Three weeks, three countries!

After saying goodbye to Tara (and spending a day alone in Antigua, wallowing in my sorrow), I pulled myself together to go meet up with Dan in Lanquin, Guatemala. We spent a few days exploring the caves around Lanquin, tubing and swimming in the river, and relaxing. Dan found this while doing some night exploring in the bat cave!
After we got our fill of creepy crawlies, we headed north into El Peten, the largest and least populated department in Guatemala, and home to the Tikal ruins. I spent the day climbing up and crawling down the ruins. Dan spent the day trying to keep track of me, while also trying to capture coatis. Tikal was the capital of one of the most powerful kingdoms of the Maya. The temples were absolutely amazing. So many different buildings have been excavated, there is just so much to see through the whole park. And with the exception of the major central temples (first picture) the majority of the park felt empty, we really had the space to ourselves to explore!
From the town of Flores, near Tikal, it was just a short bus ride to the Belizean border. Our first stop in Belize was the town of Hopkins. Arriving in Belize was a bit of a culture shock- everyone was speaking English and ¨English¨ (a combination of Creole, English, and Spanish). Hopkins is a tiny, two-road town right on the coast. We spent our first day there walking up the coast and wandering around town.

We arrived in Hopkins just in time to celebrate Garifuna Settlement Day! Everyone in town was incredibly friendly and welcoming and we absolutely loved our visit. Dan got a drumming lesson from some of the local kids and was even told that he has ¨good rhythm, for a white boy!¨

From Hopkins, we headed out to the island of Tobacco Caye. This was a tiny little island, with maybe 50 people living on it. We stayed with a lovely woman who cooked us the most amazingly fresh seafood!

After getting our share of sun (and sunburns!) we headed back to Guatemala for a few more days before moving on to Honduras. We spent our first few days in Honduras in Copan Ruinas, a small town near the Guatemalan border. After exploring the slightly unimpressive ruins there, we hightailed it to Santa Rosa de Copan, where we are currently.

Playing Catch Up

Well, it really has been a long time since we`ve written here, so apologies for having such a boring blog!

So much has happened in the last month, it`s hard to know where to begin... but here goes:

Tara and I absolutely LOVED living in San Pedro! Tara and her Spanish teacher became new best friends and hung out all the time. ¨Class¨usually consisted of them going for walks, going swimming at the beach, catching crabs, visiting a chocolate shop, or anything else to get them out of the school. In addition to teaching her Spanish, he also taught her to Salsa dance like a real Latina! Everyone that we met in San Pedro was incredibly friendly and we really felt at home there.

I started feeling a bit antsy though and decided to head to Antigua to meet up with our Korean friend, Jiwon. While Tara stayed in San Pedro for one more week of classes and hanging out with Luis :) Antigua is a colonial looking city in a valley surrounded by volcanoes. We spent most of our days wandering around the city, exploring the Mayan market, and tasting the ice cream at every shop in town. Jiwon even taught me how to cook! A real testament to her patience.

After a week in Antigua, Tara and our friend Dan joined us from San Pedro, just in time for Halloween! We did some shopping at the Paca, which is a second hand clothing ¨store¨ behind the market. It`s basically just a bunch of tables underneath a roof made of tarps that sell all kinds of stuff. We were all able to find costumes and boy, were we quite the group!

Guatemalans don`t actually celebrate Halloween, only the tourists and extranjeros dress up. The real holiday in Guatemala is November 1st, Day of the Dead. For this holiday, we went to Santiago Sacatepequez for their huge kite festival. For the weeks leading up to the festival, different groups of men spend hours creating these gigantic kites in ´secret´(no one is supposed to know at which houses the construction is going on). Then, the day of the festival, everyone brings their kites to the cemetery and try to fly them. The large kites in front are for decoration, but all along the roof tops and on top of the tombs children have smaller versions that they try to get into the sky. The kids all thought it was hilarious that I didn`t know the right way to fly a kite and spent a long time trying to teach me. After my lesson, I was definitely worn out (and still feeling tired from Halloween) and so took a little nap on top of the tomb. I`m not sure if that`s disrespectful, or just creepy...

The following Friday, we decided to climb up Volcan Pacaya. The volcano is active, but had a really large eruption last May and so is pretty calm right now- no visible lava flows. It`s a beautiful hike up, absolutely gorgeous views of the surrounding volcanoes and Guatemala City. We brought marshmallows with us and were able to roast them in cracks in the surface where the heat from the lava reaches the surface. Unfortunately, the wind got going just as Jiwon went to roast her marshmallows and she ended up with a bunch of burnt hair! There was also another area of the volcano where the lava had cooled into a sort of cave, and we were able to go inside it but only for a bit because it felt like we were inside an oven.

At the beginning of this week, Tara and I headed up to Lanquin to see the pools of Semuc Champey. We started our day with a candle-lit tour through a cave. We swam up a river, climbed up waterfalls, rapelled down waterfalls, jumped off the cave walls, slid down natural rock slides, all while holding our burning candles! We then went tubing down the river, swinging on a rope swing and bridge jumping. After all these activities, we finally made it to the main attraction- the Semuc Champey pools. These are a series of pools on top of a natural stone bridge. The majority of the water from the river rushes underneath the pools, but some of it travels on top in a series of waterfalls. We climbed up to Mirador (the lookout) to get a birds eye view of the pools and then headed down to swim in them. The water is incredibly calm, and the pools are really deep. Starting at the top pool you can swim through each one and then jump off the waterfall into the next.

We spent the next day in Lanquin hanging out at our hostel and ¨swimming¨in the river. The current was so strong that I don`t know that you can call what we were doing swimming, it was more along the lines of ¨active drowning¨.

After all that activity, we were really looking forward to the all you can eat buffet the hostel offers!

It really was the perfect way to spend our last few days together. Sadly, this morning Tara left to go back to the United States. I tried to convince her that student loans don`t really need to be paid, but she`s worried about something called `credit`? So, she will be moving to New Mexico to live with her cousin for a bit. My plan is to meet up with our Canadian friend, Dan, and travel with him for a bit because he has approximately the same plan as me (ie head south).

Working hard... or hardly working?

Still in San Pedro, and LOVING it! The weather is amazing, the people are awesome, we love our family and our school! I`ve been really busy this week because I started a business at our favorite local bar, El Barrio. I found a store in town that sells marshmallows (angelitos in español) and I`ve been roasting marshmallows at the bar and selling them. Apparently, roasted marshmallows are not common in Guatemala... so they`ve been a pretty big hit! They`re kind of pricey though, I charge one hug per marshmallow :) But most of the time, people don`t pay me.

Yesterday was the birthday of one of our friends here, a Canadian guy named Dan. We planned a big party for him at El Barrio and I spent all of yesterday morning blowing up balloons and hanging crepe paper in the trees and on the ceiling. It was a lot of work because no one else from the decorating committe showed up to help! We made invitations and gave them to everyone around town. We even had a cake made from a local cake lady, and everyone sang happy birthday to Dan in English and Spanish! All of our friends from spanish school came, as well as some of our teachers, and other people. And, of course, there were roasted marshmallows!

Yesterday we had another soccer game against our teachers, and sadly, my team lost. However, I score 4 goals! And most of the game was spent with Tara and I pushing each other around, and not really focusing on the play. I think that our teachers think we are amusing and strange. And they`re right.

San Pedro familia!

We`re having a great time here in San Pedro! We`ve been living with a family for a week and are loving it! We had asked to be put in separate families, thinking that it would be better for our spanish, but the school put us together. And it`s actually been nice, because we have separate rooms so we have some space, but we`re able to walk to and from school together which is a good thing because our house is on the outskirts of town and a bit of a long walk.

Our family is great! Our mom, Melida cooks us the most wonderful food (and a few strange things) and is feeding us way tooo much! Our dad, Domingo, is a bus driver and gets up at 4 or 5 in the morning and works really long days, so we don`t see him much. We have a little sister, Melanie who is six years old and a RIOT! We`ve been spending a lot of time playing with her. Today, I painted her nails and then played follow the leader all the way through town on our way to the beach! It was raining when we walked back, and so we played in the rain and puddles and were a soaking mess when we got back home! We also have a big brother, Henry and he`s been really fun to hang out with too. He`s a student at a university in Guatemala City, but the students have been on strike for almost two months so he`s been back in San Pedro. But some sort of agreement has been reached, and so he goes back to school on Monday. We`ll be sad to see him go because we`ve been spending a lot of time with him too. He taught me how to make different types of bracelets, and spent a lot of time teaching me slang words in spanish! And Thursday night he came out with Tara and I to meet up with a couple other friends from school at a bar, and he taught Tara how to dance! And if the rain lets up, I got him to promise me that he`d take me fishing tomorrow- although I made sure not to tell him how scared I am of fish.

No one in the family speaks an english, and so we`ve gotten lots of practice with our spanish. I get made fun of (in a friendly way!) a lot because I know lots of spanish words from studying the dictionary, but have NO grammer. And, I`m only able to speak in the present tense, which I think is probably confusing. Translated to english, most of my sentences are like: ¨Henry teach bracelet! Yesterday I go beach! I like swim! Dog bark! There is rain! mmmmm Fruit good!¨ But our family is really patient, and have had lots of other students live with them and are used to speaking slowly and using simple sentences. The other day, Henry told me that I should paint my face white, because I`m such a good mime!

Other than hanging out with our fam, we spend lots of time at our school, either in class or doing some sort of activity. Wednesday night, we went to salsa class and actually had a blast! I wouldn`t say that we`re particularly good salsa dancers, but what we lack in talent we made up for with enthusiasm! And Thursday night we had a teacher/student soccer game which was hilarious! It was only the female teachers and students and I`ve never heard so much high pitched screaming in a soccer game before! Because all the teachers are tiny little Mayan women, we mixed up the teachers and students and the game ended in a tie! Next week though, our school will play another spanish school from San Pedro. Our school lost the last game, so hopefully things will be different this time around.

Back to school!

We´ve been in Guatemala for a week now and the time is really flying by! We are taking spanish classes at the Cooperative School, and loving it! It´s very frustrating to be in a culture when you can´t really communicate with people, or ask questions, or have conversations. So, it´s a relief to start working on our Spanish skills. After just a week we´re already seeing an improvement!

My teacher however, is under the impression that I come from a very weird family! She was asking about my parents and what they do. I told her that my dad does lots of fighting, and that he enjoys gangs and that he is going to shoot a lion and eat it! She thinks we are muy extraño! Perhaps once I learn more words, I will explain what I meant. I´m having trouble keeping all my vocabulary straight, and make a LOT of mistakes! But we are getting better! And tomorrow, we are going to move in with local families, so that should definitely help us with our speaking.

Everyday this week, we´ve had classes for three hours in the morning and then spend our afternoons hanging out with other travellers we´ve met and just relaxing around town. It rains consistently every afternooon/evening, and the last few days it´s been raining even more. So, we don´t do a whole lot after we´re done with our class! This morning though, the teachers at our spanish school played soccer against the teachers at another spanish school. We met up with a few of our friends from the school, and then hopped in the back of a pickup with our team to get to the game. Although it was really rainy, the game was so much fun! There´s a nice new turf stadium in San Juan, another city on the lake, and the game was played there. Unfortunately, our team did not win :( Today, only the male teachers and students got to play, but next week, the female teachers and students get to play, so maybe we can redeem ourselves then!

Still Safe

Tropical Storm Matthew has made landfall in Guatemala, but it is north of where we are staying. It´s a little rainy here, but all else is well.

First Day of School!

Julia and I had our first day of Spanish classes yesterday, and have been studying hard.

Goodbye Mexico, Hello Guatemala!

We have successfully arrived in Guatemala! On Friday, we took a shuttle from San Cristobal de las Casas to Panajachel, Guatemala. It took about 10 hours, but was an absolutely gorgeous drive.

The border crossing was run in a pretty loosy-goosey manner. The bus we were in just dropped us off on the Mexican side, where we had our passports stamped to leave the country in one office. Then we went to a different office and had them stamped by the Guatemalan authorities to enter (and paid the non-official entrance fee for Americans only!), and then we just got into a van that drove us into Guatemala. At the actual border, there was only one guy kind of guarding the road, and one of those drawbridge arm things (like at a parking garage). But, people were just walking back and forth and there really didn´t seem to be any order to it. Pretty interesting experience!

And now, we are in San Pedro, at Lake Atitlan, where we plan to stay for the next 4 weeks or so. We have signed up to take language classes, and start tomorrow!

San Cristobal de las Casas

The last five days we were in the mountain city of San Cristobal de las Casas. The city is absolutely beautiful, cobblestone streets, old churches, Mayan markets and all surrounded by mountains. While we had planned to do some day trips and other activities in the San Cristobal area, we loved the city so much that we never got around to doing them! Our days were spent wandering around the city, sitting at outdoor cafes drinking coffee, reading, people watching, enjoying the weather and the scenery. During the day the weather would be absolutely perfect- sunny, warm (but not hot) and breezy. Then every evening it would start to rain around 6 or 7 for a few hours, and then mostly clear up again. We were loving it!

Thursday was the 200th anniversary of Mexican Independence Day! As Thursday approached, the city became COVERED in Mexican flags. As it turns out, the Mexican government sent flags to every address, so that people could properly celebrate. On Wednesday night, the town square was packed with people. There was a stage set up with live music, and tons of food stands. At 11 the Mayor came out and did the traditional cheer of ¨Viva Mexico! Viva Hidalgo!¨ followed by a bunch of other ¨Vivas¨that I didn´t understand. This was followed by an exciting fireworks display that had us wishing we were a bit further away!

The military performing some kind of ceremony in front of the Governor´s mansion.

Tara enjoying a churro and anxiously awaiting the arrival of some al pastor tacos!

The Governor´s mansion on the town square, looking festive!

Merida!

So, last week we spent some time in Merida, Mexico. Originally we had only planned on staying in Merida for a night or two, but our plans changed when we met a wonderful woman named Elizabeth in Tulum. Elizabeth invited us to come stay with her for part of our time in Merida, and it was great! She was a wonderful hostess and has the most adorable dogs! She is our Momma Merida :) It really is hard to get a good idea of what a city is like without an insiders view; we felt lucky to see the REAL Merida.

It´s hard to keep your tongue in your mouth when you don´t have teeth, huh?

We spent the first few days in Merida seeing the usual tourist sights. Beautiful old churches, the Governor´s Palace, the Main Plaza, museums. We then decided to spend our last day doing some exploring in a different part of town...

After successfully hailing a cab in a zone of Merida where it appeared there were none, we tumbled out in front of the bus station. Using a mixture of Spanish, hand gestures, shrugs and exaggerated facial expressions we were able to secure two tickets to Palenque on an overnight bus.

Next stop after the bus station, was the market. This was not a tourist desination, but a local market where the people go to buy EVERYTHING. Hundreds and hundreds of stalls inside a warehouse and in open-air. Selling things such as pastries, produce of everykind (many unidentifiable), leather goods, shoes, clothing, tattoos, a multitude of raw meat products, pets (puppies, ducks, bunnies guinea pigs, birds, roosters, etc.), grains, dog food, and snacks.

While we had tried to get an early start on the day to avoid the heat, by 10:30 we were soaked in sweat and longing for air conditioning. The smells of live poultry, cigarette smoke, srange meats, sewage, and mothballs in the stagnate air was overwhelming. And so we sought refuge in an air conditioned store outside the market that sold Quincinera dresses. These dresses were extremely elaborate! All different colors of blues, greens, pinks, and purples. Layer upon layer of tulle, sequins, sparkles, and embroidery, and each with a matching crown and wings. Even Barbie would think it was over the top!

This part of town was like a weird Frankenstein of Chinatown, Harlem, and Times Square. It smelled like fish, there were strange liquids flowing in the street and everywhere we looked people were aggressively hawking some kind of merchandise.

Palenque

Chiapas is visually stunning! Julia and I were treated to wonderful views as we traveled over winding mountain roads from Palenque to San Cristobal. Every hillside was a patchwork of greens and the peaks were all draped in gauzy clouds.

We first arrived in the state of Chiapas early on the morning of the 10th, after taking a 9 hour night bus from Merida It was 7 am when we were dropped off in Palenque town, and got a cab out to the village of el Panchan. Everyone we had met (as well as our trusty lonely planet guidebook) had recommended staying out there in one of the jungle bungalows. After checking in I treated Julia to a birthday breakfas´ and we headed back to the bungalow for a quick nap. The long bus ride had really tired us out and we wanted lots of energy for exploring the ruins. The moment we lay down, every monkey in the jungle decided to have a screaming contest. It was a little hard to fall asleep, but the jungle ambiance was still better than the soundtrack of Harlem.

When we woke, we set out towards the ruins. They are set inside a national park, and were spectacular. Almost all of the ruins were open for exploration and climbing. We started out bravely climbing into dark, mossy tunnels and exploring buildings. Then as we climbed into a particularly small tunnel, a bat flew up towards our faces and we both screamed and ran for the exit. So much for bravery.


Very few people were in the park and Julia I were often the only people climbing a temple or in a passageway. The lack of crowds made for a much more peaceful experience and gave us time to really explore as well as to sit and admire the beautiful architecture and lush jungle. The ruins at Palenque were some of the best preserved that we have seen. The sculptures and glyphs were clear and many still had traces of the bright colors they were once painted with.

After a long day of hiking and climbing, we headed back to our bungalow and celebrated Julia´s 25th birthday in style.


I sang happy birthday to Julia as she enjoyed her cake and then we returned to the bungalow for a real treat of showers with hot water! The howler monkeys decided it was time to wake everyone up at about 4 am, and a few hours later we caught the bus to San Cristobal de las Casas.

Life at the Convent

As I sit here and type this, I am trying to recover from a pretty significant hangover. Tara and I actually motivated ourselves to go out last night (which was a big thing, since we've been going to bed at the old-lady time of 9pm recently!). We hadn't planned on going out drinking, we actually had an appointment with a Mayan shaman to get new souls at 6:00, but when we went to meet him, he suggested going to our hotel and so we quickly removed ourselves from that situation! However, being semi-drunk from our pre-new soul elixir (an anis and honey flavored 'wine' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtabent%C3%BAn_(liqueur) ) we decided to explore the bar scene of Merida.

The first place we went to seemed like a T.G.I.Fridays of Mexico. However, for 110 pesos (about 9 dollars) we got two pitchers of beer and an order of wings! We followed that with a another bar near the town square, and then made our way to a local salsa bar. We were definitely intimidated by the place, but with our liquid courage, felt GREAT going in! And once inside, it was like we were celebrities! We had no less than 5 different waiters and the door man attending to us (ie making sure we had copious amounts of tequila)! I showed off my salsa skills (of which I have none) and Tara showed off her Spanish skills (of which she has some). We closed out the bar and then went back to our hotel for an early morning swim.

Yes, you read that right, we are staying at a HOTEL with a POOL! And there's AIR CONDITIONING! After a week in Tulum living at a hostel that reminded me of my days at summer camp, we decided to splurge a bit. We met a woman in Tulum who is an English teacher in Merida, and one of her students is dating the owner of a hotel, which she recommended to us (how many degrees of separation is that???). Anyways, the hotel is absolutely beautiful! And more spacious than our apartments back in New York! The hotel is actually housed in what used to be a 16th century convent, and is still attached to the church, Iglesia Santa Lucia. http://www.luzenyucatan.com/

Merida is an absolutely wonderful city. It's large, close to a million people, but feels like a small town. We spent yesterday hanging out in the town square, walking around the craft market and eating street food. People here are soooo friendly! Walking down the street, we were stopped by a man who insisted we go to the University to see the photo exhibition. He accompanied us there, and gave us all kinds of information about the school, the city, the culture. And it seemed that everywhere we went, people wanted to talk to us to tell us about the region, to find out what we were doing, and if we were enjoying our time here. We met another man as we were walking down the street who gave us advice on how to avoid being ripped off at the market, and how to tell if different things were authentic. We ran into him later, and he showed us the way to a Mayan market that had a beautiful gallery of Mayan statues and jewelry. We had our own personal tour or the gallery along with a lesson on the Mayan culture and a taste testing of Xtabentun.

We had only planned on staying in Merida for a night, but based on our experience so far, our stay will be extended a bit.

Activities and Mischief

The last few days have been full of activities. These include (in no particular order):
Walking on the beach, laying in the sand, swimming in the waves, climbing cliffs, climbing up Mayan ruins, climbing down Mayan ruins, throwing coconuts, kicking coconuts, throwing sticks, bike riding, bike racing, active drowning, passive drowning, eating tacos, pirating ships, drinking beer, butchering the Spanish language, sweating, playing with machetes, making new friends, playing with kittens, playing with dogs, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart (they love it here), making guacamole, hanging out in the air conditioned grocery store, and breaking the rules.

When my brain recovers from this heat induced dementia, and I recover some mastery of the English language I will provide a more detailed account. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few.

Here´s the story, of a lovely lady!

Let me begin by clearing a few things up: when Tara said "atheltic prowess" what she meant was "active drowning". However, we may have impressed a few people when we were sporting swim goggles in knee-deep water.

Today was a day of many forms of transportation. Packed up our bags and walked to catch a boat back to Puerto Juarez, followed by a taxi ride to the bus terminal, which was then, of course, followed by a bus ride (3 hours to go about 80 miles) more walking, and then some biking. Our hostel has free bikes for anyone staying here, and they come with pretty fashionable bright orange safety vests. Tara and I made quite a scene riding our bubblegum pink 1960´s coast-break bikes through town while singing the theme song from the Brady Bunch. What can I say? We make friends everywhere we go!

We are looking forward to a few beautiful days at the beach, and more water sports. Look out Olympic Committee!

Water Sports

We have had three fun filled days on Isla Mujeres, and it is becoming clear that Julia and I are the coolest people on the beach. With the exception of a minor injury during a cannonball contest, our athletic prowess has been earning us lots of looks. I´m sure that everyone else wishes they were as good at handstands and somersaults as we are.

We made it!

Our trip began without a hitch! Tara and I met up in Atlanta and caught the same flight to Cancun. From there, we headed north and took a boat over to Isla Mujeres. From what we've seen so far (which isn't much since we just got here last night!) we are loving this place! We even found a bar that plays Wisconsin Badger songs :) Love to you all!

And we're off!

Well, it's the start of a new adventure! Tara and I have spent the last three years living and teaching in New York City and we are ready for a change of location, change of weather, and change of pace. We are leaving behind the stresses of the big city to seek out white-sand beaches, sunshine, new cultures and (most importantly) hammocks! We've cashed out our retirement accounts and stocked up on sunscreen (SPF 90-right Tara?), bugspray, first-aid supplies (thank you, mom and dad!), and flip-flops. We are now ready to hit the road!

We start in Cancun, Mexico and will spend our first week or so at Isla Mujeres. From there we are heading generally west through the Yucatan Peninsula, making a few stops to see some Mayan ruins, some street festivals, and other sights as we go. We will then head into Guatemala to see Tikal, and on to Lake Atitlan where we will be taking Spanish classes. After that, we hope to continue heading south, but who knows where?!?!

Check in here to see where we are and to hear about our antics abroad!