It was a seven hour drive from Antigua thru the outskirts of Guatemala City to Guatemala’s Caribbean’s coast. Guatemala City, with over three million residents is the largest city in Central America. Getting thru the city took an hour and a half. Motorists were courteous but because the lanes are narrow, there were times we came within inches of losing our side mirrors. The rest of the drive was scenic with a smooth two lane road - smoother than most of our roads in California anyway. We passed farm lands and tropical forests. Our destination, Rio Dulce is located on the eastern shore of Lago de Izabal, the largest lake in Guatemala. The lake empties into the Rio (river) Dulce which flows to the Caribbean. There are many sail boats and yachts anchored in the area. ... read more

We are now camped on the shores of the beautiful Lago de (Lake) Atitlan high in the Guatemalan mountains with three majestic volcanoes in full view across the lake. The nearest village is Panajachel. True to his word, Ramon showed up at 9:30 and helped us thru the bureaucratic maze of exiting Mexico and entering Guatemala. It cost the four of us 250 pesos each to get the Mexicans to stamp our passports so we could enter Guatemala. We will still have to purchase Mexican tourist cards on our return. Had we done the right thing in the first place, entering, exiting and then reentering Mexico would only have cost us a one time 260 peso fee. John had to pay the Mexican officials 400 pesos to get his truck out of the country in order ... read more

Sunday, May 3rd. We’ve been home for three weeks now. I should’ve posted our final blog sooner but stuff happens We’re back in our “stick house” as a regular home is called, somewhat derisively, by full-time RVers. It is good to be home and that king size pillow-top mattress is wonderful. We’ve been working our butts off cleaning the truck and camper, sprucing up the yard, pulling weeds, and planting tomatoes. Our tans have faded. Life is back to normal. As I said when I closed my last blog, how many times couldja say, ”we went to the beach today” which is basically what we did every day, except for driving days, from the time we arrived on the Pacific coast. I described Puerto Angle, our first Pacific coast stop in my last blog. It is ... read more

This is the third and final part of our San Cristobal de las Casas blog. I know the dates are out of order but it makes sense to break the blog up this way. Wednesday, March 11th. This morning we got an early start in order to catch an English language tour with Alex y (and) Raul, to the nearby villages of San Juan Chamula (place of adobe houses (pop. 50,000 plus)) and San Lorenzo Zinacantan (land of bats (pop. 30,000 plus)). Many other tours are offered but after talking with Raul and the other agencies, this one seemed to be the best for us. Our guide today was Ceasar, pronounced Ses-are in Spanish. He was great. Caesar explained the differences between Mestizos and the indigenous people who are descendents from the Mayans and now live ... read more

Thursday, March 12th. Monday we climbed the Chiapian mountains from Palenque at 200 feet above sea level to nearly 10,000 feet before dropping into the valley containing the city of San Christobal de Las Casas at 6900 feet. The drive was only 130 miles but took about seven hours. The road was good but steep, windy and with lots of topes. We never made over 40 mph. Fortunately for me, most of the long drops were on the other side of the road. Palm trees have given way to pines and daytime temperatures have dropped from the upper 80s to the low 70s. We added a blanket and I've taken to sleeping in sweats. Our neighbor told Ray that it was 35 degrees at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Just out of Palenque, we stopped at the ... read more