some highlights you missed out on

a tropical sky over Punta Gorda, Belize.

The elementary school in Punta Gorda.

A dock and the Caribbean, in Punta Gorda.

leaving Ians mom at the resort on Ambergris Caye, Belize.

Stormy skies over an azure Caribbean.

'Front Street' in San Pedro, Belize where golfcarts are the #1 way to get around.

Templo II at Tikal, Guatemala.

a dugout canoe on Lake Peten Itza.

Riding in the back of a rickshaw!! Crossing the bridge from Flores to Santa Elena on three wheels.

Mister Jaguar just woke up from a nap.

Jungle animals at the zoo in Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala.

Lancheros, boat drivers, wait for their passangers at a beach on Lake Peten Itza.

cruising in a purple boat on the lake.

a proud picture at the immigration station in the middle of nothing but green fields and blue skies.

Rio Usumacinta - this side Mexico, that side Guatemala. Notice the cars stranded in the river. ?Long colorful boats take you downriver.

Palenque, Mexico.

Canon de Sumidero, Chiapas. This image is the view used on the state seal or some official logo.

San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. As you go farther south into Mexico, the churches change into wildly bright colors.
That same church - I had notized the sunlight was hitting it so that it seemed to glow in the valley.

tropicool

At this point, we are a lot farther from where I left off in the last post.

We are currently in Lìvingston, Guatemala, just across the border from Punta Gorda, Belize, where we stayed for a night after a 6 hour bus ride from Belize City. Punta Gorda is on the southermost tip of Belize, sticking out into the Caribbean Sea - Lìvingston is only accesible by the boats that come + go once a day, across a wide stretch of sea from Belize or a large river from the nearest town in the country. It is not, in fact, an island, but because of the closed accesibility it feels like we`re still in the middle of the Caribbean.
The people add a huge dimension to this, mostly Garìfuna with a mix of Mayans and ladinos - the Garinagu are descendants of Carib, African, and indigenous peoples, who live along the Caribbean, in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and other islands. They speak Garìfuna, which is a mixture of French, Spanish, English, African languages and anything else they might throw in. It is an unbelievable, indecipherable and beautiful language. Lucky for us everyone speaks plain Spanish and plain English as well. The whole vibe in Belize and the Garìfuna towns in Guatemala is laid back, aa`right, slow down. There are quite a few cars here, but the people of Lìvingston recently signed a petition to stop allowing anymore to come over.
We`ve really enjoyed what time we`ve had to intereact with the people of Belize, and as soon as we crossed the border it showed us how unique and different it is from the other Central American countries.
To back track all the way...
At last report, we were in Flores, Guatemala to visit the ruins of Tikal. Wow, an even bigger more spread out site than Palenque (for what`s excavated at least), with lost of hiking around to the different temples. We got the earliest start we could to spot some of the famous wildlife who get most active in the dawn hours. We searched and searched for toucans without luck, but ran into beautiful oscellated turkeys (they look like peacocks), green parrots, pizotes (um, they`re ugly and fierce you should google image it), and tons and tons of adorable spider monkeys at every turn who did tricks in the trees and threw stuff at us.
We spent about 5 days in Flores, but because the admission to the ruins was so expensive and far from town, we only visited Tikal once. We spent the rest of our time in the lake swimming, and we visited a mayan artifact museum in the the lake on an island called Radio Petèn (the radio station is broadcast from there and in the same building as the museum run by a really odd guy who not only showed us the artifacts but all the antique records, x-ray machines and tattered magazines his father had collected). We also went to a zoo, on an island, where we saw a lot of native wildlife in cages - jaguars, tigers and pumas, spider monkeys, jungle pigs, and lots of pretty tropical birds (including toucans!).

From there we simplified our travel into Belize by taking a tour bus to Belize City, for ease of border crossing. But even upon leaving Guatemala they wanted illegal money from us - we hadn`t a single quetzal on us so we did our schpeel and moved along without hassle.
We took the water taxi to San Pedro town on Ambergris Caye to meet Ian`s mom for a tropical resort getaway way north of town on an isolated part of the island. It was a beautiful place with a grand kitchen that we played in all week, great amenities and such nice staff - we were greeted in San Pedro for a private boat ride to the resort, where we were met on the dock with welcome drinks. Unfortunately, it rained about 7 days out of 10 and we were pretty much holed up in our comfy room for most of the time. This gave us TV time and cooking time, relaxing and reenergizing time. We took a windy sprinkly evening to jump in the hot tub, and the cold rain on my face felt so nice in contrast to the hot hot water I was soaking in.
We played in town a few days to stock up on food, and rented a golfcart - the main means of trasportation on the island before bikes - to make shopping quicker and funner. A couple times it rained and we zoomed around getting soaked and avoiding big puddles, and a couple times we gave kids a ride on the back and took huge bumps and holes to see the grins spread across their faces.
The last couple of days the skies cleared and gave us a sunny farewell, so we finally got the chance to take the sea kayaks out to the reef. The water is so clear and calm, it was a very tranquil and enjoyable experience to watch the sunset from the sea.
We also spent a day deep sea fishing after jumping the reef! The biggest waves ever, crashing on the reef which is about 1/4 mile from shore, and our fisherman/boat captain aimed right for them, getting huge air several times as we conquered the enormous waves and made it to the other side - it was a really surreal feeling, going out and even surfing the waves back in, it seemed impossible until we were doing it. And the million dollar question answered: I caught all the fish! Only two, really, but even our captain had no luck with the big guys. They were ocean trigger fish, and Ian + Sandy said it was a very tasty catch.

So we only came to Guatemala so that we can go back into Belize with fresh 30-day visas for our volunteer time at Barton Creek. After that we will come back to Guatemala and stop all this criss-cross-border-crossings to continue farther into the country.

sucka free!

We made a sharp turn on our journeys, deciding to get to Belize through Guatemala instead of crossing a lot of boring land in Mexico. We took a tour-bus-type thing from Palenque to the border town in Mexico called Frontera Corozal, where we took a boat down river to land on the other side in Bethel, Guatemala. There we met another bus that took us to the immigration station - a lone cement building surrounded by green fields and mountains. The bus was purely tourists from all over the world, most of whom asked us a lot of questions about the exchange rate from pesos to quetzales, where we reccomended staying... we had never even been to Guatemala before but we like to be informed.
We do our homework whenever going to new places, and did some reasearch on the border crossing into Guatemala. The country abolished border fees a few years ago to encourage tourism, but I read stories about people who had to pay up anyway. So we prepared our argument (and our Spanish) to head-butt the immigration officials. We were first in line at the office when our bus unloaded the uninformed tourists, and we had no plan to spread the word and get anyone upset.
We made friendly chat with the officer while he stamped our passports, then asked us for 40 quetzales. At first we asked for a receipt, having heard that this was enough to skirt the cost, but when he offered one up we told him we knew there was no fee, that we had spoken with our embassy, and that we were no mamones. At this point his Spanish became quieter and quicker and he told us that if we left our passports and came back last in line without telling anyone else that everything would be fine.
It seemed sketchy, but having already stamped everything there was nothing he could take back, and when we returned all was in order - and no illegal cost! How much farther we get speaking Spanish than the purely-English-speaking tourists (for many it´s still a second language, so that´s something).


From there we had more hours of bus time over long bumpy roads through beautiful green fields and mountains and big skies until we reached Flores, an island city in the middle of Lake Petén Itzá. The whole ride we were chatting it up with the tour guide and got useful information about where to stay in town (once again, first at the cheapest hotel, and scored the best room with a view of the lake!) and our bus trip from here to Belize City in a few days.

We came to Lago Petén Itzá to visit the ruins of Tikal, supposedly the most magnificent city in the Mayan world, if not Palenque. Today we are hanging around the lake, rented a kayak and worked up a little arm muscle.



During our last days in Chiapas, we took another day to explore the ruins of Palenque - such an interactive site where you can climb up most of the temples and wander through the maze of the main palace (fun, but also damaging to the structures to have hundreds of tourists a day clambering around). The whole place is in the jungle, with literally thousands of structures still unexcavated, poking out of lush hills and muddy earth; rivers snake throughout and there´s even a beautiful waterfall. We hired a guide to take us a mile into the jungle to find the Forgotten Temple, a journey we would have gotten lost on if we had tried to find it ourselves.

And finally, we took a trip to nearby Misol-Ha and Agua Azul. Misol-Ha is a really cool waterfall that you walk under and all over and there´s a little cave and whatnot... it´s kind of hard to describe but you can look up some pics of it online. Agua Azul is exactly that: blue water. Super blue, and so perfectly formed we felt like we were at a water park. There are gorgeous cascades that fall into dozens of different sized pools at different levels that you swim in and climb all over, it was a blast.


As soon as we came into Guatemala, we noticed differences from Mexico, and something new to get used to. All the fun Mexican slang we´ve become so accustomed to is out the window, and the Spanish they speak here is just a little different; the brands are all unrecognizable and we have a new menu of food to explore. The people are just as friendly and unhurried as anywhere else, and we´re having a great time so far.

ya le extraño a mèxico

So we´ve been on the road for three months. The year has ended, and our time in Mexico is ending as well.

We ended up staying in San Cristóbal for New Years, because we tend to live on the edge and don´t buy bus tickets in advance... we wandered the streets, saw lots of fireworks and a church procession with a baby Jesus and whatnot.
While in the area, we visited the nearby villages of Chemula and Zinacantán, two opposing pueblos and two opposite groups of people who are only 6km apart, fighting eachother for hundreds of years. The Chemulans have a reputation for being more violent, agressive, however you want to put it. They are a community of carpenters and woodcarvers, the women wear big thick wool skirts, and the children are dirty and begging and harassing. They refuse any and all pictures and will knock the camera out of your hand with a stick if you make an attempt (I was pre-warned and didn´t have to experience this first hand). They have a kind of bizzare church that was actually excommunicated by the Pope when he came to see what was up - still a very beautiful scene where every pew is gone and the ground is covered in pine needles, the people line up hundreds and hundreds of candles on the floor and kneel and chant in Tzotzil. They drink soda while they prey because they believe that burping releases evil spirits.
In Zinacantán the most apparent characteristic of the people is their traditional clothing - gorgeous irridescent fabrics of purples and turquoise, and everything covered in flowers. From the shawls and skirts of the women to the ponchos and pants of the men, everything is flowers. It is an amazing sight to see a family covered in purple flowers - as Zinacantán is a community of flower farmers! The vibe in the small town is nothing but tranquilo and the people are welcoming and actually appreciate, or don´t mind at least, to have their photo taken.
When we were about to leave town, two women asked if we wanted to come to their house and see how they make the fabrics, and when we got there they offered us food and poshe (an illegal homemade drink flavored with fruits or cinnamon or flowers or anything tasty). The older woman got on her knees and strapped the loom around her waist like a big leather belt, tugging and yanking with mucha fuerza. They completely dressed us up in the traditional clothing so we could take pictures of eachother and offered to teach us how to make tortillas. It really underscored the contrast between the two communities.


We are in Palenque now, and made it to the ruins today. We got there only a couple hours after the gates opened, but already there were tons and tons of people. So we found a trail behind a tomb that led off into the jungle and took it. After an hour and a half of hiking towards a cascade we never found, we ran into the hugest snake I´ve ever seen in my life, inside or outside of a zoo, which we had been warned were deadly venemous. This thing was the size of my leg and at least 6 feet long, but I did´t get too close of a look because I ran like a bat out of hell. They say you have 30 minutes to get antivenom or your dead.
Then there were a bunch of enormous howler monkeys in the trees above us, yelling and barking and grunting like monsters - it made the experience more unnerving, looking out for snakes while checking out the monkeys, their growls shaking my bones.