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Published: November 1st 2010
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Sorry for the long silence reason being a mixture of bad internet connections and not having much time to sit down and write due to all the fun stuff we've been doing. We feel like we are really in the swing of it now, feeling very lucky and seemingly our days are just getting better and better. So where did we last leave you...we were just about to arrive in Cancun, a bit unsure of what we would find but we had a really great fews days. I guess it is as touristy as people say but given that we are tourists I think thats prob ok for a few days! We stayed in a slightly crazy but fab hostel and met some really great people. We managed a trip to the famous Coco Bongos which was a really great night (pictures curtosy of Fletch, thanks lovely!) a bit surreal but had to be done, plus we fitted in a night at an Irish bar-so bad really all the way over here and I go find a man from cork to sell me a drink! Tom did however mange to get himself into a chillie eating competition with some local guys,
Tom did well but then proceeded to bully the rest of our group to get invovled, Scotty obliged and did not do so good. Tom definatly found a new love in Cancun in the form of Tequilla and orange while my accident streak continued in with slicing my toe open as well as nearly breaking it...and yes it was again cos I wasnt looking where I was going. We of course managed to get some good beach time in while in Cancun (Tom' s tan is coming on nicely while I continue to morph into a giant freckle) as well as some Bubba Gump Shrimp which was soooooo good, Tom was in heaven in a themed American restaurant it was great.
From Cancun we said goodbye to Mexico after a really fab month, great place to start and was feeling a bit nervous leaving as we had got to the point where we felt we knew how things worked there so moving on was a bit daunting but next stop was beautiful Belize which definatly made the move very easy. After a sketchy border crossing which included some guy who just asks for 20 dollars while stamping your passport for
no other reason than he wanted some extra cash, we had been prewarned though so refused to pay and were sent on our way. Belize is amazing, leaving Mexico straight into an English colony where everyone speaks English was a bit surreal but nice all the same to have a few days where we didnt feel bad for not speaking the lingo. We headed straight to Caye Caulker a wee island just off Belize city, with only about 1, 300 locals, a small patch of beach, lots of nice places to eat, randomly about 4 chinese supermarkets, loads of snorkelling and dive companies and the most chilled out atmosphere ever, it was great. Our hostel was right on the coast with our own pier with hammocks to lounge on during the day-definatley paradise...rudely interupted by some hurricane panic on the Island. Hurricane Richard was on his way with most of the locals seeming pretty chilled out about it for the first day or two, then some of them decided to leave and the whole town packed up and bordered up windows, put extra nails in roofs and removed anything that wasnt already nailed to the floor. Although one news report
said that all the tourists had been evacuated from the island we managed to missed that advice and our wee hostel had a 14 strong group who decided to stick it out. Turns out that was the best decision as the Island didnt get hit by the eye of the storm so although we had some pretty crazy winds, lots of rain and a whole day trapped inside with our emergencies rations (theres a first for everything, chinese supermarket+10 mins to prepare for being locked up for the day=corn beef bolognese for Tom and I...interesting is about all I can say about that!) we managed to get only a fraction of what the rest of Belize went through which was a blessing. So after our first hurricane we stayed a few more days to chill out, some more rum punch some extremly cheap and really good lobster (getting rid of huge catches after the storm, up side to everything) and we even fitted in a snorkelling trip-it was incredible. Aparently visabilibity wasnt great but as we've not done loads of it we were still really chuffed with the day, we went to a place called Shark and sting Ray alley
Our make shift kitchen for the hurricane
Here's were corn beef bolognese dreams are made! which was amazing, about 10-12 sting rays just swimming around with a few wee sharks and some scary looking barracuddas, took a while to calm my nerves and appreciate it but once we did it was great. Then onto the Coral reef which was beautiful so many different fish just mooching around ignoring us-fab day altogther.
So a sad goodbye to lazing the days away in Belize and we continued on to Guatemala for a worldwind tour of the country, starting off in Flores which is just south of Tikal, another amazing set of ruins set in the middle of a huge jungle.Tikal was prob the best yet in terms of ruins and the setting was amazing we managed to see loads of random animals, central american Agouti's, toucans,woodpeckers, turkeys, Pizote's and some spider monkeys, luckily we didnt bump into any crocodiles or jaguars which are also mooching around the site. A long hot day was nicely broken up with a wee nap on a bench half way around the site, we're def taking things in our stride alright. We have had a few more timing issues with buses and departure times though, mainly caused by the fact I like
having my watch on home time and early in the morning subtracting 6 or 7 hours doesn't always go to plan(Tom of course is not at all irritated by this...although he didnt bring a watch so he cant complain too much!). So we've had a few earlier than expected mornings, including the morning of Tikal when we were due to be picked up at 6am for the tour, we were up showered, dressed and waiting for our bus trying to work out what the other Spanish speaking tour guides were telling me when he showed me his watch to explain that it was 5am not 6-oops!
From Flores we moved further south to Lanquin for a few days so we could go and see Semuc Champey, some natural limestone pools with loads of caves to explore, by far the best thing we have done so far, it was so exciting, added a few photos which dont do it justice but we had such a fun day, getting to the tour on the back of a truck-holding on for dear life, jumping from a rope swing into a pretty fast flowing river, climbing up a waterfall in a cave using candle
light to see, tubing back down the river, a hike to see the pools from above before cooling off in the amazing pools, great day. Which brings me to where we are now in Antigua. We have only just arrived but I am so excited bout our week here, we have enrolled in some Spanish classes for the week so back to school for us, we start lessons first thing tomorrow morning, plus we are staying with a Guatemalan family to make sure we are practising what we're learning from the start so hopefully this will be a great week for learning loads both about the language but also about the culture of this beautiful country.
So life here is exactly what we had hoped for and more, we are of course meeting Irish people everywhere we go so my accent is prob as strong now as it has been for 8 years and we are def loving figuring things out as we go, we have a pretty busy few weeks coming up as we need to speed through the rest of Central America before 14th November which is when we catch a boat to sail to Columbia-3 days sailing
round the islands, fishing, snorkelling and tanning/adding freckles before a 2 day sail to Columbia-so excited about that but we will let you all know how we get on in school maybe the next addition will need to be translated for you!!!
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Rae
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Envious..........defently!!! And seriously love the fact that you have ur phone home time, although must be annoying for Tom, i did that the whole year i lived in Kenya, where did we get that from!!