Spiders, bugs, and the smell of freshly baked bread.

From Flores, we had about five different plans of where we wanted to go next, and kept changing our minds every five minutes.  The only thing I like more than making plans is changing plans.  The day we were going to leave, we arrived at the bus station an hour before the bus to Cobán was supposed to leave, only to find out that the bus line we were looking for was out of business, and the bus that took over the route had just left 15 minutes earlier.  Thank you Lonely Planet.  We weren´t prepared to wait another four hours for the next bus, so what else could we do but immediately hop on a bus going the opposite direction?

The bus dropped is off in a little town of Poptún, and we hopped in a tuk-tuk out to the Finca Ixobel.  The finca is a working farm, but also a guest house.  We had skipped staying here on our way to Flores because we´d heard it was booked solid over Easter week.  Arriving just afterwards, things were very quiet.  In fact our first night we stayed in an eight bed dorm but had the whole room to ourselves.  The next night we moved to our own little bungalow, which was up on stilts and very rustic.  Our cabin had no electricity, so we had to use candles at night, but then we´ve long been in the habit of going to bed not long after the sun goes down and getting up with the sunrise, so that wasn´t a big deal. 

Finca Ixobel was basically a jungle lodge set on a farm instead of the jungle.  But where the jungle so far has surprised us with the lack of creepy-crawlies, the farm gave up the goods from almost the moment we arrived.  Our first treat was a nice big tarantula crawling across the lawn.  As we looked around, we saw dozens of holes in the grass, with tarantulas just barely peeking out at us.  Unlike the wolf spider we saw in Honduras though, these were not aggressive, and we surmised that these were a kind you could probably pick up, although we did not test our theory.  Next we found a giant stick bug that was probably a foot and a half long, probably twice as big as what I´ve seen before.  We found another bug that I can´t even describe, and I am dying that I can´t post the picture I took cause it is totally awesome and freaky.  We also saw three different types of fireflies.  One was gigantic, and instead of flashing would light up and then fly around for five or ten seconds.  The first time I saw it I thought it was someone with a flashlight it was so bright. We saw ant lions and leaf-cutter ants and a huge praying mantis, not to mention several different kinds of lizards, some of them a couple of feet long (but not iguanas).

We also found some frogs, one big one that was covered in these giant disgusting ticks.  Luckily it put us on the alert, because we both found ticks on us as well (albeit a different kind, much smaller).  I love bugs, but ticks are just gross.  We did manage one hike up a huge hill outside the finca, but after we found the ticks we stuck to more well-worn paths.

We met some great people, including a family from Ireland who had rented an RV and were driving from Florida down to Panama and back.  They had two pre-teen girls who weren´t quite sure if they were having fun or not, though they did shyly admit to liking snorkelling in Belize and horseback riding there at the finca.  Very cute.

The finca also had a working bakery and restaurant, so besides eating yummy cinnanon rolls for breakfast we also had fresh bread every night for dinner.  We ended up staying five days, and the food was a big part of that.  A happy belly is not something to mess with.