Guatemala!!!

We arrived in Guatemala, our second country, a week ago today, and what a week it´s been. We arrived in Livingston, a Caribbean Garifuna enclave, by boat from Belize. Livingston is loud and touristy, and more expensive then we imagined. Also, there are no safe swimming beaches in town – a serious problem for us. Still, the liquados were readily available as were great places to eat, so really we can´t complain!

We spent a night in Livingston, then got on the boat for Rio Dulce, a trip that has been recommended by many friends at home, and several others we´ve met on the road. The reviews were dead on – the trip is spectacular. High-walled jungle canyons packed with all kinds of birds and studded with caves and natural hot springs (one of which we got to swim in) for the first hour or so, then a huge open lagoon for the second.

We spent a night in Rio Dulce before heading to El Estor and then the next day to Finca el Paraiso, a working farm between the two towns that so happens to have an incredible hot springs waterfall. Mike – thank you for the tip! Sitting in a cool river with a piping hot waterfall falling down onto your shoulders is absolute bliss. When you do get bored of that, you can swim under the waterfall and into the cavern behind it – which has become a natural cave sauna. Glorious.

What was not so glorious was our night of camping that night at the Finca. The finca is awesome – please go there and stay with Julio and his wife and their piggies and cattle! Swim in the lake (the best swim in Guatemala so far)  and eat at their restaurant! Just don´t sleep in a tent. With the fly on. With another person. In the middle of the Gautemalan dry season. During a heat wave. At one point we did somehow drift into some form of sweaty, delirious sleep, only to be woken up by a horse, her baby, and the fattest pig ever to live. It seems we weren´t the only ones dying of heat; these three barnyard clowns felt that 4 am was an appropriate time for a moonlit splash in the lake. About 2 meters from our tent.

From the Finca we passed through Rio Dulce again on our way to Flores. The bus trip was fairly uneventful. We traded travel tips with Hugh, a middle aged guy from Duncan who is travelling through central America with a duffle bag and a lacrosse stick. Yes, he gets some looks.

Lisa loves Flores! This place is beautiful. Wonderful colourful buildings, cobblestone streets, a hill in the middle with a big church on top, tons of food options. Did we mention this is on a tiny island in a beautiful lake (Lago de Peten Itza.) For you History buffs, Flores was at one time covered in Maya temples and pyramids, but the Spanish destroyed the entire maya city upon their arrival.

Speaking of Maya cities, we left Flores the next day for Tikal, el ruinas de ruinas, mother of all Maya sites. Tikal surprised us with how little tourist infrastructure it has. Don´t get us wrong, you can buy your tickets, pay way too much for some awful food, and pick up a souvenier or two, but it doesn´t come close to the sort of money-spending spectacle you get at places like Science World or Niagara Falls. It is low-key, even difficult to find a guide for a sunset and sunrise tour, and best of all, at 4am we were the only people in the site. Camping was affordable, as was our guide Jose, who gave us a wonderful tour (almost 7 hours in total!).

We met a nice family from Idaho and together with Jose we walked around Tikal from 430 pm 7pm on Thursday night and then again from 430am to 1030am on Friday morning. We watched the sun set and then rise again from Temple 4. Watching the jungle wake up beneath you is incredible. Everything is so quiet and then suddenly everything becomes alive – squawking, howling, swinging tree to tree… Most of the swinging was done by the dozens of spider monkeys that live at  Tikal. Goofing around, eating whatever they want, making inappropriate faces and sounds – I think Tor has found his kindred spirits. The skyscraping temples and humbling size of Tikal can´t really be described, we´ll just recommend it to anyone who can get down this way.

After Tikal we spent a couple days relaxing and laying low in El Remate, a sweet little  lakeside town at the far end of Lago de Peten Itza. We wrote some postcards and did some other chores, but mostly hung out on the beach and caught up on some rest.

Today we are back in Flores, and tomorrow we plan to head south to Semuc Champey, a mysterious and beautiful spot that we need to see for ourselves. We hope everything is wonderful with all of you, and thanks again for following our adventures.

Love Lisa and Torrie

HELLO AGAIN!

We will be quite surprised but most pleased if any of you are still following our blog, given that recently, it has been as neglected as some of the dogs down here. We are alive, we are having fun, and we are sorry that we´ve been sub-par bloggers.

We´ll pick up where we left off, which was the blog we wrote from San Ignacio, Belize. We´ll do one post on our last week in Belize, and a second on our first week in Guatemala (feel free to go to the bathroom, get some more popcorn, etc., in between). Some of what we´ll talk about will even relate to the photos we posted last time. What a treat.

After a few nights in San Ignacio we headed further west to a little backpacker camp called the Trek Stop. We camped a couple (spider free) nights and used the Stop as a base to see the ruins at Xunantunich.

Xunantunich, our first big ruin, was incredible. We got on the first ferry across the river, and had the entire maya city to ourselves for about an hour. We ran around like Maya lords and took lots of pictures. We also watched a family of howler monkeys doing their monkey business for well over an hour. They are impossibly cute but also impossible to photograph. Unfortunately for Dave and others who enjoy a good howler monkey impression, they were very quiet the whole time. At one point we got a little too close and one of the big males attempted to pee on us (for the squeamish, skip the next sentence). You may not believe it, but this primate´s pee lasted for at least 3 solid minutes. I´m not sure I have ever seen Torrie laugh so hard.

All in all, we spent close to 5 hours in Xunantunich, and really enjoyed the ruins. We also spent quite a lot of time talking to David, a local artisan in the village below the ruins, who is involved in a really neat project to promote indigenous culture through traditional ceramic art. It was a really cool initiative and we hope to find more like it in our travels. He also gave us some great cucumbers from his garden – really the first fresh veggies we´d had in about a month!!

The rest of the time at the Trek Stop we spent swimming, cooking, and reading. Trek Stop even has its own Frisbee golf course (jealous Robby?), so we were sure to play a round of that as well.

Next, we went south to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary – known in Belize as “the Jaguar Preserve.” Right off the bat, no, we did not see any Jaguars. We did however get a guide for a night jungle hike, which was an incredible experience. We saw lightning bugs the size of chicken wings, a gibnut (like a weird little gopher), a kingajuu (like a small monkey-cat hybrid) and an ocelot. The whole time the howler monkey calls were absolutely deafening. The next day we hiked all day, and really enjoyed the dense jungle scenery.

After two nights in Cockscomb we headed further south, to steamy Punta Gorda. We got into town and looked into the boat for Guatemala, which didn´t leave until the next day. For anone who stumbles upon this blog and has the lonely planet guide, the boat doesn´t just run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Thankfully for us (we lost track of days and arrived late Friday afternoon instead of Thursday as planned), it runs every day. There´s not a whole lot to do in Punta Gorda, so we wandered around, and enjoyed Belize´s national dish (chicken, rice, and beans from street vendors, for the equivalent of about $2.50) a few last times. The highlight was a visit to a small scale chocolate factory. Lisa was in heaven.

The next day we were on the boat to Livingston, Guatemala, to begin our second country. We really enjoyed Belize, and would recommend it to anyone. The knock on Belize is that it´s quite expensive, which can be true. If you´re into luxury you can find what you´re looking for in Belize. But if you´re willing and able to spend some nights in a tent (we camped over 2/3rds of our nights in Belize) and hunt around for the cheapest (and best) dinner in town, Belize can be done on anyone´s budget. For cultural diversity, world class snorkeling, gorgeous jungle highways, and lots of fun in between, head to Belize.

Lisa and Tor

Finally, some photos!

 Imagine waking up next to this.... Named Murphy the Disgusting Bastard by Torr, this horrid creature hung out on our tent for 2 days.

 The over-the-water cabanas at Glovers Reef.

 Main temple at Xunantunich, Tor is up on the top (on the right side of the second block from the left) for scale.

 A view from el castillo at Xunantunich. From the top you feel as if you are a part of the sky.

 What a babe!

Torrance in front of the outlier and victoria peaks in cockscomb basin.

 Lisa in the Maya kingdom of Xunantunich. The big pyramid at the back is the same one that's in the other picture (El Castillo).

We learned that black howler monkeys are next to impossible to photograph with a point and shoot. Trust us, They're cool.

Our camp at Glovers reef!




So we've used this internet session for a few photo uploads. We'll do a full update about Cayo district, Cockscomb, and southern Belize (where we are now) the next time we're online, when we will be live from Guatemala!!!


Love from Lisa and Torrance.

Glovers Reef

First, to Jordan and Isis, we feel the same way about you two! Thanks for making the first comment on our blog (my money was on my mom!). Also, thanks for keeping it real.

Ok, so our last update came from Sittee River, just before our foray out into the ocean. We`re happy that we did the Glover`s Reef trip (it was a bit of a splurge from our low budget trip).

We snorkeled at least twice everyday. It was amazing! We saw eels, and sharks and millions of parrotfish, surgeon fish, angel fish, trigger fish (Lisa is being a fish nerd so I`m gonna cut this off - the point is there were a ton of fish). We got stalked several times by huge barracudas, and Lisa developed a severe fear of them. To be fair, they are scary.They are definitely scarier than the street dogs at night! Especially when they group up in gangs of 3 or more and look are you with those yellow eyes...We were told to chase them and they will get scared and leave you alone. Torrie and another guy on our trip, Jared, tried this. It doesn`t work. It just makes them hungrier.

Probably the most amazing fish that we saw were the eagle rays. They can be huge, like the Manta Ray, and they come swimming - flying-  out of the deep blue water on the reefs` edges. Tor`s favourite was the giant spiny lobster, that was actually close to a meter long (no exaggeration, it was bigger than most dogs). We were so excited when we saw it clambering along on the bottom. We were also sad, because we don`t think anyone will ever believe us about how big it was. It is actually king of the deep.

Needless to say, our intentions to read multiple books each went straight out the mosquito net.

We were lucky to spend the week with a great group of people. We camped and potlucked all together and ate coconuts that Tor split open like a jungle man (his words, not mine). Perhpas the most enjoyable part was the car ride out to the bus junction when we piled ten people and ten people`s luggage and then some into a minivan.

We lit glorious campfires and roasted fresh fish and other treats (we even made homemade pizza!!) over the flames.

There were definitely some downsides though...maybe downside is the wrong word. Though the family that operates Glover`s Atoll Resort were pleasant enough to us, we were uncomfortable with the way the staff were spoken to and treated. The staff were so friendly and great, but there definitely seemed to be a superiority complex from the management. It has been a bit tough for us being so young and being able to travel through a country where most of the people we meet don`t have the same opportunities as
us, and this element of Glover`s exasperated this. Nonetheless, we had lots of fun with the staff, the other guests, and the family`s daughter. The endless snorkeling, warm water, and Caribbean sunsets weren`t bad either.

Also, humongous hermit crabs roam the island unchecked, and are fun to feed, race, etc.

Yesterday, after a long day on the road, we reached San Ignacio (Cayo), which is in the mountains near the Guatemalan border. This town is definitely a change up, there are lots of non-beach activities to do, which will be a great change-up for us. We are doing some planning today, and hope to see a few Maya ruins, and maybe do some caving and hiking! Last night, we joined a few of our island mates (there were 5 of us on Glover`s that all came to San Ignacio yesterday) for our first Tawainese-Belizean meal, which was really fun.

The tentative plan is to spend 3-4 days in the mountains, and then head south again.

Until next time,

Lisa and Torr

P.S. the computer we`re using has cheap internet, but unfortunately it doesn`t allow uploads of pictures. We`re looking into the best way to dump a heap of pictures (onto facebook or photobucket or something), and we`ll let you know when we figure that out.

Whirlwind week - Caye Caulker, Sitee River

A few more words on Sarteneja before moving on to our next stops...

The place we stayed in Sarteneja, Backpacker's Paradise, is also trying to start an organic agriculture demonstration plot (or series of garden plots) to boost the supply veggies for their restaurant and also to encourage organic farming around the village. They already grow many fruits (oranges, zapotes, pineapple, custard apple, banana...) and also tomatoes, peppers... They also keep chickens and have a chicken tractor (a really neat way to clear land where you let chickens do all the work!). Nathalie, the owner, showed us how to work with the chickens on our last day in Sarteneja.

We have some pictures from Sarteneja.

 Backpackers Paradise:

Shipstern Wildlife Reserve, Owl Butterfly:

Shipstern Wildlife Reserve, Lookout Tower View:

We have several more pictures from Sarteneja, and from Caye Caulker where we went next. The internet connection here in Hopkins is very slow, and it's going to take to long to post them all. we're hoping to make some facebook albums for all our pictures on one of our next internet sessions. We'll keep you updated.

Alright, so after sleepy Sarteneja, we went by bus and water taxi (via Orange Walk and Belize City) to crazy Caye Caulker. Caulker is basically a tropical island paradise, well within an hours trip of the international airport. the result: tourist central. expensive food, crowded streets, pushy, less friendly locals (who are accustomed to rich, rude tourists), and pricier accommodations. Caye Caulker is still a beautiful place to stay, and we found a small fixer-upper cabana hotel that was affordable, clean, and run by a really friendly couple. Colinda Cabana's is a little ways down the beach from the main craziness, but still really close to restaurants, etc. Including Chan's Take out Window, a little hole in the wall place with solid rice and beans and a banana milkshake that I'm pretty sure Lisa likes more than she likes me. Great dock to hang out on as well.

The snorkelling, which was the reason we went to Caye Caulker in the first place, didn't disappoint. we did an all day tour that stopped at three different spots, and they all offered great snorkelling! We saw sea turtles, sharks (sharks mate!), rays, and hundreds of different fish. I (Torrie) swam through a coral cave about 20 feet down, and hurt my ears a little. worth it. The reef seems to be suffering damage though...our guide said hurricances, but I (lisa) don't doubt it is also having so many people pass through each day.

We are out of internet time for now, but take a look on google each at the Hummingbird Highway to see the incredibly beautiful route we traveled to our current location in Sitee River. We are off to Glover's Reef on Sunday and will update on that adventure next week.

Sarteneja. Saar-te-nay-ha. (ENG) Calm, little fishing village in the north of Belize.Carribean sea. The most perfectly charming place you may ever be...

We are closing our second day at Backpacker's Paradise in Sarteneja. Forget what we said about Corozal being laid back, this place is on a whole new level. This sleepy little town is a fishing town, but seems to be more where the fishers live and rest when they aren't fishing down the coast between Belize City and Placencia. We have met a few fishermen, and they have been wonderful.  Most of the town speaks Spanish, but they all can speak english really well too.
The food here is great and inexpensive, which we are into. The surrounding area has a lot to offer too. Yesterday we went to a nature reserve called Shipstern, and walked a nature path and went up a 150 foot observation tower,and went through a butterfly garden. Yeah.

Today we began the day with a two hour kayak, which was really glorious. Then we had a swim, and later in the afternoon some thunderclouds rolled in so we took cover in the shelter and cooked some dinner, read, etc. Tough day. Tonight during the rainstorm a scorpion dropped down right beside me, so that was scary.We want to put up pictures right now, but our internet time is up, so we will do that next time!
So long for now,

Lisa and Torrance

Corozal

After three hectic days in Mexico, we have arrived and begun to settle into Belize. Our first stop has been Corozal: we arrived yesterday and are staying at the Sea Breeze Hotel, a cheap little spot across the street from the bay. The pace here is noticeably slower and more relaxed than in the big centres of Quintana Roo, Mexico (Cancun, Chetumal etc).  The people here are wonderful, most speak spanish (we're only 8 miles from the border), but they all speak creole and English as well. Our hotel is managed by a Welsh expat named Gwynn, who is quite pleasant in the morning and gets steadily crankier as the day goes on. This town is a really neat multicultural place - there are also many Chinese and Indian families, too.

The town itself looks just like you might imagine a small Caribbean town would look. Because of its English history, some parts of town look like Oak Bay, but with a few less palm trees (Tor's joke).

Ok, on to more interesting things (it's Torrie again, we've been alternating every few sentences), THE WATER IS GLORIOUS!  Our hectic few days in Mexico, included too many buses (some of whom ripped us off), a few taxis (some of whom ripped us off - learning curve?), hostels miles from the water, and uber-inebriated Australian party-animals. The Corozal life goes as follows: fresh fruit from the market for breakfast, lounging on the dock, quick swim, a stroll uptown to a Maya ruin that's literally in the middle of a neighbourhood, longer swim, empanadas for lunch, really long swim, game of crib, another walk through town, a swim so long the locals start to wonder if we're alright, beans and rice for dinner, lounging and reading after dinner. Bed at 8pm... Tough, I know.

Tomorrow, we plan to head on to Sarteneja. Sateneja is a small fishing village down the coast a little ways. There is a place to stay called "Backpackers Paradise," so we aim to find out whether it lives up to it's name. We'll let you know when we can, so long for now.


Love Lisa and Torrance

P.S. some pictures: