Tikal to Cancun

We arrived in the small town of Flores, Guatemala, late at night after more than 16 hours of travel. We couldn't make much of the town in the dark and were unsure of whhat it had to offer, so we took the first hotel we saw, right outside the bus station. It was by far the worst place I have ever slept. Dingy concrete rooms surrounded a dingier courtyard. Shared bathrooms were dark and disgusting, and the place generally smelled of waste and refuse. On top of that, multiple cockroaches were crawling around our room when we entered. I pulled the bed out from the wall and tried to sleep tight in my sleeping bag until the suffocating heat forced me to brave the bugs and sleep coverless.

The next day we took a trip to the mind-blowing ruins at Tikal. Truly in the jungle, the park encompasses 100 square kilometers, only 20% of which has been excavated/restored. Street signs on the road that enters the park (the kind that would show deer in the US) warn of jaguars and snakes crossing. The site is a tourist mecca, so it is high-priced and relatively crowded, but for good reason. Towering structures of stone rise out of the trees, looking down upon amazingly well-organized plazas. We climbed several of the larger temples and were rewarded with vistas of endless jungle, all the way to the horizon, as well as the surrounding structures. It was impossible to resist closing my eyes and imagining the plazas teeming with Mayans involved in some sacrificial ceremony (no historical knowledge here, so I channeled images from Mel Gibson's Apocalypto)

We had to spend another night in Flores, but found a cheaper and better hotel in the daylight. It would have been a good deal regardless, but the attendant actually gave me the wrong key so we ended up with a large room that had four beds and a private bathroom for about $4 each. We ate our second meal in two days at the same friendly roadside eatery and chatted with the young daughter as she tried to practice english and get Jamie to give her his passport. The next day we awoke at 4:45 AM for a bus to Chetumal, on the border of Mexico and Belize. We spent all of 5 hours in Belize, but had to pay $15 for the privilege. The day was grueling, 19 hours of travel to Cancun.

Crossing the border into Mexico felt like going home for Jamie and I. Strangely, after having been through a few Central American countries, we realized how developed Mexico is and how comfortable we had become with it. Tacos, beer, accomodations...it all seems easier and cheaper in Mexico. Mexico has by far been the biggest surprise of my trip. Having lived so close to it for so long, I am shocked at my misstep of not having explored it sooner. One could easily spend several years exploring and not see it all.

Having said that, we all know Cancun is a different animal. I was here seven years ago for a high-school graduation trip and did the hotel all-inclusive thing. Now, I'm staying in a $8 per night hostel and eating on $3 per day. In that context I am seeing that Cancun was and is a true Mexican city, even if it does have several miles of coastline that might as well be The United States. As the saying goes, "When in Rome...," so we ponied up for a Spring Break bar crawl on our first night. Like watching Snakes on a Plane, you need to be able to suspend disbelief if you are going to enjoy it. We felt our age, however, as we laughed into our beers upon hearing the emcee scream "showing me your fucking beers and say USA!" That pretty much summed up the evening.

I'll spend a couple more nights here and head on to phase two of my trip: Chile.