A long and late bus trip across the border from Belize to Guatemala didn’t help with he already uneasy feeling. Stories have forever been told of the hijackings and robberies at night in countries such as Guatemala. Fortunately, the Codger didn’t experience this but was glad to arrive in Flores, a small island town in the Petén region of northern Guatemala.

Flores is close to the largest known Mayan heritages civilisation site, covering 500sq km. Tikal is the site where it is estimated two million Mayans lived around 8000BC. This place was only discovered around 2000 years ago. And only 16sq km has been uncovered by archaeologists.

As most will know, the Codger is by no means a history buff. And so what better way, than to settle in to the rainy 10km hike around Tikal than to spread false facts to other tourists, delivering them in a deadpan fashion…

• Many people don’t know this fact, but the mayans actually partnered with the Egyptians to build these temples. They started with the Egyptian pyramids but because they took so long, they decided to build smaller ones for the mayans because they couldn’t be bothered anymore
• The Mayans actually built this temple in preparation for the Indiana Jones series
• They built these temples from the top down, which was another feat of the Mayan people
• One other thing we do know about the Mayans is that they didn’t have a gerney to get all the moss off. Clearly too busy doing other stuff
• (There were many more and the people reacted exactly how you would have expected – confused and amazed).

A muddy and wet trip, but an interesting one that the Codger genuinely enjoyed. Suspecting that this is a ‘ruins’ type of situation where by the end of this trip, sick to death of them will be an understatement.

As the sun cleared the following day, some local knowledge was passed on to visit a rope swing into the surrounding lake. A local wooden boat over to another locals casa (home), the rope swing delivered. The sun was out, the beers were cold and it was the perfect last day to end 2023.

There were low expectations for New Years Eve, and as one would hope, no expectations can deliver fantastic results. A few beers with new friends, turned into a 1am mission to buy fireworks. Having only ever seen fireworks, lighting them in the middle of the street was a pyromaniacs dream.

An unsuspecting phenomenal time in Flores. Now time to fly to Antigua (old Guatemala City).