Caye Caulker We have arrived at the final destination on our trip, Caye Caulker. We got up Thursday morning, early, and caught the water taxi from Placencia to the mainland and then the 730am bus from Independance north to Belize City ($11us each). It took about four hours and we passed through dry pine forests, some swamps, over hills and ridges, through flat lowlands, areas surrounded by jungle and others with pastures and farms as far as you could see. It was kind of nice to do our last significant trek over this stretch because it included elements of all the [View Full Entry]

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Placencia We caught the 7am boat to Belize yesterday morning. It was around an hour and a half across the bay, mostly through open water with the land off in the distance. It was another pretty trip, and a big change to be in open water with the hills around just blue rises along the western horizon and water as far off as you could see toward the east. Unfortunately, we had to slow down a couple times because of bottles and other garbage in the water. Our second day in Placencia there was a layer of bottles and other trash [View Full Entry]

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Livingston We caught a 9am water taxi from Rio Dulce yesterday morning for the hour or so ride down river to Livingston. Our ride took a bit longer because one passenger (fortunately) expressed concern about the boat we were taking. There were 20+ of us and all our luggage on a boat floating 4 inches or so out of the water and passengers on the sides were quickly soaked with spray. When we stopped at the ticket booth (one-way tix are $18us each) the passenger refused to get back on until we got a bigger boat. Perhaps one with life jackets? [View Full Entry]

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Rio Dulce After one night back in Antigua we took a 4am shuttle to Guatemala City (ugh) to catch the Litegua bus to Rio Dulce. We arrived in Rio Dulce around noon and a nice guy from the bus (John, who moved here from Miami years ago and is building a boat to live on in Rio Dulce) let us use his cell phone to call our hotel for the boat taxi. Rio Dulce is a little town on a large lake notable because of the highways from the west (Guatemala City) and north (Flores) and the river traffic that leads [View Full Entry]

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Lago Atitlan After a couple days in Antigua we took the long journey, on a road full of twists and turns, to the lake. It is about 2 hours and was quite similar to the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway in Oregon. Once here, we decided to put our death-defying adventures on hold for a few days and take it easy. The first night we stayed in Panajachel, which is the main town for tourists and transport. We arrived mid-morning and were immediately helped/sought out/grafted by a guy at the bus stop. Apparently all the hotels in town are far more expensive [View Full Entry]

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Antigua Today we wandered around town on our last full day in Antigua and visited a couple of the churches. The town was originally built in the 1500s but has suffered multiple earthquakes on a fairly regular basis so just about every historical building has been built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, and at some point left the way it was. We first went to the Catedral Santiago, off Parque Central. We went inside and then explored the ruins in the rear. The church must have been huge when built but you could see the damage as we strolled through the ruins. We [View Full Entry]

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Antigua! After our initial uncertainty about this town we have decided to stay a couple days. We'll pick up our tickets today and leave in the morning for Panajachel, on Lago Atitlan about 2.5 hours away. Lodging: We stayed at the Yellow House two nights ago and thought it was nice but not great. Lots of travelers obviously stay there and there is a small kitchen for use, a small breakfast is provided, but there are only two bathrooms for a lot of people. We decided to move on to one recommended in Lonely Planet, Posada Juma Ocag. It is a [View Full Entry]

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One third of the way through our trip already, and it's going by far too fast. We talked with the driver yesterday at Semuc Champey about a shuttle to Antigua this morning and he was going to pick us up on the road outside the hotel at 845am. He didn't. El Recreo made some calls for us and said the bus left at 8am and the next one was tomorrow. We walked into town (10min uphill) and checked in at a travel office about getting to Antigua today. The guy said we were out of luck but he could take us [View Full Entry]

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Semuc Champey!!! We checked in at the front desk of El Recreo at 830am about transport and we got a car at 9am. It was a 4-door truck like yesterday's transport but the bed was framed in so passengers could hold onto the bars. We went to El Retiro and picked up a crowd before heading out to Semuc Champey (stupid El Retiro and their crowds of people staying there instead of us...). With 15 or so people standing in the back of the pickup the frame rather resembled a pen for gringo transport. Our initial plans were to just get [View Full Entry]

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Heading south from Flores to Lanquin for Semuc Champey We've seen the last of Flores and got on a 'direct' bus to Lanquin at 9am this morning. . We're still suffering from the gut bomb likely delivered by Restaurant Brisas and I wasn't able to try the "Tepescuintle" that I found on the menu at a restaurant in town (it's a rabbit-sized jungle rodent that would have prepared me well for this fall's eating zoo back in portland). Hopefully we're on the mend, though. The travel agent in town told us [View Full Entry]

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