Isla de Flores & Tikal (Guatemala)

The morning we left Caye Caulker was again a perfect day. I woke up a touch after sunrise, so I walked over to the shore to relax. When everyone was up, we packed and grabbed another yummy breakfast, and walked over to the water taxi area. The ferry was seamless and dropped us back off in Belize City where we waited for Edgar to pick us up. The man is nuts! Wouldn't stop talking about this whore house (I'm not kidding) and his "girlfriend" who was a good 40+ years younger than him...gross. Nicole and I could barely keep it together in the back seat.
 When we picked up and packed up the car, we said our goodbyes to Edgar and headed for Guatemala. This was the most annoying border crossing we've had thus far, not terrible mind you, but all our other experiences have been great. We got to the border and there are always people trying to get money off of you, "oh this is where you park, now pay me", "oh I showed you where the entrance was, now pay me" and on and on ad nauseum! So we are always very tentative with anyone not behind a desk. We discovered there were about 4 different places we were had to continue to pay fees for the car. They needed a copy of the stamp they had JUST GIVEN US, along with other documents. So we had to walk across the border to an ATM and then get a copy of our new passport stamp...??? Finally, we made it through! No real issues with the drive, though there is a somewhat significant amount of dirt road, which our car is not made for, but took like a champ non-the-less. We arrived at a super small island called Isla de Flores and found a pretty cheap hostel with a very hippy vibe.
The next morning, I woke up to discover that I had become a leper. I developed some type of rash that sort of looks and feels like poison ivy. It had somewhat progressed slowly, but I thought nothing of it until then. I grabbed some questionable pills at the pharmacy and we headed out to Tikal, the natural reserve and sight of a large Mayan city.
 This was probably the most or second most exciting ruins. A lot like Palenque, the monuments and temples sprung up out of the jungle, some fully some partially, leaving the question of whether the random hills throughout were in fact unexcavated ruins. It was much more sprawling that any ruins we have been to yet. We trekked through the jungle for 2 1/2 hours, climbing the tallest temple to see nothing but jungle till the horizon with a few ancient temple peaks poking thorough. Very cool trek.

We also saw spider monkeys, heard what we think was a jaguar, and saw two animals we had never seen before! A great and exhausting day. After our adventure, we headed back to the island for some grub, showers and rum drinks! Headed to bed a bit later than usual, but slept great.