Hi Marty, Just wanted to let you know that we had a great time on our vacation. Wil, Susan and Emma were so nice and we loved staying at the Caribbean Villas.
We went to Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley with Alphonso. The weather was overcast and he had a full group (12 people) so it was less than optimal conditions but he was great.

We did the Tikal tour through Tropic Air but added an extra night. We stayed 1 night in Flores which was a nice little town..the hotel was very nice and there were lots of shops with wonderful Guatemalan crafts (especially weaving), had a good inexpensive dinner and there was even a little Fiesta going on so it was great "people watching"!

We went up to Tikal the next day to spend one night at the Jungle Lodge. We had our writtten reservation with us for a casita with bath but all they had for us was a little cuarto with shared bath. It was OK, the bed was comfortable enough but was very small and musty smelling.There is only electicity for a few hours in the morning and then for about 3 hours in the evening.

We had some time to explore the ruins that day and then got caught in a cloudburst and it ended up raining for hours. We had planned to go down to the little comidores by the campground to have dinner but had to eat at the Jungle Lodge dining room. Food was just OK. The next morning we got up before sunrise with our flashlights and climbed up to the top of Temple 4 to watch the sunrise with a few other hardy souls. It was still too cloudy to see any sunrise but it was fun. The ruins are just incredible and we saw howler monkies, cuotimundi, wild turkey, pheasant and lots of other birds. We would definately like to go back.

Back to AC where we stayed at the Banana Beach. Wil had been great about taking our extra luggage there for us while we were in Guatemala and BB was really nice to store it for us while we were gone. We liked the Banana Beach resort a lot ...the room had a full kitchen, living room bedroom and bath...nicely decorated and it looked like a palace after our little room at the Jungle Lodge! We tried to squeeze in at much as we could during the week.

Besides Tikal, we went snorkeling again, rode bikes at lot, rented a golf cart and went above the cut where we had lunch at a restaurant called Sweet Basil...it was very good. Also ate at El Patio, Elvies, Jambel Jerk and Fidos (all good), got some of the warm Johnnie cakes with shredded spicy chicken from the Coral Bay dive shop for breakfast (yummy), had a frozen limeades at Victoria house (delicious and what a nice resort) spent some time a couple of nights sitting one dock over from the Hustler dock listening to Jerry Jeff shows. We also went to Graniells and bought a clamshell chair and a folding rocker (both of which we lugged back to Oregon with us!)

Every one was so nice and we loved San Pedro and would definely go back. Thank you for all the recommendations you gave us it really helped make our vacation memorable. We haven't gotten our pictures back yet but if we have any really great ones we'll try to figure out how to get them on the merssage board.

Love, Diane