Semuc Champey

Staying in Coban and visiting Semuc Champey has definitely been the highlight of Guatemala so far. The Lonely Planet doesn't give promising reviews, but it's way better than the highlands! It's cleaner, warmer, and absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful tourqoise pools of water, water falls, underwater caves, it's fantastic! On the way back we stopped at Lanquin to explore the caves there, which were pretty impressive. I wish the pictures could reflect what it was actually like. And our hotel room (which we paid just under $7 each for) actually did have hot water as promised! Most claim they do, but it's really ice cold. It was my first hot shower in a month!!! With the exception of Panajachel, which alternated about every 2 minutes between really hot and really cold. And it had great water pressure too. It's the little things... like my chocolate cheesecake at dinner...
Today we spent 5 1/2 more hours travelling, and we're currently in Flores, a tiny tourist island in the middle of a river with not much going on. I was ready to leave within the first hour of arriving. But from here we'll make a day trip to the Mayan ruins in Tikal tomorrow, before heading towards the coast. The highlight of today was crossing the river by ferry about an hour outside of Flores. It's the only way to get here, and it's a pretty small ferry that carries some pretty large trucks and buses. There was a chicken bus that crossed over with us, and he had to gas it and then slam on the breaks to shove off from shore, then back up so the front end would be light enough to beach on the opposite shore.