Guatemala

 The border crossing into Guatemala from Belize went smoothly. We have now got used to the way they work. However, our poor understanding of Spanish always adds a little more stress to these situations. 

It was the usual procedure. Check out of Belize and Then check into Guatemala and get the Temporary Import Permits for the Truck and the Motorcycle. It's always a hot sweaty few hours but we were eventually spat out the other end successfully.

In 2006 the Central American Nations of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua ( Known as the C4 Countries ) all signed the Free Mobility Agreement that allowed their citizens to pass from each of the countries easily. This also means that once you enter one country the Visa clock  starts to count down. We were granted a total of 90 days of entry to the C4, which meant that we had to get ourselves down to Panama and be back in and out of Guatemala before the 90 days expired. You can apply for an extension but in our case, it hopefully won't be required.

We headed for the Lago Peten Itza. It's the third largest lake in Guatemala, being about 100 square Kilometers in area.

Parking on the lakeside for a few days was exactly what we needed. 

Lago Peten Itza 

Unfortunately, whilst we were basking in Guatemalan paradise I discovered that I had a rear Brake Cylinder leaking. After a few quick calls to my favourite German mechanical resource "Perrypedia" I decided that it needed to be fixed as a matter of priority. 

Having tried a few garages we discovered a "Hino" Truck dealer called Codaca in Santa Elena near Flores and the two Mechanics Luis and Rember got stuck into it. As suspected, being 35 years old, it needed a little persuasion, which meant that we had to stay outside for the night. Santa Elena is not a place we would usually choose to stay in but we slept better knowing that we had an armed guard with a pump action shotgun watching us all night. We moved on the next day all sorted. Luckily we carry all these spare parts.

All looks good for 35 years old 

The Mayan empire spanned over 300,000 square km from Mexico to Honduras and included all of Guatemala.  You could spend years visiting all the archaeological sites, so we had to be selective and the largely restored ruins at Tikal were our next destination.

The National Park of Tikal, which means "City of Voices," was created in 1955 and declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1979. It's one of Guatemala's largest and most popular excavations.

We set off into the park early as we knew the temperatures would be off the scale by lunchtime. 

It was amazing but quite a hike around all the temples.

Now you could be mistaken to think you are actually on Yavin IV ( If you know, you know ) 

The Rio Dulce, Sweet River,  runs for 43 Km between Lago De Izabal and the Carribean coast at Livingstone. For most of this distance, the River is very wide, so it actually feels like another lake.

The town of Livingstone was a little disappointing. It had a lovely Caribbean feel about it but in General, it was quite dirty. We chose a highly recommended restaurant but came out, 2 hours later, wishing we hadn't. 

We last saw Tobi and Steve , aka Trucklifeoverlanders  at the Adventure Overland Show in the UK a couple of years ago when they were about to set off on their journey to the Americas. They have had an amazing time and have even increased their crew by 50% with the adoption of their dog Maya.  Meeting up for lunch and a relaxing afternoon in Rio Dulce, Guatemala was very special. It was great to hear about all their adventures and all the ones they have planned for the future.

Whilst driving through Gutemala our Alternator decided to play up and kept cutting out. Luckily this is a spare I carry so a quick swap in Finca Ixabel appears to have resolved the issue.