Into Guatemala

A very young looking Queen Elizabeth II

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Caught the local bus from San Ignacio to Benque Viejo, near the border, from where we took a taxi 2 kms to the border post. At the Belize border control you have to fill in a questionnaire of about 20 questions, all relating to your stay in the country. We paid 37.5 $Bz to leave the country, then got a receipt and a stamp in our passports at another desk.

We dashed across the 150m of no-mans-land to the Guatemalan Immigration post, filled in the Immigration form which the lady did not even look at and then she gave us a 30 day stamp to stay in Guatemala.

We decided to take the quicker and easier route to Tikal, and hired a taxi - $70 US well spent. Our driver was a Baptist minister and we learned from him that 70% of people who live in the countryside have 8-12 kids, and 30% have 4-8 kids. In the city, it's more like 2-3 kids. There is no social security, dental care or health care. Even people who have no job still have to pay 5% tax, how ever that works. Only 20% of the total adult population have a job.

Bird on a wire?

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He added that ministers here have to supplement their clergy pay by doing other work, and he does services 5 times a week as well as his other pastoral duties, such as wakes, funerals, etc. We felt that at least on this journey we had God on our side!

As our internet enquiry had not got a response from theTikal Inn, we took a flier on getting a room and just turned up. Once again divine intervention played its part and we managed to get a room.

It was too late to justify paying the 150 Quetzals each (10 UK pounds), the cost of entry to the ruins, so we decided to go zip-lining instead within the grounds of the very large Tikal National Park.

Our two guides strapped us into our harnesses, gave us a pair of very large, smelly leather gloves and we headed to the "playground". We got to our first point and started climbing several steep wooden and metal ladders, lashed to the tree trunks. We ended up on a small platform, about 70 feet above the ground and looking out over the forest canopy towards another small platform about 100 yards/metres away. Our guide gave us a quick lesson in "braking" which involved pulling down gently on the zipline with one hand, and stressed that we should NOT go too slowly to begin with or we would end up stranded halfway along the zipline, and then have to manually pull ourselves to the next platform.

Dave on his back again.

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Barbara was first to be clipped on to the zip line by a carabiner attached to her harness. After a brief moment of doubt about the sanity of this activity, Barbara lifted both her legs into the required position - crossed and horizontal - leaned back into a semi reclined position and off she went on her virgin zip. Seconds later, she was enjoying ever minute of it and wondering what the fuss had been about.  Only later did Dave admit that he would have pushed Barbara off if she had bottled it!

The next seven zips flew by (after each zip you would have to climb up 2-5 sets of ladders - narrow and steep - to the next platform high in the canopy). And yes, we do have the photos and T-shirt to prove it.

VERDICT: the most fun you can have with your clothes on.