Our last stop of the trip was the tiny island of
Flores located on
Lake Petén Itzá. The small island town is connected to the mainland by a 500m causeway, and Santa Elena (the town opposite it on the mainland), San Benito (a bigger community to the west), and the island Flores itself are often collectively referred to as Flores. After our sunrise tour in Tikal in the morning, we headed to Flores proper, and spent the afternoon and one night in the charming little town.
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| The colors of Flores |
We arrived in Flores a little before lunch, but our room wasn't ready yet, so we ate at a cute restaurant, La Luna, nearby while waiting. We chatted with our friendly waiter/manager, and he gave us a shot of rum at the end of our meal. I'm not a rum fan, but it was Ron Zapaca, a famous Guatemalan rum, so I decided to give it a shot (pun intended).
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| steak with pepper sauce & stuffed green squash |
We then spent the afternoon exploring the island. It's tiny, and we walked the perimeter in about an hour (going at a leisurely pace). There was a nice promenade around the island which made the walk all the more inviting.
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| Lake Petén Itzá |
Along some parts of the promenade were these areas where people could swim, sit, relax, or float in the water, without the risk of the current carrying you away. It was pretty cool, and we saw a lot of people in the water because of the heat.
We walked all the way around and ended up at the entrance to the island. We took some touristy photos, then continued our walk.
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| Touristy photo time |
Despite the heat (the Petén region is a lowland and has a hot and humid climate), the soothing pastel colors of the buildings around the island and the tranquil streets made walking around enjoyable.
In the afternoon, a stretch of Calle La Union was occupied by food vendors. We were still full from lunch so we just gawked at all the food instead.
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our (air-conditioned) room, then headed back out for dinner. We ate at Il Terrazzo, recommended to me by my friend, and had a nice view of the lake while eating.
The next morning we caught the early flight back to Guatemala City. TAG has three small planes to fly the passengers every morning, and the last batch of us were placed in a tiny 18-seater plane.
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| I was pretty fascinated with being on the small plane, if you can't tell |
We landed back in Guatemala City an hour later, and we spent the Sunday taking it easy; hearing mass for Easter Sunday, doing some last minute souvenir shopping at the Mercado de Artesanías, then spending some time at the Miraflores mall to avoid the crowds downtown. It was overall a lovely vacation, and I was glad to see more of beautiful Guatemala. Throughout the trip, I also heard about many other places around the country worth visiting, and I can't wait to travel there soon. :)
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