We left our hotel and boarded the 7:45 ADO bus to Merida. The 1st Class tickets cost just over $20 US each. Although a direct route with no stops, the trip took a boring 4 hours. When we arrived at the Merida station, we got directions to our hostel and decided it was better to pay the $3.00 cost of a taxi than to drag our luggage 14 blocks. Arriving at our hostel, Hostal Nomadas, we checked in, paid our bill of fifty some dollars for the 3 nights and deposited our luggage in our room. After getting the lowdown [View Full Entry]

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We left the hotel at 8am, and after a rest stop, we arrived at the Tulum ruins a bit after 11am. After Lisa got our tickets and my video pass for a fee of 35 Pesos, we had about an hour and a half to stroll around the ruins of Tulum and the gift shops before we'd have to reboard the bus for our lunch stop. Tulum wasn't as large as Tikal or as elaborate as Copan, but it had it's own beauty being on the ocean and of course, the iguanas! The buildings were fairly simple and the site [View Full Entry]

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We packed up and caught a boat at 10am to Belize City to reboard our Tucan bus for the trip to Bacalar, Mexico. Crossing the border into Mexico was a bit more involved than usual. It cost $37.50 BZ ($17.25US) each to leave Belize and nothing to enter Mexico. We had to show our own passports, fill out declarations forms, and carry all our luggage across for the entry into Mexico. Our hotel, Hotel Laguna, was only 30 or 40 minutes from the border and just outside Bacalar, right on the lake. The hotel is really cool and should be [View Full Entry]

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Today we decided to just chill. We did a bit of shopping, seeing most of the gift shops on the island. Manoli wanted to eat at the Bamboo Grill & Bar, where you could eat sitting in swings, so we ate lunch there. Manoli had a Lobsta Burga with grilled lobster and fries (which we both thought was very good), and I had a chicken, avocado, and veggies tortilla plate which was excellent. With a too-sweet smoothie, the bill came to just under $40BZ ($20US). For dinner, Manoli wanted to try conch, so we returned to Chan's Fast Food where [View Full Entry]

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Sorry for the delay here, but using the internet at Caye Caulker costs 5 or 6 dollars US per hour! We'd booked the snorkelling trip for 10:30am, so we found a couple cups of coffee and chilled til about 10am. Armed with sunscreen, bathing suits, flippers, mask, and snorkel, we boarded Carlos's boat. After a short, bumpy 15 minute ride, we slowed down cause Carlos spotted a manatee. We donned our gear and dropped overboard. Although it was pretty deep, the water was crystal clear. Within minutes, we spotted a manatee and on approaching it, found two more. Such awesome [View Full Entry]

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We left San Ignacio at 8am and stopped along the way at the Belize Zoo, a really cool zoo with all Belizean (sp) animals that were abandoned or rescued. It cost $8.00 US to get in, but it was well worth it. They had tapirs, monkeys, ocelots, big birds like the Harpy Eagle, crocodiles, wild pigs, and a baby jaguar. All were in very natural settings without real cages for the most part, just fences. Our guid gave us a sandwich and cookies to eat on the bus during the trip from the zoo to the Belize City marine terminal. [View Full Entry]

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Two of the young ladies from our tour and I got in the Atun Tucnil Malakin (sp) van and went into town to the MayaWalk Tour Office. We paid our fees , found satisfactory wet/cave shoes, grabbed our bag lunches and headed out. After about an hour on a decent road, we turned onto the "road from Hell"! After another hour of riding on a road that couldn't have been any worse and still be usable by anything but an ATV, we arrived at the base camp. The guide briefed us on what to take and what to leave. Wear [View Full Entry]

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Got up bright and early leaving for Tikal with our guide at 6am. The ride was quite long, but the last part was within the jungle/rain forest. Our guide was great, although his english wasn't quite as good as the one at Copan. I found it hard to believe they have only excavated 20% of the buildings! There were so many buildings and temples! One temple was the one they used in Star Wars for the rebel base. We both climbed that one. Although many of the buildings weren't fully excavated and lacked for the most part the decorations and [View Full Entry]

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This morning we left paradise, aka Hotel Catamaran, for Flores. After one stretch break and the fruit fly search upon entering Peten department, we reached the little island of Flores. Flores is connected to the mainland by a causeway and has about 2,000 people, most of which probably work for one of the hotels, restaurants, or souvenir shops. A very quaint, laid-back town. After settling in to Hotel Sabana, Lisa gave us a short guided walk around the town, showing us the best restaurants and where we'd find an ATM. After calling home, we checked out some of the souvenir [View Full Entry]

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Today we piled into a boat for our trip down Rio Dulce to Livingston. Livingston is in Guatemala, but it's a garifun community founded somewhat by african slaves from shipwrecks or 'planted´along the coast by the British to work the sugar cane plantations. We started just east of the only bridge across Laka Izabal near the mouth of the Rio Dulce river which is fed by the lake. Rio Dulce is quite wide all the way to the Caribbean Ocean, so we saw alot of large boats docked along each side at times. Most of the banks were still quite [View Full Entry]

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