Day 5 - Into Guatemala

It was sad saying goodbye to the Inn's cat this morning. The black creature had just been spayed which was witnessed by its bald patch. It had stayed near the door of our room since the time of our arrival, so we wonder who'll be its next friends. We wanted to make the 7:30 water taxi back to Belize City. Yesterday, we had bought our bus tickets to Flores for a 9:30 departure time. So, we sneaked away at 7:00 while most people were still asleep. Still, the sun had been up long enough to be powerful. The boat was a little bit late leaving, but it took the exact 35 minutes to get to the capital.

We got into Belize City and after taking a walk around, we stopped to have breakfast. The picture of the Swing Bridge is about the only known thing for tourists. Our bus came closer to 10:00 than 9:30 but it made good time. It was a fairly large van which could hold 28 passengers. Other than the driver there were only four of us on-board.



Going through the border was easy enough. I took us $37.50 to get out of Belize and $3.00 to enter Guatemala. We did the procedures at around noon. By 2:30 we had checked into a hotel on the island area of Flores. The bus guys are experts at trying to arrange everything for tourists. So, we ended up agreeing to seeing them again at 4:30 in the morning tomorrow!

Tikal, the Mayan ruins are exactly why we are in the part of the country. It gets hot later in the day, so we will be off to see the sun rise in the park itself. Yawn. ... should probably head to bed right now.