Los Amigos Hostel

Los Amigos Hostel in Flores, Guatemala deserves a post all by itself. This place is 1 part hostel, 1 part internet cafe, 1 part vegetarian restaurant (the first in guatemala, according to the menu), and 1 part hippie commune. I tried to take a picture but it didn´t really do it justice. When you walk in, you enter a jungle-like outdoor patio area with hammocks, communal tables, a huge vegetarian menu, a computer/tv station set up for copying documentaries onto your laptop, candles, many stray dogs and cats, and of course, lots of backpackers. Only, these aren´t your typical backpackers. It was the type of crowd where it was ok to have a macbook or an iphone, but only if you also had dreadlocks and were shirtless/shoeless, if that makes any sense. Our google phones and rei clothes were clearly in the wrong place. We walked in and immediately felt like outsiders trying to sit at the cool kids table at lunch. However, the food was incredible. The veggie lasagna was certainly the best I´ve ever had, and the fruit juice smoothies were delicious. We ate 2 or 3 meals there, but vowed to never go back since no one talked to us. However, we broke down and ate breakfast there on our last day in Flores before catching a bus to Lanquin (to visit Semic Champey, a series of limestone pools).

We ended up making friends with two dudes, Frankie and Zak, who were also heading that direction, and in fact were on our same bus. We got on the bus, intending to go to Lanquin to visit Semuc Champey national park, but they told us about a little town called Chisec, where they were going, and they were so convincing that we decided to call a mid-voyage audible and check out Chisec with them. This is the benefit to planning a 5-week trek through Central America without really planning anything.