other colonial cities in Latin America

[DonJuane]

Oops, I left out the side trip option to Flores and the ruins of Tikal while in Guatemala. These are located about 6 hours north of the HW1 corridor area you will be traveling along while following my previous recommendations. I would not recommend using the commercial bus system in Guatemala to get there, however, as this is where my infamous encounter happened where on the bus I opened the restroom door and a wind current gave me a toilet shower on one fateful trip from Flores to Guatemala city. (Happened in 2014) Needless to say, I didn't have to worry long about people sitting near me for the remaining 5 hours of the ride. Believe it or not, you actually get used to the smell and it does seem to all wash out eventually.

It's normally better to take a shuttle here using some service like Adrenalina (sp?) tours that uses shuttle vans to zip you most quickly around the country. They of course cost more than the "Mexico wanna-be" commercial bus offerings or the Chicken buses (comically painted school buses). However if convenience and the price that comes with it is not your thing and assuming authenticity is, if you have a great command of the Spanish language it can be fun to work through the matrix of routes to get places while hopping from one Chicken bus route to another with a few standing up in the back of a pickup truck sessions added to round out the experience.

Once in Flores you not only get the option of touring the often extremely hot during the summer Tikal ruins but you also get to experience the ruins of Flores where this once quaint village in the middle of nowhere recently received a super-mall that has been built right in the middle of the previous historic and adorable village, a mall complete with all the same kinds of things one might also pick up somewhere in an area like Playa del Carmen, MX Now if they finished out the mall as planned since I was last there, visitors to the area may now also be relishing in the luxury of the planned full size cinema.