My First Backpacking Trip: Bees, Crocodiles, and Border Crossings

Yes! Today we are in Guatemala, in Flores. It’s a small town on an island in lake Peten where people usually come to, to jump off to Tikal. This morning we left the hotel at 5 got in a van half a mile away and headed towards La Palma where a small river boat left from to enter into Guatemala.

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We had been told the boat would leave at 8am, the van driver told us 9am when he dropped us off, and then someone else told us it doesn't leave until 11am! Sandrine was running around asking everyone, scared we would miss the boat. This is after having been in a van for the last hour on a dirt road, barely missing cars and trucks coming the other way. We had plenty of time, it was only 6 am when we got ther, so we waited.

I wasn't sure if I had enough money, for food, the boat, and the price to get into Guatemala or if I'd have problems with that visa/permission slip I never got for mexico. Luckily enough Hilmut (the german) lent me some money and said not to worry if I needed more later.

We ate breakfast in some rundown restaurant, on the river bank. we were literally under the building on a rocky ground. It had a few tables and the river right there almost at our feet. It didn't look all that clean and frankly didn't smell all that great but it mostly was construction debris, and the huevos rancheros more than made up for it.

The boat finally was ready to go by 11:45, and it was an amazing ride, even though after breakfast some of the of the fear from last night had come back. And it came back because Helmut told to be careful when we get to Peru, it was a very dangerous land. We had told him our plan to travel all of Latin America. He had gotten mugged there in the streets of Cuzco. And that sent some chills up my spine. So much so that up until 1 hour before the boat left I was thinking about it. I had even told Vero and Sandrine that if it keeps going like this (being scared every day is not fun) Im not going to do the whole trip. I want to go to the islands and the beach.

I wasn't scared all day, every day, but just when we're in a bus and it slows down almost to a stop or when a passenger gets up to talk to the driver and when we’re in a boat with two complete strangers.

So anyhow here we went on the San Pedro River going through the swamps and low jungle. At some point the captain pointed to a crocodile. It was a small one only a few feet long, laying on a branch half in the water.

Shortly after, the driver stopped the engine to change something or to add more gas but the boat drifted to the shore so one of the passengers jumped in front and tried to push away. There was nothing stable enough for him to push against so we kept drifting and we drifted into a bees nest hanging from tree branch. The canopy had hit this long cylindrical nest. A few bees came flying at us (I didn’t really notice until we were free and going away) Very soon we were surrounded by a large swarm, Helmut got stung at the neck! The guy workingmon the engine got it running again and we sped away just in time before anyone else was stung! The kicker is that the river was also infested with crocs, so it's not like we could have jumped in the river to save ourselves from these killer bees! For all we knew there may have been piranhas in the water too...

We eventually passed through some small rapids, not quite white water, but almost and it was exiting and about 3 hours later we were at the Mexican immigration check point, which was just a small wooden shack on stilts, pretty much in the middle of the river, with a rusty tin roof, an old curtain for a door and a window made of shutters. It had a desk with a couple chairs and a book almost as large as the desk on which the officers entered our passport info. I told them my permission slip had been stolen in a bus robbery. He smiled and said "ok, whatever". It's a good thing they were real laid back and had no computers to trace my lies back to Nuevo Laredo!

Back on the boat and to Guatemala. We hit El Naranjo, a couple hours after the mexican immigration check and about an hour after crossing the border, which was a bunch of wooden poles sticking out of the river 5 to 6 feet all across it at a few feet intervals. There we had to deal with the Guatemalan immigration checkpoint.

We got a great big smiling welcome from the officer in charge and everyone around. Thankfully I could exchange a traveler's check at the grocery store next door to pay for a bus to Flores and pay back our german friend. 20 minutes later we were in a van that took us through dirt poor villages on dirt roads for 4 hours to Flores. Poor villages in Guatemala seem so much cleaner and more organized than Mexico with less crime too. We made a couple pee stops and food stops, everywhere we went people were so friendly. We arrived in Flores and found a hotel at $3 each, ate some food (they let us promise to pay tomorrow for the room and food) Once again, people here are really friendly. Everyone waves at each other, in cars or by foot or from a horse.

At this point we all needed to rest, it had been a long couple of days journey to get into Guatemala!

Tomorrow, begins another adventure, Tikal and Guatemala city!

My First Backpacking Trip:

Chapter 01: NYC to Mexico - Y2K
Chapter 02: NYC to Mexico - Cajun Wedding
Chapter 03: Everything is Lost
Chapter 04: Mexico City Finally!
Chapter 05: Robbery at Gun Point
Chapter 06: Sick but Safe in Veracruz
Chapter 07: Tlacotalpan and the Eyipantla Falls
Chapter 08: In the Land of Zapatistas
Chapter 09: Zapatistas and Skinheads
Chapter 10: Horseback To Chamula
Chapter 11: The Pyramids of Palenque
Chapter 12: Left for Dead on a River