Well finally it is time to leave Panajachel and head towards Lanquin, we know it will be a fairly long day over 300 km, with a 25 km gravel/landslide section so we leave by 8.30 am, the first part of the road is fairly slow going with a fair amount of traffic and countless speed bumps, the road then opens up and it is a lovely ride through the hills and small villages until we get to the dirt section which proves to be very slow going but manageable.Fortunately it wasn't raining.

Road to Coban

Road to Coban

Road to Coban – Local ladies doing some road works

We get to a slighty worse section where the road is slipping away and there are machines in action, I opt to walk through this bit while Skill rides through. Even as I walk through, there is loose gravel and quite large rocks coming down the mountain onto the road.

Landslide section

Landslide section

We arrive safely in Coban and decide we will push onto Lanquin. It takes us quite a while to get out of the maze like city of Coban but eventually by some miracle we get on the road to Lanquin and enjoy the ride despite the long day and intermittent showers. We easily find the turn off into Lanquin and then starts the steep gravel descent into the valley to the village. What a challenge, the road is very steep with rolly gravel and it is now raining, the surface is like glass and we seem to spend most of time sliding down the road towards the valley floor. In the end I get off the bike and walk the really steep sections, while Skill manages to keep the bike in an upright position. It takes us nearly an hour and a half to travel 10 kilometres and this is supposed to be a major tourist attraction for Guatemala! We arrive at El Retiro hostal, hot, tired and wet only to be told that they don't have any private rooms, hmmmm, what to do next. While contemplating our next move they reappear and tell us they have made a mistake, that they do have a private room but with a shared bathroom. We take it, get ourselves unpacked, showered and this is what greets us at the bottom of the garden. It was worth the shitty ride in!!!!!

It was worth the ride in

A few drinks later we feel human again and book in for a sumptuous smorgasboard dinner with at least 40 other people, the place is packed........... Amazing!!!!

Next morning we awake well after 8.00 am and decide it will be too much of a rush to go on the 9.00am tour to Semuc Champay so we have a lazy day, breakfast, reading by the river, and enjoying our beautiful surroundings. Late afternoon it begins to rain, and then it begins to pour, the rain is torrential, by dinner time the water is ankle deep in the restaurant but this doesn't seem to faze anyone too much. You can see the river rise perceptibly, the roar gets louder and louder. We now know we have missed our opportunity to see the crystal clear blue pools of Semuc Champay. Bugger, shouldn't have been so lazy this morning.

It continues to rain all night but by early morning has cleared a little so we join our tour at 9.00 am, all 12 of us load into the back of the 4WD truck and take the muddy, washed out 4WD track to Semuc Champay. The first part of the day involves us caving. Hmmmm, aren't there some basic safety rules about not caving or canyoning after heavy rain. Oh well we never claimed to be completely responsible so off we go, plunging into the flooded unlit cave with only candles and headtorches to light the way. Well what can I say, it was very flooded, it did have very swift currents, it was very dark, but it was great fun, even for me who doesn't like to be in confined spaces.

A few instructions before entering the cave

Preparing candle black for face painting to disguise us from the gods of the underground

Auditioning for next episode of Survivor at Semuc Champay

Caving at Semuc Champay

Off we go into the darkness

You want me to go through that tiny space?????

Emerging after caving at Semuc Champay

After we emerged alive from the bowels of the cave we grabbed some old rubber tubes and went tubing down the now flooded river for a while.

Off we go tubing

Off we go tubing

On our walk back to our designated meeting place we are overwhelmed by very young children selling beer and chocolate, they were very persistent and very good sales people, on arrival a few hours before they had managed to ask everyones name, write the names down and then 2 hours later address people by christian name in their sales pitch. Hilarious except for the fact it would be a whole lot better if they were in school as they are obviously bright little things, I can't help it, it's the teacher in me.

Beer and Chocolate for sale (sorry the waterproof camera got wet in the caves)

Locals selling the cacao fruit, they make chocolate from the seeds but it takes a lot of work before it tastes like chocolate. Here we try eating the fruit flesh surrounding the seeds, very nice, bit like lyche but slightly sour.

After a picnic lunch we head up the steep slippery track to the lookout overlooking the pools of Semuc Champay, they are of course a gushing torrent of brown muddy water but impressive none the less. From here we headed back down to the pools and the roaring waterfalls to swim for the afternoon.

Semuc Champay

Semuc Champay

Semuc Champay

Swimming at Semuc Champay

Swimming at Semuc Champay

Semuc Champay

Late in the afternoon we load back into the truck, of the twelve of us, we have two girls who have had nasty grazes from falls in the wet conditions, one guy with a fairly bad gash from a fall and one girl whose knee is displaced who we drop off at the hospital on our return to the hostel, hmmm, all in all a pretty full on day. To be truthful I had been feeling pretty ordinary all day, a bit of dry cough and a sore throat so I forgo dinner and go to bed leaving Skill to socialise.

Next day it is raining pretty heavily again, and at this point we are both feeling very ordinary, so decide we will put ourselves to bed in the hope that it is just a 24 hour bug, we also feel unable to tackle the road out in wet conditions, so we basically sleep for the day.

The following day we awake to semi-sunshine, so plan our escape up the hill even though the road is still wet and muddy. We get ourselves packed up, and I take a shuttle bus with all our luggage up the hill. Unencumbered Skill leaves on the bike at the same time and surprisingly finds it quite an enjoyable easy ride up. We reunite at the top of the hill where the paved road begins. Once the tyres are re-inflated to their correct pressure, luggage is on and the suspension is wound back up we are on our way back to Coban. Once again it takes us a good hour to find our way out of this town, we soon realise that things are not as they should be as roads are blocked off, there seem to be protest marches everywhere and a high police/army presence.

About fifteen minutes out of town we come to a blockade, traffic is at a standstill but not too banked up, the Police tell us that it is a blockade, apparently two young children were killed by a motorist a few days ago. The officials offer no solutions for a bypass around the mourning villagers so we take our queue from another motorcyclist who turns around and heads back up the road, through some tyre barricades and onto a muddy dirt road. We decide to follow hoping that we are doing the right thing, we follow him for about 5 km and suddenly we meet up with a long line of traffic, obviously we have found the bypass, it is another 5 km of mud and gravel road before we finally arrive back on the paved road towards Flores. By this time it is after 11.30 am, so we are not exactly making good time.

We continue on and enjoy the ride through the mountains and villages, it really is quite pleasant but as the afternoon progresses we both start to feel really unwell. By 3.00pm we have reached Sayaxche, a pretty ordinary nondescript town where we need to catch a ferry across the huge river to continue our journey. Unusually it is Skill that pulls the pin and says “I can't go any further” so we check out our hotel options. The first one we try (recommended by a certain lying guidebook) is a filthy concrete bunker with moss covered walls, absolutely disgusting, feeling rather dejected that our options may be grim, we spy a sign for another hotel and try our luck there. The travel angels are looking after us today, a lovely hotel with secure parking, a spotless room with hot water, air conditioning, wifi and a huge comfortable bed for only $20 per night. We check in, down 2 huge bottles of gatoraid and have take away roast chicken and a bread roll from the establishment next door. We then put ourselves to bed and with the exception of a visit to the pharmacy and an occasional outing for food and fluids that is where we stay for the next two days, we feel like we have been hit by a truck. To be fair we cannot complain too much, in over eighteen months of travel we have only had a couple of minor ailments, we have basically been very healthy.

Two days later feeling slightly better we decide we should move on to Flores, so get ourselves packed up and catch the ferry to the other side.

The hotel that was our saviour

Waiting for the ferry with the three little pigs

The ferry across the River at Sayaxche

Skill and the bike on the ferry across the River at Sayaxche

Fortunately it is a simple ride to Flores but we haven't really scoped out any hotel options so it takes us over an hour to find somewhere with parking, after having visited 8 hotels I have walked most of the streets of this tiny island town, I am absolutely exhausted, totally perspiration soaked and not in the best of moods. Skill is also not looking a picture of health. We eventually check into Amigos hostel in a quiet street where we can park the bike, we unload our gear and of course our room is at the top of a very steep stair case (almost a ladder), by this time I am really struggling to stay upright and am irrationally close to tears so I turn on the air con, rehydrate and put myself to bed (the room is huge we have three double beds in it) and sleep for the rest of the day, on awaking I find that Skill has done exactly the same thing.

Now that I am more rational and we both feel marginally better I can see that it is actually a lovely hostel with a fantastic restaurant so we go downstairs have some food and drinks and have a nice evening with two lovely Dutch girls who I shared the shuttle bus up the hill with from Semuc Champay. However our new found lease on life is short lived and we are back in bed by 8.00 pm

To be honest we cannot really tell you what Flores is like, we spend the the next two days sleeping on and off only making an appearance at the restaurant when we are in need of water or food, unfortunately we really are not well and don't seem to be getting much better.

The lovely lake surrounding Flores Island

It takes 3 days of sleep and medication for us to feel human again. By this time we are itching to get on the move again so book ourselves into the very nice Jaguar Inn Lodge in Tikal National Park, as it is the off season we get an amazing deal. We leave Flores the next day after lunch and enjoy the short ride to Tikal, at the park entrance we meet up with 3 other Aussies travelling in vehicles, Spoons (his nickname) is travelling in a huge Mercedes Van and the 2 others are in a small 4WD. Spoons is also heading to the Jaguar Inn so we head into the park together.

At the entrance to Tikal National Park

The road into Tikal - watch out for Jaguars

The Lodge is just lovely, with great parking and a ground floor bungalow, so very, very nice. To celebrate our good fortune and our new found health we have our first beer in over a week (told you we were sick) and later we even indulge in a couple of happy hour margaritas. We spend a nice evening chatting with Spoons who is heading towards South America. We also make the decision that tomorrow we will do the sunrise tour of Tikal and book ourselves in. Later in the evening as we go to bed we can hear the howler monkeys outside our room, we really are in the jungle.

Margaritas

We awake at 3.30 am to rain. Bugger!!! We grab our gear and rain coats, join our guide and trek in the dark into the Park, even though it is lightly misting there is something quite special about the place and by 5.00 am we are on top of the highest pyramid watching it become light, there is definitely no sunrise, in fact at one point we cannot even see the other pyramids because of the mist but it does eventually clear to give us a view of these colossal structures in the jungle, truly wonderful. You can see why they filmed some scenes from Star Wars here.

We then spend another couple of hours with our guide before he leaves us at 7.30 am, we have our picnic breakfast and spend another 3 hours exploring this vast place.

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal with a flock of native turkeys - closely related to peacocks.

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal

The ruins of Tikal

By 10.30 am we have had enough so head back to the Lodge for a shower and a sleep before lunch, and then it is back into the park for another 3 hours of exploration. We cover an enormous amount of ground and by 4.30 pm we are done, so it is back to the Lodge for a few drinks and dinner with 2 lovely Americans who have been travel companions for countless years. As we have our afternoon drinks we watch the antics of the spider monkeys and all manner of animals, this truly is a magical place, even though the weather didn't play ball we are so lucky to have had the opportunity to visit this place.

Spider Monkey

Pizote