The next day I found myself on another bus to Coban back in Guatemala (for the third time).Near to Coban are the caves of Lanquin and the karst lakes of Semuc Champey. Semuc ChampeySemuc Champey is a beautiful series of small ponds and pools on a natural land bridge that crosses the Cahabon River. In the Mayan Kekchi language, Semuc Champey means Sacred Water. The Cahabon River submerges itself at the entrance of Semuc Champey and resurfaces about 400 meters later after it passes this natural limestone bridge suspended with beautiful crystal clear ponds. In this unique natural formation you have water with shades of light green emerald to dark blue sapphire. Before reaching the lakes you have to climb around 300 metres to a vantage point and then you walk down to have a swim ... read more

I had managed to book a shuttle from Antigua to Playa El Tunco in El Salvador, this was the furthest away from my final destination I would be which means that from now on I would be headed back in a roundabout route to Cancun. In the shuttle was a Canadian (there are lots of them here) 3 Dutch guys and 3 Brits so we all had a good laugh on the journey. The journey took 6 hours across sometimes potholed roads and dirt tracks. The border was a bit crazy with huge tailbacks and the queue for immigration took 45 mins to get through and after all that they don’t even stamp the passport! But at least they don’t charge you to cross the border. Fellow travellers have always said that the people from El ... read more

Day 9 Despite my initial concern over the bus as it had to be jump started, it managed to get to Guatemala City on schedule at 06:30 and thankfully I managed to sleep all the way there. On arriving I then had to get a taxi to the other bus station from where I got a chicken bus to Antigua. On both of these journeys I was the only gringo on the bus – nothing changes:-)). If you don’t already know a chicken bus is so named as its normally full of chickens!! These buses were bought second hand from the US and it is their old yellow school buses, like the one Otto drives in the Simpsons. After 1 ½ hours I turned up in Antigua and stumbled across a great hotel – Hotel ... read more

After 3 nights I had to leave the beautiful tropical island of Caye Caulker and head inland to the jungle. I was heading to San Ignacio, not far from the border with Guatemala to stay in a jungle lodge – Barton Creek outpost. To get there I had to catch a speed boat, a bus and then a 4x4 taxi to the resort itself.The outpost is in the middle of nowhere in the jungle bordering a national park and it took 45 mins to get there from the paved road across dirt track that was so bad it shook the brakes loose on the 4x4 and we had to stop for 15 mins while the driver repaired it! The outpost itself consists of a main lodge, (thankfully with a bar) and a cabana (cabin) a separate ... read more

Day 4 Today turned out to be a bit of a chill day on the beautiful island of Caye Caulker, I spent the morning walking round the island. A couple of years ago the 1 island became 2 islands when a hurricane ripped through it and cleared a path through part of it. The waves then rushed in and the current running through this section is so strong that it probably won’t join up again. But the good thing is that this area known as the split is a great place to snorkel and I did this today amongst the mangroves. The island is now only about 1 km long and in its widest point less than ½ km wide. What I like about it is the sandy streets and that there are no cars. ... read more

I spent all of day 2 travelling from Tulum to Caye Caulker and I’ve including the details in the boring bits below for those of you who do not venture this way in the future. At night I was faced with the usual problem of finding a veggie meal and ended up ordering a veggie burger that did’t actually contain a burger! Just salad, wouldn’t that be a sandwich! The next day I had booked a whole day snorkelling package which was amazing and ticked off another thing on my bucker list - swimming with sharks:-) The tour started at the Hol shan marine reserve and the guide took us across some fab coral with plenty of marine life. At one point I swam down to within 50 cm of a green moray eel they are ... read more