Pimp my ride

Before coming on this trip, I can honestly say it had been years since I had been on a school bus. I can no longer say that. The most common way that people get around in Guatemala is on a chicken bus. The chicken buses are old school buses that have been painted and completely pimped out. They put railings along the top of the bus so they can cram as many people in as possible and they pump music through the bus – sometimes it’s Spanish hip hop, sometimes it’s gospel music, you really just never know. They squash 3 people in per seat and then you have tons of people standing in the aisles. Sometimes someone from the back wants to get to the front, so he will climb out the back door, up on top of the bus, walk across the bus as it’s moving, then climb down and swing in the front door. It is soooo dangerous! They also put everything you can think of on top of the bus – we saw animals in boxes, luggage and even a bed! I really think these super sweet buses would make an amazing episode of pimp my ride!

The last couple of days have been really cool – we spent 2 nights staying in the home of families in the small mountain village of San Jorge. We split up and were with just one other person from the group and we had to live as the locals live. Our family only got water every other day, they cook all of their food over a wood fire, and they have 11 kids! It is so difficult to see how some people in the world live. The language barrier was also a huge challenge. They speak not a word of English so we had to bust out the high school Spanish. We talked about the weather, our families and if we had any pets, and that’s about as much as we remembered – guess I should have paid closer attention!

Since I raved so much about Rio Dulce, I thought it was only right that I put a picture of my home there. Our room was the second story of the building in the picture below, and if you look in the top right hand corner, you can see one of the beds. I felt like I was living in the jungle book!

I'm in love

Well, I think we all knew this was going to happen. I thought it would take longer than this, but who am I to question fate? I think it may have been love at first sight. I am absolutely, completely, 100%, head over heels in love. It feels like the very first time. Yes, I am in love. I love, love, love Rio Dulce, Guatemala!
I know, I know, not what you expected to hear! We arrived here yesterday and that's all it took. It's a city that is set along the river and you get around by boat. Our hotel is completely secluded, you can't get to anything without hopping in a boat. The weather here is perfect and in front of our hotel are parked about 15 boats, each worth about a million dollars. I am sleeping in a tree house with 3 other girls and our room is completely open to the outside.
This morning we went to Aguas Caliente - it is a nice cold river with a waterfall coming from the hot springs above. You sit in the cold water and steaming hot water is showering down on your head - it was incredible. This afternoon I took a boat ride to a city called Livingston. The ride took about 1 1/2 hours, and on both sides of the river (it was about 1/2 mile across) was jungle. There were completely straight cliffs and somehow trees and vines and palm trees had found a way to grow. Today has been the first perfect day I've had so far on this vacation. I look around me and I could completely see myself retiring here.
Yes, I am absolutely in love!

Day 4 - 6: Belize!

June 7 – Tulum to Caye Caulker

Today was a fairly long travel day. We had a 3 hour bus ride and two 1 ½ hour boat rides to get to Caye Caulker. It is a small island in Belize, known mostly for snorkeling, diving and eating amazing seafood. For dinner tonight we had fresh caught fish that had been grilled and it was incredible. The island is so hot and humid, I feel like there is no way to get cold. There is no air conditioning anywhere, so you just get used to feeling sticky all the time. When I was packing I had all kinds of plans about how cute I was going to dress, and those thoughts went out the window as soon as the weather made me realize comfort is more important than cute. 

June 8 – The Blue Hole

The day started quite early – we had to be at the dive shop at 5:30! It was the best way to do it though, because you arrive at the first dive site before anyone else.  I have been so excited to scuba dive in the Blue Hole, it is one of the main reasons I got my scuba certification. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to dive because I don’t have my advanced open water certification, but I was lucky that they don’t require it. You take a boat about 2 hours into the ocean to get to the Blue Hole. When you get there isn’t not as evident as it is in all the postcards – you know there is coral all around you, but it’s not as striking of a picture from the boat. The blue hole is a old sinkhole that is now filled with water which is why it’s so different than the ocean around it (picture below courtesy of Google!).

There were a total of 9 of us diving and we had 3 dive masters with us. When you get there, they very quickly get everyone into the water and you start the dive. Everything is very fast paced, but it was okay because they had explained in advance exactly what we were going to do. As soon as everyone is in the water, we started going down – you go down SO quickly. We dropped to 130 feet (40 meters) in just under 5 minutes. That is by far the deepest I have ever dived, and it right on the limit of how deep you can do recreational scuba diving. The water was dark and pretty murky, but just after we got down, we looked to our right and saw a reef shark!!! It was absolutely amazing. You can only be down that deep for about 8 minutes - we were swimming in under a small overhang, going around these huge stalagmites (they must have been 2 feet in diameter) and seeing the amazing formations that exist down there. Once your time at the bottom is over, you go back up really slowly to make sure you don’t get decompression sickness. On the way back up we saw another reef shark, but much closer and clearer this time. The blue hole was so incredible!

Next we were in the boat for about an hour before the next dive sit. That one wasn’t quite a deep – about 80 feet. It was a place called Half Moon Wall, so it is a huge wall of coral where there are many different kinds of fish. My favorite were these huge tube corals. I would swim over them and you could look in – some were 4 feet deep, 2 feet wide and they had tons of plants growing in them or fish hiding. We went to a small island for lunch and a quick afternoon nap, then went for our third dive. This one was even shallower, but we were lucky to see 4 stingrays swim just in front of us. All and all, I would say that the scuba diving today was just so perfect.

June 9^th – Caye Caulker to San Ignacious

We weren’t leaving until midday so we had a while to see the town. Caye Caulker is a tiny little island, with only about 2000 people who live there. The island is small – about 4 blocks wide, and you could walk from one end to the other in about 20 minutes. There were tons of little restaurants, clothing shops and snorkeling companies. All the buildings were painted the vibrant colors that you think of when you think of the Carabbean. There were orangs, purples, blues and greens, and some houses had all of the colors on them. It was just such a quaint little place, I wish we had longer here.

After grabbing a quick breakfast we headed over to “The Split”. It is the best place on the island to take a swim. The island used to be a little larger, but Hurricane Hattie came through and created a division between the two parts of the island. The North section doesn’t have any houses or businesses, so it is now just a protected area of land. They call the water between the two sections the split, where you can jump in and have a lazy float. I also had a rum punch at this great little bar next to the spit called the Lazy Lizard. They play a bunch of reggie music and the whole atmosphere is just chill – a great place to spend an afternoon.

Unfortunately, it was time to leave the beach areas and head inland to San Ignacious. We took a 2 hour boat ride and two 2 hour bus ride to reach it. They have taken old school busses from the US and painted them cool colors, and they stuff as many people as possible before letting it leave. Got to love the transportation in Belize!

Day 1 - 3

June 4^th –  Playa del Carmen

Today, my first official day with no work! I can’t believe the trip has finally started and there is no way for things to suddenly go wrong and change my plans. The day started perfectly – a nice, lazy breakfast on the beach. Can’t ask for anything more than eggs with a huge side of salsa. Then, what I’ve been looking forward to for weeks – scuba diving. I went diving on one of the small reefs right off the coast of Playa del Carmen. I couldn’t ask for a better day: water that was a perfect 86 degrees, a lazy sea turtle swimming next to me, and a guide who was more than happy to show me all the tiny details of the reef. Unfortunately the boat was having problems so we had to return to shore before doing our second dive. Instead, I agreed to go to lunch with the 3 other divers from my tour – what I didn’t expect was that their destination of choice would be Senior Frogs. When I think of all the amazing things to do in Mexico, Senior Frogs is definitely nowhere on the list! But a few tacos and a margarita while being made fun of by the staff weren’t the end of the world.

Tonight I had the opportunity to meet the others on the tour with me. It’s an interesting dynamic – some of the group started together 15 days ago in Mexico City, so those of us joining today are the new kids on the block. There are stories of bad roommates, nights on the town, and sites that have been seen together. I think it will be interesting to see how the group melds together over the next few weeks. About half of the group will be going all the way to Costa Rica with me while half will drop off in Guatemala, where we’ll get another new group of people. The constantly shifting group makes for an interesting, fun, and somewhat unpredictable challenge.

June 5 – Playa del Carmen to Tulum

Today started with my first taste of actual travel. It was just a short one hour bus ride from Playa del Carmen to Tulum. On a normal day that would have been fine, but today it was POURING. As expected in Mexico, the bus was over crowded so some of us were standing, and the water was coming in through the air conditioning system. Everyone sitting on the right side of the bus was completely soaked, all the bags were drenched, we may as well have been sitting outside. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but since this was the only “nice” bus ride we were supposed to have the whole trip, I can only imagine how downhill it will go from here.

We got to Tulum in the early afternoon, and it was still pouring. However, since we didn’t want to waste the day, I left with three of the others from my group (Dina from the UK, Martina from Switzerland and David from DC) to go see the Tulum ruins. Our tour leader told us it would be a short 2k walk down the beach – after 50 minutes of walking, we decided he must have underestimated. We got very lucky – the rain let up just enough for us to see the ruins.

The things they built were amazing – about 15 large buildings just sitting on the edge of the coast. The buildings have been there for hundreds of years, have been through hurricanes and horrible weather, and yet they still stand. It was really cool to look at the ruins and compare them to those in both Chechen Itza and Machu Picchu.  So many similarities, a few differences, and all are amazing for allowing us a small glimpse into the history of these cultures.

June 6^th – Tulum

Today was another scuba diving day! Dina and Martina are both certified scuba divers as well (though both have more experience than I do), so the three of us decided scuba dive in a cenote. A cenote is an old sinkhole that allows us to see into an underground river and it consists of a number of different chambers/caves.

We dived in one called Dos Ojos – there are two different open water areas that are tied together by underground caves. They are freshwater so the water was pretty chilly – I wore a full length wetsuit covered by a shortie wetsuit. It is so amazing when you get underground though – it looks similar to a cave, with lots of stalactites and stalagmites and columns, but it is all underwater. We had flashlights because it was completely underground. You could shine your light into one of the chambers and just never see where it ended. On the second dive we also came up in one chamber that had about 8 feet of air above it. As with many regular caves, there were bats hanging from the ceiling. Since the ceiling was so low and we were bobbing in the water, they were right above our heads – probably the closest I ever need to be to a bat! Doing the cave dives was really cool and something I would love to do again.

When we got to the hotel, it had finally stopped raining and we were lucky enough to get a few hours of beach time. Our hotel is amazing – it’s an eco lodge outside of town, so it is fairly secluded. They only turn the power on a few hours in the morning and evening each day, which is all you really need. We are right on the beach and are sleeping in little huts with mosquito nets over the beds. The bathrooms are all shared, but the best part is the showers. They are all outdoors, so as you are showering you can look up and still see the sun. I could definitely stay here for a few additional days.