Blogs from Pacific Coast, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean

It's 7:30 in the evening and I'm just getting down to writing of today's activities. I'm sitting out by the pool accompanied by a few other guests and the bartender. Karen is lying on one of the pool loungers and enjoying the warm tropical breeze created by our forward motion through the Pacific as we move northward toward Mexico. Today was spent in Guatemala on a journey that took us high up into the mountains to a lake resting 5000' above sea level. It's our last alarm day of our trip, Monday. We're both up at 6:30am since our tour leaves at 8am. I cashed an extra $100 from our shipboard credit just in case Karen finds something to her liking today. With a light breakfast out of the way, we report to the BB King ... read more

Puerto Quetzal 12th April Puerto Quetzal Another staging post for trips into the interior of Guatemala. The trips were long so we made do with a quiet ship, actually not so quiet as a lot of passengers thought the same. There was a small tourist area selling local products, Internet cafe and some bars.... read more

Today I met the crew of sailing vessel Koae a 42' Westsail captained by Jesse B. and crewed by two friends Amanda, Paul and now me for this leg of the trip. They were a much more simpatico crew than Bruce was on last year's trip. Greatly a great group. I met them at the marina, we did a bit of cleaning, filling water, rebuiding the wind vane, and then off for provisioning. A hefty $700 grocery bill means we probably went a bit overboard. With daylight ticking away, we motored out of the marina with an engine that had started to run rough since Mexico, so after 5 minutes we shut off the engine, and hoisted the sails as the sun was setting. Jesse made dinner, after that he went over some of the operations ... read more

We were being very indecisive about where to go next but as we haven't had much sunshine yet on this trip we let the weather decide and headed to the pacific coast. Monterrico is just two hours outside of Antigua and the weather report was the same every day, 32 degrees and sunny. That'll do! I asked around about how to get there as I am not a fan of the tourist shuttles. They are a lot more expensive than public buses but just as cramped. To get the public bus we would have to change buses in a small town that doesn't have a good reputation. In most places I have been the locals will stick up for places, saying that they are not as dangerous as people say. This does not seem to be ... read more

De cursus is voorbij en relaxeren is begonnen! De laatste 3 dagen van de cursus zijn we voor ontspanning naar Cay Chaulker geweest. Een eiland in de Carribean met alles erop en eraan; blauwe luchten, witte stranden, palmbomen en harpoengeweren. De 'waddeneiland'-impressie was redelijk adequaat, er is behalve luieren en stappen weinig te doen op dit eiland. De tweede dag hebben we een snorkeltour gedaan om aan het eiland te ontsnappen. Het op één na grootste rif ter wereld (the Great Barrier Reef is de grootste) ligt langs de kust van Belize. Zodra de internetconnectie het toestaat komen er filmpjes aan met schildpadden en mantas.. Geweldige duik gehad! Vincent is na een bezoekje aan Miami bij de groep gekomen. De vrees dat er een andere “Crazy Dutchman” bij de groep kwam bleek volledig gegrond! De internationale ... read more