Day 152 - Saturday 31st July

Felt awful so slept a lot of the day and didn't do a great deal. Did meet a couple of guys who went to Uni with lots of people from Borlase though. After an early night, I was woken up to everyone drinking in the room and on a toss of a coin got dragged out for 'one of those moments that could make my life'. Actually a good night down at the local karaoke bar, filled with groups of middle aged cowboys in their stetsons taking in the atmosphere to 'large' local ladies singing along with gusto and swaying their arms in the air. Jamie and Ben killed it with Suspicious Minds...

Day 153 - Sunday 1st August

Had to get up at 4 to make sunrise at Tikal, the most famous of the Mayan ruins. The whole complex is set in thick jungle with oppressive walks between temples. The park is full of howler monkeys, toucans, lemur type creatures along with all sorts of other colourful birds. We had a full day climbing a lot of steep steps, but gained fantastic views out over the jungle.

Early evening we went out for food and got drawn into a local 5 a-side tournament. I was still feeling awful but it was fun all the same. After persuading a French Canadian that London had plenty of snow, mountains and ski runs finishing in Trafalgar square I got taught to play backgammon, following Jamie and Ben's 5-set series where the winner gets to name the loser's first child...

Day 154 - Monday 2nd August

Slow morning but skyped home for Mum's birthday. Next we all caught a local bus a couple of hours down the road and ended up in Finca Ixobal another cool Eco lodge. It came complete with the biggest tarantula I've ever seen nesting a large egg sac in the corner of the dorm. Nice. The place did great food so we had great chicken curry and stayed up chatting with the strange collection of people there (Jewish voice actors for pokemon and lazytown and a French/American clown promoting AIDS prevention in Central America...)

Day 155 - Tuesday 3rd August

Headed out horse-riding with everyone in the hostel, actually pretty good fun but my horse was ultra aggressive and would go to bite anyone who tried to overtake it. Good laugh.

After some bus confusion Helga and I headed down to Rio Dulce and stayed in probably the dirtiest room to date. Nasty.