Backpacking

we didnt get to sleep in again, we had to get up for......sigh school we draged out butts out of bed and started to make breakfast, bought some eggs and bread the night before and made scrabled eggs on toast, we werent smart enough to buy some sort of cooking oil or butter. so eggs easy over were out of the question. after that we headed to do our 4 hours of spanish lessons for the day. it went much quicker then i thought plus i got to try the cofee down here for the first time. it was a good time too, because the coffee beans were just being harvested and left out to dry. i was surpried at how much i liked the coffee. after the lessons we went in search of cheese and fruit. for most of our venture all we could find was processed cheese, i dont mind it sometimes but everyone else seemed against it. we searched all the way across town and found out that there was another supermarket that carried it and it was much closer to our hotel, and it was almost on our way to the other places. but anyways. we got the cheese went back the hotel and made some sweet grilled cheese sandwiches. soo good. for the rest of the day we relaxed in the hammock and wrote in our journals.

We left Santa Elena at 10PM for the 8 hour bus ride to Guatemala City, the ride itself was really long, and there was little leg room for me (6ft3in). i was crammed into the corner but for the first part of the trip i had two seats to myself, which was really nice. We all had our malaria medication that day too, it didnt have any effect on ryan but it made craig and ,Especially me, wired. i was up all night in a really uncomfortable possition. not only that, but the bus was air conditioned. i know it doesnt sound that bad. but when it gets too cold for canadians whom just came from a very cold winter not to long ago.
when we made it to guatimala city we were swamped by taxi drivers wanting our money. we bartered the driver down to 1.10 USD. we made it to the appropriate bus station(because every bus company has their own station) and waited for the bus. The spanish phrase dictionary was left inside the taxi so we had to ask the guard holding the shotgun where the nearest bakery was using our poor grammer and knowledge of spanish. me and craig left to go to the bakery while ryan watched the stuff. like every morning we didnt buy a big enough breakfast, we ended up just buying a sugary bun of which i had know knowledge of for each of us. it filled us up for the moment so we assumed for some reason(again!) that we would be filled up for the rest of the 3 hour trip that was ahead of us. the trip to panachel was fairly comfortable, though i was running on very little sleep i still didnt get any sleep on the bus. we have desided to pay in exact change for the bus because we definately got screwed out of 10Q. The country side was incredible once we got out of the big city, i finally got to realize how high we were above sea level. A lot of the time we were over 1000ft above sea level. The road winded up and down and left and right over and over. i found my ears actually popping many times. the towns relied mostly on farming to sustain their economy in that area. but the fields were on the steep hills or on on flields that resemble stairs. they were the stairs of the hills, incredibly large stairs, but stairs non the less. we finally made it the bustling city of Panachel during peak market hours. thats when things really got crazy on the bus. people started piling in from every direction, the bus had many open seats before we came to the city. but by the time we came down town. people were triple to a seat. it hard to have a conversation with a person whom you dont speak the same language with. Slowly but surely im picking up the language, even without the spanish lessons. it reminds me of riviere du loup and trying to communicate with the locals in french. you have to improvise with what you know and maybe add a few hand gestures(not the middle finger).

we got off in the downtown area. We werent really sure if it was the right place to get off but it is what everyone else was doing and we were getting close to sea level. I think thats as close we were going to get to our criteria. we made our way to the tourist information centre and met this curiouse man from new york who was nice enought to guide us around and some information on taking the water taxi. By this time we were famished so he suggested we got to a nice resturant called "Deli", the man said that it was one of the more expensive places in town we ate some really good food there, i had milk for the first time sinse i got here 8 days ago. this is really unusual for me because i drink milk by the bucket full. i definately getting into the hot sauce around here. Im going to have a serious tolerance to it when i get back home. ryan had the banana pancakes, me, craig and Bill(new yorker) all had the burger. They were amazing. the bill was a little more expensive compared to the rest of Guatemala but we made do. for the three of us it cost 108Q or 14USD(approx) which is amazing. we then wen back up the main drag for a second time and went to the ATM to take out 2000Q(1USD=7.6Q)and then we went to the dollar store to get some more of the sweet, sweet, hand sanitizer.We were searching for more hand sanitizer because we have to use it before we take out our contacts, before we eat and after we eat. we were going through that stuff so very quickly that searching for some more ahead of time was a good idea. we were having no such luck finding hand sanitizer in the past week but bill was able to direct us to the dollar store where he bought his. he also taught us how to ask for it. and then we had success, woot woot. now we had to get the the boat. we had no luck haggling the boat owners down from 20Q to 15Q or 10Q they had a monopoly over the water taxi service in Penachel.

we eventually made it to san pedro and took the long trek to find a hotel. it felt like a wild goose chase to find the best hotel as well as get spanish lessons set up for the next day. the town is nothing but cobble stone and up hills and down hills. we were exhausted becasue we had already gone on several long bus rides, walking around Penachel, and running on little sleep. but we eventually found the best hotel for us. it had a good view of the water, had good access to our "school", resturants and lots 'o' hammocks.

the last 2 days blended together really nicely with the overnight bus ride. Today was perhaps the longest day(s) of the trip so far. but im excited/relieved to be staying in one spot for a while and able to settle in.

Hello eager fans,

Today I'm just gonna cover what has happened today (March 2nd).

So the day started on a bus, exactly at 12:00 am (midnight). We had already been on the bus for 2 hours at this point. I'm pretty sure ryan was asleep by that point, but leigh was wired and wide awake, shoved into his small small seat, and I was crushed into the seat behind him. This was our bus ride from Santa Elena to Guatemala City. We arrived in Guatemala city around 5:30am (which was crazy fast for that bus ride (probably cause the bus was passing trucks in a traffic jam on the shoulder of the opposite lane)). Once in Guatemala City, we were in a bus station with no clue where we were. Luckily we were able to piece out (from the guide book and a taxi driver who spoke Spenglish) where we had to go. We also read in the book that the route we had to walk was dangerous in the dark (and yes, it was dark at 5:30 am) so we hired a cab. With my still blossoming haggling skills, I was able to get the taxi driver down to 2/3rds of his price.

When we arrived at our bus station (5 minute taxi ride) and it wasn't open, so we ended up sitting on the curb for about 10 minutes, till about 6:15, when some guy came and opened up the station for us. The station was safe (there was a shotgun-wielding guard at the front door), so we waited in there for our bus. Eventually our bus showed up, and we got on. It was an old bluebird schoolbus (easily more comfy than the coach bus from the night before). We spent about an hour and a half in Guatemala city, attempting to collect more passengers. It was pretty amusing, the guy who was attempting to get people on his bus was hanging out the door while the bus was going probably 80 km/h. He also would loading people's bags (on the roof of the bus) while we were moving, it was pretty neat. Eventually the bus got on the way. We were suppose to pay Q 60, but the guy, taking advantage of our lack of exact change, and our lack of knowledge in the Spanish language, took our Q 70 and gave us no change. We attempted to argue with him to get our money, but all attempts were futile. It was alright though because the extra Q 10 is just over $1 US. Eventually (I'm not sure how far into the bus ride it was.. I slept a whole bunch) we were in the mountains. The bus was passing every other vehicle on the road, with only 2 lanes (one for each direction) on uphill and downhill turns, he always passed, no matter the situation.

Anyways, we eventually arrived in Panajachel (the destination of the bus) on Lake Atitlan. The lake is beautiful, easily the most beautiful place on our trip so far (we'll take pictures eventually). In Pana (the short form for Panajachel) we walked around, trying to find a cheap lunch. Soon we ran into another Gringo named Bill. He showed us down the main street to a not-so-cheap restaurant. Lunch was great, possibly cause we were so damned hungry. Anyways, this "expensive" lunch only really cost us Q 108 (just over $14 USD). After collecting some extremely useful advice from Bill, we said our goodbyes and thanked him a lot. We headed back up the main street of Pana, searching for a bank, an ATM, and some hand sanitizer. With the advice from Bill, we found everything we needed within 1/2 hour. Then we were down to the dock to find a cheap boat ride to San Pedro. Even with our Canadian persistance, we were not able to get a cheaper fare. The cost was Q 20 flat, no bargaining. Oh well, we tried, we waited for about 3 boats, as I said, to no avail.

The boat ride was uneventful, the most exciting part was learning what kitchen is in Spanish. After about 30 minutes on the uncomfortable boat seat, we arrived at San Pedro. We are really adament about staying here very cheap, so we checked out almost every hotel/hostel/whatever you wanna call them in town. We even travelled to the 2 way across town (which happened to be up and down a huge hill) with our packs on. We decided on a place right on the lake, for Q 60 a night. We also snagged Spanish lessons for the week (5 days, 4 hours a day) for Q 375 for each of us (works out to about $48 US each).

Now here we are, in an internet cafe.
Taking it easy, probably hit a bar tonight (don't worry, its a safe town)
I'm missing home a little bit,

Keep in touch,

Craig

Hey everyone,
We just crossed into Guatemala, we don´t know the language at all, but we seem to be doing good enough anyways.
We haven´t really had the time nor the money to come on and update the blog (sorry). So this one is going to be pretty packed.

Let see, what have we done.

Well, see on Sunday we caught a bus to the Mayan ruins in the north of Belize called Lamanai. This was definately an interesting day. We started fairly early to catch the bus at 6:30 in the morning. Unfortunately we missed it (although I think we were on time). So we jumped in a taxi that hunted the bus down. That was definately an interesting drive, quite frightening actually. The taxi driver took the inside of every corner, but I was glad he did, cause he caught the bus quickly and the extra taxi ride only cost us $7 BZD. This bus took us to a neat little town called Orange Walk, in the northern part of Belize. On the bus we met with a Croasian named Maya, who was on the same tour we ended up having to pay for. This tour was expensive ($80 BZD each), but it was definately worth it. It consisted of a trip up the New River to the ruins, then a tour of the ruins, plus lunch and some drinks. Our guide was knowledgable, and the ruins were spectacular (you´ll see the pictures eventually). The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. We caught a very packed bus back to Belize City (Maya counted over 85 people on one school bus) which we had to stand up on for the whole ride. We got back to Belize City fairly late, but there were 5 of us together, so it wasn´t too bad (we also met a Kiwi named Jeremy).

The next day we were off to a different place, as we were all sick of the busy-ness and heat of the city. We slowly got ready and caught the bus to a town in Western Belize, called San Ignacio at about 10:30. This bus ride was fairly busy, but nothing when compared to the bus we took the night before. We arrived in San Ignacio around 1 p.m. It was a nice town, it was up in the farmlands and near a river. We quickly decided to camp at the nearest campgrounds (as we had been grossly overbudget with the expensiveness of Belize and the tour we had been taking). The campground was very cheap, we paid $60 BZD for 2 nights. We then spent a good part of the afternoon (after a midday drink and snack) exploring the nearby ruins called Cahal Pech. This was a pretty neat, although small, set of ruins. It consisted of 4 plazas. with a fairly tall ruin in the centre. There were a few tunnel to explore, but nothing overly huge. The thing that I find really cool about these ruin sites is that nothing is fenced off, it is all open to explore and touch and see nice and close. After a quick swim, we went to find out about tours we could take the next day. We ended up signing up for the cheapest one we could find, which happened to be the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve tour, (I leaned towards this one because it reminded me of home, ´Pine Ridge´) which cost us $60 BZD each. We went and ate at some restaurant, nothing of special merit really. This is when we worked out just how grossly overbudget we were. We got pretty worried about money right then, but its okay guys, Belize is just expensive.

We got up pretty early after a night of playing guitar and lounging in hamicks at the campground, to go catch our tour. We met up with this American couple that we went on the Lamanai tour with, and it happened that they were going on the same tour as us. We waited around for a while, then all hopped into a minibus (air conditioning...ahhhh) and headed down some dusty road. Eventually we came to the first destination of our tour, Rio Frio. This a huge cave carved by the river flowing through it. It was pretty neat, some really cool rock formations, and we had a very knowledgable guide. We then had a quick walk in the jungle, and we learned lots about the local flora. The guide also told us the very interesting (and now obsolete) method of harvesting the sap from rubber trees. Everyone hopped back into the bus and we had a really short drive to another cave (sorry guys, can´t remember the name) which we actually needed flashlights for. The cave entrance was about 3 feet tall, but then it opened up quite a bit. This cave went on for a long time, but was much more interesting as it had many rock formations. At the end of the cave the guide (Sam was his name) told us to turn off all our lights, and we experienced pure darkness. We climbed all the way back to the surface, and, once again, hopped back in the minibus. Our next stop was just up the river from our first cave, and it was a series of small waterfalls and rapids, here we were allowed to swim and play in the falls. Sooo refreshing.... more sunscreen, then back in the bus. The next stop was definately the most fun of the tour. We stopped at a seemingly random location on the road, and had a significant hike down to the Big Rock Falls. Here once again, we could swim, and play in the much bigger falls. We did some cliff jumping and got some great shots of us doing so. Thanks go out to the woman on our tour who was kind enough to take a few pictures of us together near the falls. Again, we found overselves back in the van, sweating again after the hike up from the falls. Our last stop was at a resort/bar/lodge overlooking the Five Sister Falls. Here cold drinks were available at rediculous costs. We were all craving, but, alas, we couldn´t afford such a luxury. Back into the bus which carried us back to our temporary home, San Igancio. That night, since the campground had the means to do so, we decided to cook our own meal. We grabbed some fresh potatoes and bananas from the local market, then wandered up into the supermarket for some butter and drinks. At the campgrounds we cooked the potatoes and ate some bananas.

We got up uber early this morning to give us lots of time to get to our desination. The campground owner was kind enough to find us a $5 BZD per person tazi ride to the Belize/Guatemalan border. The crossing went well, and we switch our money over to Quetzales (the Guatemalan currency) at a fair good rate, bartered for a long while for a bus, or taxi, or whatever we could find to Santa Elena, eventually we found a minibus at 20 quetzales per person and we were off. The bus ride was great, and I slept a bit. We were dropped off in a random location (we had no idea where we were) in Santa Elena. But with some help from the locals (even with the langauge barrier) we found the bus station. We had lots of time to kill, so here we are, but my time is up, so I must go.

Peace everyone, I hope you are enjoying the snow, my tan is coming along nicely.

Craig

Belize city was ok, it was a little more sketchy then i wanted, but sketchyness is to be expected in any large city, we were more interested in the area surrounding belize city. we visited the lamanai ruins around orange walk, we got to go on a really awsome river with tonnes of wild life and some german menonites., the view from the top of the tallest maya building was breath taking but the howler monkeys were really erritating at the maya ball court.

San ignacio was a very beautiful town, the people were all so nice and helpful. everyone spoke english still which was good in the sense that we knew kinda what we were doing, but bad in the sense that we werent learning any spanish. We stayed at a fairly new campsite that wasnt in our guidebook. it was really nice, finally i was able to lie in a hammock. we visited the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, there were some neat caves. The first one was ginormous it was interesting because of its grandeurness alone. The second cave was a bit harder to get into. Your had to crawl a bit to get into the entrance but the inside was amazing, even though im not usually impressed with caves it was still pretty cool; there was also a 100ft waterfall and some clifts which was really refreshing after sweating in the hot hot jungle, the bus ride up to the caves was the most fun it was bumpy, there were only half of the plug ins for the seatbelts, it was a blast. We also visited the ruins cahal pech, the ruins themselves were completed, seeing the completed ruins was really interesting. im reall excited for guatimala, where everything is cheaper and we might be able to afford a drink at the bar.

we crossed the boarder into guatemala without a hitch, it was about 2 hours from the boarder to santa elena, we had many taxis competing for our business. The new money was more difficult to convert, every USD is worth 7gd which makes everything very cheap. we got a loaf of bread, peanut butter(which is a bit more expensive), 3 drinks and 10 bananas it cost $7 USD. the loaf of bread cost about $.30USD. everyone is doing fine so far. except for being extremely hot. ive had a hard time sleeping the last few nights because of the heat, hopefully it will be cooler in tikal, which im super excited for.

we have to watch our money more now. we were 225usd over our budget, but thats to be expected because Belize is one of the more expensive countries. when we get to san pedro it will be nice just to sit down on a hammock and sip a cold one as well as be able to afford it.