beaches, ruins, and monkeys

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well we made it to tikal after spending a couple of nights in san ignacio. Tikal is right up with there with some of the most amazing places that I have seen in my life. The spread of buildings involves 6 major temples, the tallest of which shoots into the sky at well over 200 ft. Although the temples are incredible it may be the setting that truly makes Tikal so special. It is crazy to walk through the dense jungle and suddenly.....BAMN there is huge temple in front of you. It just smacks you in the face. Then you travel down the trail and .....BAMN there´s another one.
Monkeys - Tikal is just flush with them. Mostly squirrel monkeys that you see swinging from tree to tree but it is the howlers that you hear. On evening they started at about 8pm and didn't´t stop till about 8am. It is impossible to describe what these guys but giving it my best shot I would say they sound like a zombie that has asthma. It amazing how it rumbles through the jungle and creates an eeriness that only adds to the mystique.
After tikal we made a short stop in flores to recharge and then shot off the next day to Tobacco Caye. Tobacco Caye was one of the those impromptu moments...here is an example of the discussion. (*mike and megan are some friends from Alaska who are have been making the journey with us)

Ben: Where should we go tomorrow?
Mike: That's good question we should probably figure that out.
Alana: Megan and I are going to go shopping you guys figure it out.
Mike: (flips pages of guide book and stops randomly) Hmmm....there is this place tobacco Caye that sounds pretty interesting.
Ben: Ok, sounds good to me....how do we get there?

It normally continues on from there with an attempt to distill the directions down from the three guide books, which all have a unique version of travel information much of which is some of the very best fiction writing out there, into something reasonably salient.

We did get there after a mini-bus, waiting for a bus, deciding at the last minute to take a taxi (the driver was great and stopped at his sisters along the way to pick some oranges of her tree for us) arriving in dangringa to catch a water taxi, and finally getting to the island.

Tobacco Caye is an island out in the middle of the Caribbean that is maybe an acre in size...that is if you include the various docks that jut out around its perimeter. I knew the place was going to be small but holly sh¿t. What it lacks in size it makes up for in setting. It is literally planted right in the middle of the second largest coral reef in the world. Our days on the island consisted of getting up, sitting in the hammock for an hour, then carrying the snorkel to waters edge and swimming out to the reef. Then we would come back to eat lunch, hang in the hammock again, then out to snorkel. We got to see an abundance of wildlife the best being spotted eagle rays.

After we then hit placencia...a beautiful little strip of land that sort hangs out in the ocean at the southern tip of belize. We rented a little house that was about 100 ft from the beach and brought the new year in by spending 4 lazy days on the beach and swimming in the beautiful Caribbean waters......well my time is up....more to come later.....

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