Flores - our worst nightmare!

NOTE: No photos as our camera was stolen!

Tuesday 9th October - Flores

We arrived into Flores at 5.30 am. The bus ride was not as bad as we thought it would be and we were greeted by a few guys selling us hotel rooms. We accepted their offer only to find out that they did not have any rooms and were more playing a game of pot luck to see if we could get us a room in order to earn commission. We thanked them for their help and decided to look for ourselves. We found a nice place recommended by the lonely planet and still only being 6.30am we decided to have a few hours sleep. After waking we wandered around the small town before heading to the Los Amigos hostel that had wireless. There we spent a few hours catching up on some admin and enjoyed a fabulous vegetarian lunch with great smoothies. Jo had 2 massive vegetarian kebabs on rice and Leigh had vegetarian burritos. We had not eaten vegetables for over a week so we enjoyed binging on so much healthy food.

One of the German guys had also made his way to Flores so joined us for lunch. We all chatted  for a few more hours before we decided to explore more of the tiny island of Flores. We walked through the market and round the edge to the water front and decided to book our trip to Tikal. We decided to book it through our hotel and made the booking for a 9am collection the following day. We had arranged to meet with our German friend at a small movie theater next to Los Amigos. It was great value – for $2 we watched a great movie and each got given an enormous ice cold drink was exactly what we needed in the heat!  It was a really relaxing way to spend the afternoon. After the movie we needed to locate an ATM which was on the mainland. We got the directions which was for a 30 min round trip walking, but with the majority of the bank machines not accepting our cards it took us over a hour. The problem was we were wandering very seedy streets with a lot of cash on us, so Jo put it down her top and we headed back to Flores at a rapid pace. We went back to Los Amigos for a light dinner of hummus and bread before heading home for a long sleep.

Wednesday 10th October Flores - Tikal

Our pick up time was 9am so we headed off to breakfast before waiting for the mini van to turn up. We were the last of the tourists to be picked up at 9.15am. As we headed out of town the driver picked up a local before we set off for the 1.5hour journey. About an hour into the trip we passed through a small town and headed up a small hill. As it plateaued we were involved in the most terrifying  moment of our lives. (We have decided not to enter all the details of the event and concentrate on the moments after)  Our van was greeted at the top of the hill by 3 masked gunman who took control of the minivan and ordered the driver to take us down a remote road headed towards the jungle. There they robbed us of everything and started to get greedy by taking peoples shoes and going through a rucksack on the top of the minivan. After about 20min what seemed like the most surreal moment of the entire event - an elderly gentle man carrying a machete strolled towards us. The gunmen aimed and fired 3 shots at the man who just continued down the path. At that moment the thieves collected all they could and ran telling us to remain on the ground in Spanish. The elderly man reached us and simply said “buenos dias” and in Spanish said looks like rain is on the way. He checked if we were Ok, which all 9 of us were quite simply not and then headed straight off to the police station. Extremely shaken and devastated we were all anxious to leave the site, but the driver stalled some what and after about 10mins we left and got to the police station.

This is where we were exposed to a very corrupt police service and were further shocked to learn that the police were suspecting the driver as an accomplice. They told us they would not go after the 3 armed men as it was too dangerous! You have to understand that the Guatemalan police is one of the most heavily armed we have seen and to hear the news that it was to dangerous to go after the thieves made us feel even worse.  We then watched as policeman came and went on 4x4 vehicles mainly to get their lunch and were doing absolutely nothing to catch these robbers. Next we had to give our statements and list the items that had been stolen. That took over 2 hours as the language barrier was terrible. Thankfully an American student involved spoke a little Spanish and was able to translate for everyone. He was a star! With all the statements in they tried to tell us we were carrying on our way to Tikal! We all made it clear that we did not want to go and plus what would we take photos with? We were left on the side of the road as our driver had been taken away, unsure of what we were to do next.  It was then a man named Juan from the Ministry of Public affairs arrived and we would spend the next 2 days with him. He apologized for the event and we all piled into his ute. This was the beginning of  dealing with 2 days of Guatemalan bureaucracy. We headed back to Flores and spent over 3 hours giving our statements again. Having not eaten all day, we were all treated to a flash dinner at Flores most expensive restaurant. We loved it and it made the group feel a little bit better. There was though only one topic we were discussing. During the afternoon we met Fernando from the Guatemalan tourists agency, who also joined us for dinner. He at first told us that all our further costs would be covered as the majority of us had lost all our cash and cards. We had stupidly left all our cash in our packs and lost all of it!  Unfortunately, the promises given did not result in receiving any financial help, although dinner was free! The funniest thing happened after dinner - we all had ordered a second drink and as we left the waiter tried to charge us for them. Also Fernando, just as we were all about to kick off, had to remind him that we had no cash, so miraculously he got the drinks bill wiped! We were dropped off home and were told that we would be collected from our hotel at 7.30am.

We headed home and the day did not get any better. We realised that all our bank cards that we keep in a security wallet were still in our packs after we hid them there for the travel day between Antigua – Flores... meaning we had no cash and no possible way to withdraw any from our accounts. We then spent over 2 hours on the phone to our banks and credit card companies. We paid lots of money for insurance and it was really frustrating as they weren't being at all helpful. It just made the day even worse! We did though have a small victory - our student ID cards were not taken as Jo had changed her storage place, it made us both laugh. Very late we decided to head for bed. It was the end of the most surreal day!

*IMPORTANT NOTE TO TRAVELLERS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN TO US: Please take care while in Guatemala. The government officials tried to tell us this type of incident happens once a year, but we have already heard of more people involved in similar cases of armed robbery this year. We traveled with SAN JUAN travel who have an unfortunate monopoly over trips to Tikal in Flores. They were absolutely terrible to us - they offered no apology, no refund even though 1) we didn't get to Tikal and 2) their driver was suspected of being involved. It makes it very hard to want to support countries like Guatemala who treat tourists in this way. Also make sure you keep your cards seperated – we had throughout the whole trip except for this particular day!

Thursday 11th October - Flores

This morning we got picked up by Jose from the Ministry of Public Affairs in the early morning and where promised we could visit Tikal today after more paperwork was completed (with police protection). Our first stop was to the Ministry where we hung around for “10 mins” which ended up being well over an hour while Jose tried to arrange for us to provide a report to the judge. He got a time set then took us to his house for breakfast. During this Jo borrowed his cellphone and contacted HSBC again to organise a replacement credit card, but they were so useless! We also had requested a $500 cash advance which would be wired to us, but they declined this. Crazy!! It was so frustrating as we have plenty of money in our accounts but just no way to access the money and HSBC really didn't want to help. It just got so frustrating!

Eventually we got taken to the court house which was an experience in itself. While we waited for our case to go to trial, even though they didn't have the felons, we witnessed heaps of crims getting their sentencing surrounded by arm guards and were then taken away in the paddy wagon. About 2 hours later, thankfully Riff had gone and got icecreams as he still had cash cards, we entered the courtroom.  Initially we were all sitting in the courtroom listening to Riff give his statement until the Judge realised that we should provide our report individually and not be influenced by what other people have said. So one by one we went in and gave our statement. We had to swear to tell the truth about the incident otherwise we would face charges in Guatemala. One funny thing that was said by the defense lawyer was relating to the comment about when the old man walked down the path towards us while we were all on our hands and knees. We were saying that he must have been deaf and not heard the shots, but the lawyer said maybe he thought you were all Muslims (i.e praying, as that's what it would have looked like). After the court appearance we got taken out for lunch, to Leigh's not so favourite milaneza restaurant (which he got sick on one day when we were travelling at altitude).

We were all stating to get mad with Francisco (Ministry of Tourism) as we hadn't worked anything out i.e. Onward travel, access to bank accounts etc which they had promised. We finally got him to take us to a bank where Riff withdrew money for us. Then we went to San Juan travel to get a refund on tickets to Palenque and to request money back as we didn't ever make it to Tikal. No luck - Mr San Juan is awful as no sympathy or apology was given and certainly no refund, even though their driver was a suspect! After losing it at the staff with their absolute rudeness, we went back to hotel and finally got a full rebate on our planed trip to Palenque and Leigh and Riff booked tickets to Belize City for the next morning not with San Juan! After everything was sorted and we were finally able to pay all our debts, we all met up at Los Amigos hostel, which has great affordable food. Jo had vegetable skewers and Leigh had vegetarian burritos and cocktails. We then relived the nightmare again with all the other people that were in the van before parting our seperate ways. After this we went home and again had a sleepless night, but looking forward to moving on the next day.