We reach Coban and begin the long slow descent into the incredible valley that holds Lanquin. It's vibrant, lush, glowing green. The recent rainfall has the surrounding mountains framed in mist. I almost feel as if I'm back in Canada.
In town we hop out of the van and, along with two French Canadian girls, are ushered to the Zephyr courtesy shuttle (aka the bed of a big 4x4 truck, with roll bars to hold onto. We quickly realize why when the truck has to gun it up the steep, muddy roads to get us to our destination.)
We arrive at our hostel and are dumbfounded. The views are spectacular. I'd had my reservations since this would be the priciest hostel of our trip, but it's worth every penny. We settle in, enjoy our complimentary beer, play some pool, and eat some dinner.
In the morning it's raining so we sleep in late and when it lets up we go into town to explore and find some cheaper food. By the time we return it's beginning to brighten up and by late afternoon it's sunny and hot. We start drinking beers in the infinity pool and get to chatting with some other Canadians. Four of them are from Nanaimo and one is best friends with Kerrie, my former co-worker. She sends Kerrie a picture of me waving and smiling with the caption, 'Fran says hi!' to which Kerrie responds: 'WTF?' Small world.
Day drinking leads to an early night and althrough we'd originally planned to go tubing another rainy day causes us to re-think it.
We have a nice relaxing day until Mike notices that his ankle is swollen and bruised. "I must've bonked it last night," he muses, uncertain to how or when said injury took place. Upon further examination he notices a small, light coloured circle and within it two distinct fang marks.
"Must've been that spider I saw in here this morning. That asshole!"
Mike's fairly certain the spider he spotted was a wolf spider and he's not exhibiting any of the signs of a black widow or brown recluse bite (fever, chills, pusing wound, etc) so he cleans it well, takes a Bendaryl and puts ice on it.
The next day we are RESOLVED to go to Semuc Champey and arrange to take another 4x4 up into the park.
It's still a bit drizzly but the sun is trying to peak through. We finally arrive and are starving for lunch - we've been told there's great barbecue at the entrance to the park. We soon realize there are actually about 6 different little barbecues stands, all are vying for our business. They all call out at once, trying to usher us in, it's overwhelming and I worry about hurting feelings.
We chow down some food and begin exploring the park. It's stunning. Never have I swam in waters of that colour - such a vibrant turquoise.
Once again, we decide to treat ourselves and pay for a microbus through the hostel, but this time it's absolutely packed and takes us to Flores, a little island on Lake Petén Itzá that will be our gateway to the Tikal ruins.
As we roll into town, a local travel agent guy jumps on the bus and convinces us that he is the only option as far as booking buses to the ruins. He also insists we must pay now in order to secure our spots and happily ushers us to the bank. We find out pretty soon after that this is not at all the case.
We check into our hostel, Los Amigos, and although it is really cool with an awesome open concept layout, because we are in a private room we are shunned to another building down the street, away from all the fun.
We opt for the first trip of the morning to avoid the hordes of tourists which unfortunately means a 3:30 am wake-up call.
Once we eventually get in and start off exploring on our own it's worth the early morning, we virtually have the park to ourselves. We explore for hours and take in all the history before jumping on a returning bus.
We finish the afternoon traversing the little island, taking in the sites.
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