After raving so much about Tikal, there only seemed to be one sensible thing to do - go back again the next day. So we did. We wandered around the remaining bits of the ruins that we hadn't seen, apart from the rather remote Temple 6, which can harbour robbers ('and worse' says the guidebook, ominously... ).
The next day we set off for Livingston, a small fishing town on the Carribean coast. This involved a four hour bus ride to Rio Dulce, followed by a meandering two hour boat trip down the river tot Livingston. The boat ride was beautiful, through the jungle, with various birdlife (sorry Robert, no idea what they were, maybe you can identify them when I put the photos up?) . Unfortunately, when we got nearer to Livingston it began to rain, and rained on and off in fairly vicious bursts for the next day.
The plan was to hang out in Livingston for a few days and soak up the laid back Carribean vibe and sun. We found some very cheap accomodation recommended by the guidebook, which was, er, basic. It's true that you get what you pay for, and we paid Q42 for the night, which is about two quid each. Now, I'm sure Livingston is a sun-soaked, laid back place when the sun is shining, but in the rain it just seemed shabby and grey. The next day it was still chucking it down periodically and I was feeling ill, so we decided to cut our losses and go back to Guatemala city.I find this a bit disappointing, but that's the way it goes. We're going to have give Livingston another go some other time.
We left Livingston by boat (you can't get to Livingston by road) to Puerto Barrios, and got a bus from there back to Guatemala City. David and Yoli met us from the bus, which made us feel nice and special. They'd dressed up for it as well, David was wearing a tie and everything. They explained that they had been to a Wedding, and were about to got to the reception, as were we! So we shot back home to get scrubbed up, then off to our second Guatemalan Wedding in two weeks.The Wedding was very nice, we've got a fairly good handle on Guatemalan Wedding traditions, which I may detail another time.
Today we hung out, went to the Zoo, and did a spot of shopping. I managed to get what my Spanish language education has been needing all along - an Asterix book in Spanish! Also managed to get a photo of a comedy-cleaning product named 'off!'. So that's about it for now, off to Samayac next, the town my parents worked in the 70's. Not sure there'll really be much to see there, but I'd like to go there nonetheless.
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