{"id":695,"date":"2005-12-04T21:02:37","date_gmt":"2005-12-04T21:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travellingtruths.wordpress.com\/?p=695"},"modified":"2018-04-19T10:44:38","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T00:44:38","slug":"tikal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slingadventures.com\/destinations\/guatemala\/tikal","title":{"rendered":"Discovering the Lost City of Tikal"},"content":{"rendered":"We have breakfast with the yachtie set on the Rio Dulce. We say adios to Capt John and the Windy Dancer and also to Sean our Canadian companion. Although we aim to meet up in a week or so in Antigua.\r\n\r\nWe get the next chicken bus towards Flores. We actually see a chicken on this bus, tucked snugly under its owners arm headed off to market. Mid way to Flores the bus breaks down. The driver seemingly used to such an occurrence and pops open the engine cover and begins work on a leaking water pump. Meanwhile two men with guns get on. They are not police.\r\n\r\nDespite the shock at seeing armed men board our bus. I was interested to learn the day before that carrying a gun in Guatemala is as common a wearing a watch. The gun normally displayed with the ammunition cartridge disengaged supposedly to give passers by they were not the intended target. Still it's a little eye opener that Guatemala has a sinister side and a little bit more unstable than Mexico and Belize. Muggings, robberies and pickpocketing and the like on buses like this not an uncommon practice.\r\n\r\nIt turns out these guys were just being neighbourly and checking if the bus driver needed a hand in repairing his overheated bus. How very nice of them!\r\n\r\nWe get off the bus at Santa Elena and get a minivan to El Ramate. When I say we, at this point Martina and friend Juli are still with us and with a knowledge of Spanish Allison and I are being a bit lazy in our conversations with the locals. Also just catching a minibus sounds like it was waiting for us to disembark our previous bus. Couldn't be further from the truth.\r\n\r\nBus travel through Central America is purely a DIY activity. With every conductor trying to convince you they are the bus to get on or the next bus to leave, it takes some figuring out what is actually correct. You normally end up on the side of a dusty road unsure of what bus if any will pass by hoping that the guide book\u00a0you have is still accurate in depicting the location of unmarked bus stops.\r\n\r\nEl Ramate is on Lago De Peten (Lake Peten). Just a small village really with young kids playing football on the dusty banks, mothers walking up from the river having done the washing and people generally going about their daily activities.\r\n\r\n