In Mexico the food is really Mexican, the chiles ring twice, the speed bumps aren't wimpy, and the roads are full of bugs. VW bugs that is.  They used to be produced here in droves and still reign the roads.  Within the sea of old buggies a new one can occasionally be spotted.
 


But all good things must come to an end and yesterday we left the land of buggies behind to enter the land where bugs reign supreme ( the kind that bite).

We left Chetumal on an overcast morning after giving up our Mexican tourist visas and bracing ourselves for another round of stamping and customs in our next destination of Guatemala.  A short flight of an hour and a half took us over Belize and then over the amazing sight of the ruins of Tikal from above. (satellite view)



The short flight was followed by surprisingly short paperwork in Guatemala: a few brief but careful inspections of documents later and we were headed to Flores.  Flores is a tiny island on the edge of a lake with narrow, colorful streets, many wandering tourists and hordes of predatory local taxis including the strange three-wheeled scooter rickshaws.  

                                 

Guatemala has a different feel from Mexico, although you wouldn't know it from the language or the menus.  Today we took one of those rickshaw taxi on a spine-jarring ride to a local cave system.  After happily taking our entrance fee the guard  handed us one little flashlight and warned us not to stray too far.  He then non-chalantly left us to explore the caves completely alone.  We did our best not to get lost in the large cave system, having only our wits and a few bats to guide us. As you can surely figure out, we managed to make it out of the caves and preferred to walk back, having had enough adventures for one day.