Semana Santa in Belize, Flores and Tikal Guatemala

We just got back yesterday from our Semana Santa trip. We needed to renew our visas and instead of just letting us cross the Guatemalan border (which is about 20 minutes from Copan) we have to leave the CA-4 which means the four central american countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. So the real reason we traveled to Guatemala and Belize this week was for the visas but we were excited to have an excuse to get to see more of Central America. The highlight of our trip was getting to see the ruins in Tikal, Guatemala but we will start from the beginning....

We started our trip with the other teachers from the school. The school got a bus to take us through Guatemala to a town called Puerto Barrios where we took a boat into Belize. After our 3 days in Belize our group split and we all went different directions. David, Zach, Zach's brother John (who is visiting from the US) and I went up through Belize and over to Guatemala and wen to see the ruins in Tikal.
Here is the sunrise that David saw the first morning we were there.

We weren't too impressed with Belize. We stayed right on the coast in this very sleepy town. Our hotel was sort of a run down house/construction site. We would compare Punta Gorda, Belize to what we imagine the deep south being in the US. We haven't been there to confirm this so we'll let you decide for yourself. They speak English in Belize...well actually a mix of English, Spanish and a Creole language that we can't understand.
We tried to look for good pictures to post of Belize but seriously this is about all we have. There was hardly anything worth remembering in that town. We only visited one city there and know others who have enjoyed other cities in Belize. We won't write it off yet.

We left Punta Gorda on Monday and took a bus to Belmopan and then another bus to the border with Guatemala. We then went through customs which was a surprisingly pleasant experience and then took another bus into Flores, Guatemala. Flores is a small island in the middle of a lake that is in the bigger city of Santa Elena. It is connected to the edge of the lake by a bridge and was an amazing place. We arrived in Santa Elena and then got a minibus ride into Flores. We stayed at this really nice place with a lake view and spent our time there walking down the colonial streets and observing the Semana Santa celebration there.

Here is a view from our balcony to a little beach that we went swimming in.
The sunrise from our balcony. Once again this is David's picture. I was still asleep.
We really liked the food there. One night we enjoyed dinner literally on the lake edge. The warm wind was blowing and we watched the sun go down as we cooled off with iced lemonade. We also had some good tacos in the central park. A couple of the nights we got ice cream and watched a parade of a statue of Jesus be carried around the city and end up at the Catholic church.

Our second day there we got a shuttle at 4:30AM to go to Tikal. Tikal is located about an hour from anything. You can stay in the one or two hotels they have there but it is much more reasonable (and fun) to stay in Flores and get a shuttle there for the day.

We went on a tour of the ruins and walked for about 5 1/2 hours. The thing about tikal is that the ruins are BIG. The actual site is huge and the size of the ruins are what make it famous. We had the choice of going on the English tour with about 30 other people or the Spanish one with 10. We were so excited that we could go on the Spanish tour (Zach translated for his brother) and enjoy a smaller group. Our guide was really funny and we really enjoyed having him give our tour. You can climb up many of the ruins. This may not look that high but believe me it was. At the top I didn't want to take my arm off the wall because I was afraid I would fall off. There is no safety rope keeping you back. Plus our tour guide kept telling us that people have fallen off the ruins and died. Here is David on the top of Temple 5 overlooking Temple 1 which is the most famous of all the Tikal ruins. He is laughing because I keep freaking out that he is going to fall over backwards.
We had great weather for our trip. They kept telling us we should go early in the morning because once it gets hot no one wants to be walking around. This particular day it was cool and perfect for hiking around in the jungle. The ruins are surounded by jungle and from the tops of the temples for as long as you can see are different shades of green tree tops.
Here Zach and David are showing us how these sacrifice altars were used.
This is Temple 1 or the great jaguar temple. You unfortunately cannot climb this one but the one directly across from it you can.
We enjoyed our time in Flores so much that we really wanted to stay the rest of the week. However, seeing as it is Semana Santa (Holy Week) buses are not running on Friday or Saturday. We were hoping to come back on Saturday but since we found out that we wouldn't be able to get a bus, we had to come back yesterday (Thursday). We got up early and took a bus all day long to get home. We traveled for about 10 hours and arrived back in Copan around 5pm. We were just in time to see the beginnings of the building of the sawdust carpets that they make on the street. We will post more about this another day.

Overall we had a very enjoyable trip and our opinion of Guatemala has improved each time we have visited it. Keep in mind that these pictures do not do it justice. It is really hard to capture the size and beauty of these ancient sites.