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Livingston
Me with some Garifuna kids in Livingston, Guatemala. Travel blog - PART II (This is a lot ... but I've finally caught up!!)
We entered Livingston, Guatemala not knowing what to expect at all.
* We spent most of our time speaking with people from of the Garifuna culture. I danced with locals, saw one of the Semana Santa processions (it's kind of like religious parades that they have each day during Easter week in towns all over Latin America that focus on the Easter events), and ate fresh garlic shrimp every day ... and enjoyed every single one.
* Our next stop was Tikal which was AMAZING. Our cabins were in the jungle - literally. The Jungle Lodge cabins were in the middle of the national park, a few minutes walk away from the pyramids we would see. Monkeys woke me up twice during the night: howler monkeys around 3 am and spider monkeys (which squeak) around 5 am. We climbed HUGE Mayan pyramids all day and watched the sunset from on top of one ... then we ran back through the forrest before nightfall (because there weren´t any lights in that part of the park). Even the lights at the site of the cabins
Tikal
Some of our group on top of a pyramid in Tikal. all went out at 11 am - so not to disturb the animals.
* From Tikal we went to Belize. I mentioned my snorkeling adventures in the last blog. My favorite part of snorkeling had to the time I spent swimming in a place called the Aquarium. On a day trip to Belize's famous Blue Hole, we stopped the boat in a place where we fed the fish. Our snorkeling leader opened and closed the bag of left-over rice from lunch under water and the fish swarmed us and followed us around trying to get some. It was soooo much fun.
* Later that night most of the group went out to a discoteca called 'Jaguar.' The place was packed - at times, we could barely move on the dance floor. Most of the group stayed until 1 and left because it was so hot in the room; but Skates, Megan, Jen Wilder and I stayed out dancing until 3 am! And most of us could have stayed even longer. It was great.
FINALLY, I've caught up to where we are now - El Salvador! We spent a few days in the capital, San Salvador which
Pyramid
Mayan Pyramid after sunset. was really interesting. It felt like we were in the middle of America/the US: HUGE shopping malls, Wendy's, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Burger Kings ... everywhere! It felt a bit, weird, actually, since we haven´t seen anything that even closely resembles a mall since we left home. But, apparently, thousands of Salvadorans live in the US (the US and Salvadoran government have a very good relationship); so people from the US send lots of money to their families here. ... and, still, El Salvador is a fairly poor country.
Right now, the group is in the city of Suchitoto and we spent a lot of time in one of the poorer areas. We spent one night in Cenicera (the 'new Copapayo') and spoke to a lot of people who've experienced a lot of terrible things. The New Copapayo had to be built because the majority of people in the Old Copapayo were killed in a massacre. The community seems to be doing well right now. They've built sturdy homes, have running water in each home (well, not ''in'' but usually right outside), have a great town assembly, library, clinic, school and church.
As a group, some of
Flying
Our plane into Belize. us helped clean the town library; others helped sweep bat-poop out of the church bell tower (I stayed as far away from that job as possible). And we all helped do some serious weeding and clean-up at the clinic. I even got to chop some vines with a machete!! Though, I quickly put it down soon afterwards.
We stayed over night and stayed with families in the community. Some of the families lived in two room houses, though a lot lived in one-room houses. Everyone there was really nice and they wanted to share what they had with us ... even though they didn't have much.
Some of us went to visit the school and played soccer with the elementary school children, too. Of course, the teams of 8-9 Furman girls was to be matched by a team of 8-9 students; but as soon as the ball hit the ground, the other team multiplied by 4 or 5. So it was really us against the entire school. :-)
And that's where I am now! I know, I know ... I should have written shorter blogs sooner and not overwhelmed you with weeks and weeks
flying 2
I got to sit right up front for the second flight ... the plane was that small. of information. I'm sorry that things got a bit out of hand.
Hopefully I'll have time to send one more blog (a much shorter one) before my flight home on May 15th.
Thanks for listening/reading!
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Adrienne
non-member comment
aaawesome!
hey, dont worry about your long blogs. we love hearing all of the details of your trip!