Back t'up North... and then down South again!

After Semuc Champey it was finally time to head back up to the North of Guatemala to Flores, for Tikal, the Big Daddy of all the Mayan ruins.

Which meant, another shuttle. What's that I hear you say? A problem with the brakes in Coban? A "half hour" stop to get them fixed? And we should just wait here in this shopping centre?

If we thought the "half hour break" on the way to Lanquin was bad, this one was an hour worse. That's right, a 3 and a half hour wait in Coban. I'm not sure what it is the drivers do during this time, maybe go and do a separate run to make a bit of cash on the side, but it is SO annoying! So, we got to Flores 238km and 12 hours from where we set off.

We got dorms in the very cool Los Amigos hostel and booked on the 4:30am tour to Tikal with Tyler, who we'd met at Semuc Champey. Probably sounds a bit crazy, but everything in Guatemala happens early. So, at the moment we are so used to getting up early doors that 4:30am was no biggie. It's supposed to be the sunrise tour, but the sun is up way before you get to the main structures. Still, we were glad to have gone early because the humidity there, even at 5:30am, was off the chart and it was only going to get hotter.

Tikal is pretty impressive. Some of the structures are only half excavated but they are so huge that it doesn't matter. The principal structure was the tallest structure in Central America until about 50 years ago, and we worked up a serious sweat climbing up it!

When we got back to the hostel we needed to figure out how we were going to get to El Tunco, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador. We were planning to take the overnight bus to Antigua again, and then take a connection to San Salvador from there, but then we heard that there was a 'direct', 'first class' bus to San Salvador from Flores. We double checked with the agent, "is it direct, how long does it take?" And we were told it was direct and about 9 hours. Yay! And no.

It was such a good idea, getting boozy the night before our 'first class' bus to San Salvador. Naht. Firstly, because I wasn't quite over the food poisoning I'd got in Xela. Secondly because it wasn't a first class bus, but an old coach masquerading as a first class bus and stopping for any Tom, Dick or Harry just like a chicken bus. And finally, because it was the hottest bus in the world with windows that didn't open. So, not a pleasant 12 hours for either of us, to say the least!

We'd been wondering whether there would be another attempted gringo tax at the border, but this time there was a sign in the Guatemalan office saying "No one at this border control should ask you for money, and if they do, please report it on this number" Sweet!
Nothing to pay to enter El Salvador either, though they did have a good, long look at all the stamps in our passports!

When we got to San Salvador it was just a question of getting to Playa el Tunco. Our bus had arrived too late for us to catch public transport, so we agreed to share a taxi with two girls who had been on our bus down. There was a taxi man waiting for people to get off the bus, so we agreed a price with him and walked out of the bus station towards his car at the petrol station opposite. But when one of the girls saw that he wasn't an 'official' taxi, i.e. a yellow car, she got worried and didn't want to get in. There were lots of other taxis lined up next to his, private and legit ones, and all the drivers were telling us that he was a legit taxi, but she wasn't having it, even though the rest of us were happy to get in. The man looked vexed! And I felt bad as we pulled away in a yellow taxi - he had put all the leg work in to get our fare and watched us walk off to another taxi. I'm sure it would have been totally fine!

So an hour later and we are now in Playa el Tunco, El Salvador. This is the place to learn to surf, so hopefully we're going to become surfer dudes!