Stopping in Rio Dulce

On Wednesday, we booked an economy bus to Flores, which was a nightmare of a trip, from now on, we will only do first class for long busrides. The tour companies advertise 8 hours to Flores. One hour by minivan to Guatemala City, then we waited about 2 hours for the 2nd class bus, which was running late. When we got on the economy bus it had no air conditioning and no bathroom, which we expected, but we also expected there to be some stops for bathroom breaks. After about 4 hours on the hot bus, we decided that if they didn't make a bathroom stop, we would have to get off in the town of Rio Dulce, especially if they didn't arrive before 6pm, because it was still another 4 hours to Flores!

Sure enough, there were no stops, so we decided to bail at Rio Dulce and stay the night. Rio Dulce is this huge lake, that turns into a river and flows into the Carribean Sea, south of Belize. Alot of sailboats go upriver from the Carribean Sea to the lake to escape hurricanes. The town of Rio Dulce was a total dive. We checked out 2 hotels in town, and settled for the second one. After about 10 minutes we realized we didn't want to stay there because the water didn't work and the mosquito screens were broken! Luckily they gave us our money back, and by then it was 7pm and we were tired...... As we were leaving the hotel, a guy approached us and told us about a place on the lake, a 5 minute launcha ride away, and it looked and sounded nice. It seemed a little sketchy, but we agreed to go. It turned out to be great, right in the jungle in the mangroves surrounding the lake. We stayed under a palapa roof and you could hear all the jungle noises. They had a nice restaurant, the rooms were cheap, and so was the food, so it all turned out good.

This morning we got up and caught the 2nd class bus (no other option) to Flores. We really lucked out becuase there were no seats available so we had to stand for the first 15 minutes until there was a federal police checkpoint and about 20 people had to get off for ID checks so we snagged their seats. Most of them got back on, so we felt bad for snagging their seats, but it would have been several hours of standing on the bus through windy roads and crazy bus driving! I think we are through with the Guatemalan buses, can't wait until we get to be on a 1st class Mexican bus, what luxury!

Tomorrow we will go to the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal and then on Saturday we will begin to head back to Mexico where we will meet Luke's family in Puerto Morelos (south of Cancun) on Sunday.