Hello,

We had a great day in San Cristobal at the market where we made several purchases and enjoyed the beautiful town with a couple of cervezas! The next day we had an unpleasant long and winding bus journey back to Palenque, from where we would catch a bus to Flores in Guatemala the next day. Our eventful journey began with a small mini van ride to the mexican border. The actual crossing of the border involved a 45minute long-boat journey down a crocodile infested river and then a scramble up a muddy river bank with all of our bags. We doubt it was an official border crossing and we had to travel about another half hour before reaching a customs post. Before we set off again, Olivia was "mugged" for about £2 by a small angry Guatemalan lady whilst desperately trying to exchange money in order to pay the entrance bribe to be let in the country! We just managed to get our passports stamped before 12 of us and our bags were then crammed into an even smaller van and we set off down a dirt track for several hours. Several battalions of soldiers passed us going the other way towards the border and, when they were out of sight, our driver stopped to exchange some rather dodgy looking packages with people on the side of the road. By the time we hit tarmac we were all filthy from dust and a cheer went out when the road appeared. However, our relief was short lived as, before long, one of the van's antique tires blew out precariously close to a steep bank! The driver didn't see fit to turn off the engine or even apply the handbrake whilst going about changing the tire. After about 11 hours, we made it to the sweltering heat of Flores.

Flores is a small island in a lake a short distance from the shoreside town of Santa Lena. The whole area seemed very pleasant and welcoming with lots of wonderful restaurants and bars. The morning after we arrived we woke up incredibly early at 4.30am in order to go on the early morning tour of the Tikal ruins. If we had gone any later in the day the temperature would have been uncomfortably close to 40 degrees! The ancient Mayan city of Tikal was very impressive. It covers a larger area than the Mexican ruins that we saw and remains mostly submerged in jungle. The structures that were climbable provided some magnificent views over miles of untouched land with the occasional Mayan monument jutting out of the tree line. We were lucky to have a really enthusiastic guide who was a fantastic story teller and brought the place to life. It was an excellent experience.

After our brief stay in Guatemala, we caught another, though thankfully less eventful, bus to Belize. From Belize City we took a water taxi to the glorious island of Caye Caulker. English speaking Belize is a completely different world to Hispanic Mexico and Guatemala, instead sharing similarities with places like Jamaica and Trinidad. Immediately noticeable is the significant drop in the pace of life. It is impossible to imagine a more laid back place. We spent 3 wonderful days on Caye Caulker enjoying the sea, sand and sunshine whilst dining on fresh seafood and keeping refreshed with local rum. On our last day we went scuba diving on the Belize barrier reef, the largest in the northern hemisphere and second in the world only to Australia's great barrier reef. The visibility was unbelievable, often about 30 meters, and we saw large barracuda and a truly gigantic loggerhead turtle, among much other fascinating marine life. On our way back to shore we stopped at "shark-ray alley". At this very shallow part of the reef, our boat was immediately surrounded by about 10 nurse sharks and a collection of huge eagle rays. Although slightly apprehensive, we plunged into the shark infested waters with our snorkel gear and had an adrenaline filled ten minutes swimming with these magnificent animals, an experience we will definitely never forget!

We returned to Mexico the following day and proceeded to head up the coast on our way back to cancun. We stayed a couple of nights in the town of Tulum which is situated on a beach paradise. We spent a relaxing afternoon here by the sea after Simon had managed to catch the second half of the FA cup final, in a surf shop of all places as no bars had the license to show it live! Our next stop was the island of Cozumel. This was an incredibly touristy place packed with americans but was still quite pleasant. The island is famed for its amazing diving but unfortunately when we arrived Simon was diagnosed with inner ear trauma due to pressure build up from our last dive. Although we couldn't go diving, we were still able to snorkel and the water was so clear it didn't make much difference anyway. We still had a fun time. Before finally returning to Cancun, we spent a day shopping and lying on the beach in Playa Del Carmen which is a lively, touristy town. We enjoyed many cervezas by the sea and bought some extravagant souvenirs before catching our last bus back to Cancun.

Tomorrow we fly to Cuba for the final leg of our incredible journey!