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.