to check out of that hostel as it had been challenging to sleep due to the face that one drunk Canadian guy decided he was the love guru and was giving love advice to his friends until 3am and coupled with that our beds had the prime position of being by the toilets so it felt as if we were actually in there with every visitor and their stomach rumbles. Yuk!

We found the gas station where Ritchie's bus was supposed to collect us. The bus pulled up and it was our first experience of the chicken buses(the old American school buses painted) we headed off towards Flores with what felt like half of Belize squeezed onto our bus. We were feeing very smug in our seats as more and more people took standing positions.

We had our money ready to hand to bus man when he came around. 8 belize each. First step in Linton's recommendations was wrong as it was actually 16 each. We thought the bus was only 1hr and half but it actually took 3 hrs and 15mins to Belmopan. 2nd thing wrong. Dani asked the bus man when the next bus to Benque was. He said right now and pointed at where everyone was queuing. Cue the fastest bathroom run scrambling for the 50c cover and trying to navigate with our bags. But we made it, checking Linton's notes we prepped our 6 Belize but turned out this bus was 4.50 each. 3rd thing wrong, not got much faith in this notes anymore. This journey was only 2 hrs. We got off the bus and grabbed a taxi to the border. We asked the taxi man to stop at supermarket because we both starving and had not brought any snacks. We have soon learnt that everyone else who gets on these buses preps with snacks as if they won't eat for days. He dropped us at the border and straight away there was an eerie feeling. Everyone was calling at us for this and that. We made it through and paid our exit fee. We were making our way to the next bus while the hounding from the locals continued. One taxi man stopped us and said we never got our passport stamps. We both looked at each other and realised he was correct. We made our way back and realised to the left there was immigration office. It was odd that Guatemalan guards left us through without telling us to go into the office but it turns out it's a little scheme they have going as you can get hit with $100 fine when exiting if they can't find a stamp. With the stamp in place we looked at Linton trusty directions and made our way to the gas station for the chicken bus. There was no bus to be found. We walked up and down the town asking everyone in Spanish for directions. We were great at asking the questions not so great understanding the answer. We identified a strong weakness in our learning Spanish, as soon as we got wifi we were learning colours and directions. We eventually found our red chicken bus after 1hr of searching. We hopped on and this certaintly was an entertaining journey. These buses just load people on no matter how many seats there are. After a couple hrs we arrived in Flores and got a Tuk Tuk to our hostel.

We checked in, booked the sunset rise tour for Tikal for 3am, had food and turned on our alarms and we were asleep by 730pm. Wild night for these two travellers!

It was struggle getting up at 2.20am but we trekked with our group up to the temples to watch the sunrise. We made it their by 5.30am and sat down and listened to all the animals talking while waiting for sunrise. It was mesmerising listening to all the chattering from the different animals. There was also a howling which sounded like a lion but turned out to be a group of howler monkeys. After sunrise we then went off to explore the temples by 830 we were done but the bus was not picking us up until 11. Those 2 and half hrs dragged as we'd had our fill of Mayan temples and tiredness was hitting us.

We arrived back at hostel and checked with travel lady if she booked us into Zephyr lodge in Lanquin. It is a very popular destination and they only accept bookings the day beforehand. She had said she would ring at 7am and promised us repeatedly she wouldn't forget. We found out then she actually doesn't start work until 4pm. Welcome to Guatemala they are very chilled out. We were not happy bunnies as they now said try again in a few hours as they were full. We hounded the travel lady who finally confirmed we had a space. Yay. We booked the bus and then packed up all of our belongings and went to pharmacy to buy suncream and antibiotics. All of our money seemed to be going on the pharmacy between antibiotics for sinuses, glands and coldsores. Let's just hope we are building up really strong immunity now

Another early night for the travellers(well 9.30pm this night so we are getting wilder) as we had a 10 hour bus journey ahead of us for the next stop on our travels!