Central America Slide Show

We are back and completely consumed with school right now so it may be a long time before we actually write anything about the last portion of our Central America trip. So, we've put together a slide show for you to enjoy! It takes a little while to buffer so it's good to pause it and let it buffer for a few minutes so you can watch it without interruptions. If it's not working here you can open it in YouTube.

Mexico, Guatemala and Copan Ruinas

With Michelle starting PA school in mid-August and Matthew having the summer off from BSU during his pre-dental prerequisite classes, we realized this would be our last summer of total freedom for quite a while. So of course we had to don our backpacks and head for warmer climes while the gettin' was good.

Our journey started with loading up the Camery (formerly known as Campry) and heading east to Laramie, Wyoming to stay for a few days with Michelle´s parents and play with Meg, Dave and Sol. We left our trusty steed in Laramie and hitched a ride with Glen and Darla to the Denver Aiport where we met up with Matthew´s brother, Nathan and new wife, Melanie. From there we flew to Cancun, Mexico.

Being anxious to save a buck we stayed one night in Cancun city (not the hotel zone) for a place that was only $4 per person per night--a screaming deal--and split the next day to Isla Mujeres. Isla Mujeres was a great budget option for the ¨Cancun experience.¨ Matthew says, ¨It totally ruled!!!¨ There we had fun in the sun, went snorkeling, seeing lots of colorful fish and even taunted some beracuda! We visited a sea turtle research center and held a six foot cat shark (kept in a sea corral). Isla Mujeres is highly recommendable and we had the good fortune of hitting it when there were few tourists because of the mass hysteria caused by the dreaded swine flu...which, by the way, only two of the four of us caught so far. Really there has been no indication of any increased flu in Mexico...thank you Obama and goons for further perpetuating global hysteria and the need for everyone to rely on the US federal government for their wellbeing.

Valladollid was our base for visiting the massive Maya ruin site of Chichen Itza and a couple of cenotes (limestone sinkholes that are filled with fresh ground water that make for some awesome cave-like swimming experiences). If you have been following this blog you will remember Matthew´s extensive photo documentation of Chichen Itza from our last trip down here. The day was long and hot and we almost lost Melanie to heat exhaustion but luckily it was nothing a cold liter of Fanta couldn´t cure.

Our next base camp was Tulum on the beautiful Caribbean coast of Mexico. We stayed in a beach hut that was questionably a homosexual gathering place and had a shower room that was specifically for ¨romantic¨ activities. At least is had a beaded curtain for the door (not too conducive to private showering). The beach was beautiful white sand and the water was warm and blue. There are Maya ruins on the coast at Tulum that loom directly over a sea cliff. We visited the ruins and spent the afternoon body surfing at their base. Michelle FINALLY got the hang of body surfing and had a blast! That day we all got thoroughly sun burned despite multiple sunscreen applications. From Tulum we also visited the ruins of Coba and and nearly lost Melanie again to the sun god, Quetzalcoatl, and his minions of heat stroke. We also saw a number of american crocodiles in a big lake right on the edge of town and had a close up experience with a baby red lord amazon parrot that just bailed out of its nest and could hardly fly.

We did a border crossing at Chetumal into Northern Belize and drove through Belize onto Guatemala in one day. From what we could tell of mainland Belize we did not miss much by not stopping although the popular cayes (islands) are surely beautiful due to their popularity. Shortly after crossing into Guatemala a gigantic iguana with bright orange and black tiger stripes and body the size of a large dog crossed the road in front of us. In length from head to tail it was a good 6 feet long. It was interesting to see the sheer volume of farm animals grazing near the edge of the highway in the Peten with no fences to keep them off the road.


























We made the island of Flores, Guatemala (in the lake of Peten Itza) our base and had an incredible visit to Tikal. There we saw lots of animal life including parrots, tucans, many other birds, coatimundi, aguti, and spider monkeys. The site is so incredible it´s nearly impossible to explain in words. Towards the end of the day we met a Maya shaman in an excluded part of the ruin site. He gave each of us a soul reading of sorts and we learned that Melanie has a third eye, Nathan does what he does with an extreme level of knowledge, Michelle has an extremely positive aura and the potential to obtain a superior level of astronomical power and cosmic knowledge, and Matthew was simply empty with thoughts that jump all over the place. That clearly explains his difficulty with chemistry.




Our next destination was the incredible natural wonder of Semuc Champey. We visited this spot on our last trip and couldn´t pass up the opportunity to come back. It is situated in a limestone canyon, deep in the jungle of Central Guatemala and consists of a huge staircase of a dozen or more crystal clear, blue pools, each deep enough to swim and dive into with waterfalls flowing between. If you wanted to plan a postcard-perfect garden for swimming you could not do better than this place. Nathan and Matthew had fun wrangling green tree snakes and basilisk lizards. We stayed in a jungle hut just a few meters from the park entrance. Nathan exhibited his supreme manliness with a 40 foot bridge jump into the Rio Cahabon...despite his screaming like a school girl and wild-midair appendage flailing.

Antigua, Guatemala was the last base camp for Nathan and Melanie before returning back to their life of luxury and drudgery at home. From Antigua we did a day trip to the market in Chichicastenango, Guatemala´s largest. We traveled by chicken bus (old US school buses with big stereo systems, lots catholic paraphernalia and luggage racks) which turned out to be one of the most death defying experience of our lives. Picture an old US school bus full of Guatemalans and us ripping through narrow, crowded neighborhood streets at 70 mph with minimal breaking, lots of horn blowing and an extraordinary amount of praying for life preservation....multiply that by four and you are beginning to scratch the surface of the severity of the situation. We are convinced that by far the most dangerous part of traveling in C. America is not the thugs that are itching to mug you but rather the public transportation that is equally on the edge of robbing you of life at any unexpected moment. We should also say that the tourist shuttles (minivans) are no safer and we figure have a greater chance of getting creamed by a head-on collision with a dump truck or chicken bus as nearly ever driver down here feels like they have to pass on blind corners at every possible opportunity. We picked up some Guatemalan souvies at the market and spent a couple more days in Antigua enjoying the culture.

We were able to fulfill Nathan´s life-long dream of encountering live lava flows at arms length. Volcan Pacaya offered us a great experience with jamming wooden walking sticks into the lava. Matthew procured his own hot lava souvenir and cooled it with bottle of water so he could take it home.















After that Nathan and Melanie flew home out of Guatemala City and we headed on southeast to Copan Ruinas, Honduras. For some reason we had low expectations for the archaeological site here but we were way off with our assumption--it was amazing! Immediately as we entered the park we were greeted by a large flock of scarlet macaw parrots. We were able to approach them within arms length at times and got lots of photos. It was incredible! It was one wildlife experience Matthew had long hoped for but we didn´t think the chances of seeing these birds was pretty remote. That was the first pleasant surprise. Next, the stela (carvings) were amazing. The detail was impeccable and level of preservation was unbelievable in such a wet jungle climate. Many of the buildings had intricate glyphs and carvings as well. This site also offers the opportunity to go into a couple of the archeology tunnels under a few of the structures for an exorbitant additional cost, but we were able to bribe a guard and explore them on our own for a fraction of the regular price. It was exciting and we even had to be sneaky and dodge a couple of tour groups passing through the tunnels as you are really only supposed to be there in guided groups. The tunnel experience made us feel like Indiana Jones because they uncover interior buildings and carvings that were previously covered over by later Maya structures. Just as we came out of the tunnels it the rainy season hit hard and it didn´t really let up for a week!





































































Next, through three days of hot, sweaty, uncomfortable bus travel we finally made it to La Ceiba, Honduras and this morning the sun is finally shining through the cloud cover, so we are off to the beach and we will update later.

Getting Ready

Matthew and I just booked tickets to Central America. We are leaving at the end of May for two months spent between Cancun, Mexico and San Jose, Costa Rica. We are spending our spring break (this week) getting our gear collected and making preparations for the trip. Stay tuned for more posts on preparing for this kind of trip.

Here are some of the websites we are reading up on in preparation for the trip:
Travel Independent
Passplanet
Lonely Planet

Southern Utah

We decided to take advantage of some time off from school and do some exploring in the southwestern corner of Utah. We were graciously lodged in Michelle's grandparents trailer house which made it an even better travel experience (we anticipated staying in the Campry...aka Camry turned into a camper). Some of the highlights were getting to know Megan's new baby Solomon, Michelle almost stepping on a rattlesnake and seeing tons of red rock in great formations and petroglyphs.

Click here to check out our slide show.

We took a few short movies of the snake encounter so take a look!

Rattlesnake Encounter 1

Rattlesnake Encounter 2

Rattlesnake Encounter 3

Rattlesnake Encounter 4

Rattlesnake Encounter 5

Slide Shows from our Latest Trip

The following are links to our slide shows from our last trip. As ususal, click on the gold button marked "View Slide Show" after clicking on the link. Happy viewing!

Philadelphia to Kirtland, Ohio

Chicago and Indianapolis

Vincennes, Indiana to Nauvoo, Illinois

Philedelphia and On

Please forgive us for being slow in making this update. You see, a road trip that we thought would take about one and a half months kept us on the road for about two and a half months instead. With limited internet access on the road we haven't been able to do any updates until now. This turned out to be one of our favorite trips of the year. The Northeast was the highlight since we hit it at the perfect time to see the leaves change. We had fun traveling for about a month with Matthew's brother's family so look for some of them in our pictures (see next entry for slide shows).

Road Trip Map
I have created a map in Google Maps so you can see the basic route we took on this adventure. Click here to check it out. (FYI--It takes a bit to load because of all the stops) Google Maps only allows us to mark a limited number of destinations on the map so it's not fully complete as we put on just under 10,000 miles in the two and a half months of our last trip.


Pennsylvania
While in Pennsylvania we visited quite a bit of Amish country in Lancaster County and the surrounding areas. It was fun seeing Amish people harvesting corn stalks from their fields with horse-drawn harvesting machines. It was like visiting the people of Little House on the Prairie. We also spent a day in Philadelphia seeing the Liberty Bell, surrounding historic sites and learning about Benjamin Franklin.







Boston
In Boston we stayed with Michelle's friend, Michelle DiMartini and got a brief overview of the sites. We climbed to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial, traced the steps of Paul Revere's famous ride and learned about the "Shot heard round the world." The really fun thing about visiting these old cities was being able to see where the events took place that we learned about as kids. We also visited Walden Pond in Massachusetts where Henry David Thoreau and other famous philosophers have spent their days.


Acadia National Park, Maine and the Adirondacks, New York State
Acadia National Park is extremely beautiful and Maine turned out to be one of our most favorite states of all our travels. It has lots of hills and mountains that reveal pristine lakes and beautiful vegetation. Each valley was breathtaking. We were there at the perfect time as the leaves were beautiful reds, oranges and yellows. What made it even more beautiful was that the forests also have evergreen trees so you get a sharp contrast with the deep green needles--so incredible! We also had fun exploring some of the rocky Atlantic shorelines of the park, catching crabs and other sea critters with our nephews.


Quebec, Canada
We visited both Quebec City and Montreal in Canada. Quebec City was a charming place with great views of the St. Lawrence River wherever you look. We visited the huge waterfall in the middle of town that dumps into the St. Lawrence River. It was pretty but it would also be awesome to go in the winter because a huge ice mound forms right in front of the waterfall and people climb it with ice axes and crampons. Montreal has a nice French colonial feeling. Michelle was most impressed by the city's bank buildings because their architecture is so ornate and rich. Note to anyone who might visit there: parking in the city is terrible and the parking meters (which are impossible to avoid) all cost $3/hour! Canada was fun, but quite expensive!


Palmyra and Niagara Falls, New York
In Palmyra we visited a number of historical sites belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the LDS Church, aka the Mormon Church). (In case you didn't know and if you still haven't figured it out, that's the church we belong to). It was very interesting to see where the events of Joseph Smith's first vision and restoration of the gospel took place. We visited Niagara Falls next and enjoyed a free ride aboard the Maid of the Mist boat, thanks to Jared's (Matthew's brother) gift of gab. The Maid of the Mist is a big boat that takes you right up to the bottom of the waterfalls. It was pretty cool (and very wet). We walked around on the Canadian side to view the falls from there as well. We were surprised by the $.50 "turn-style fee" that Canada charges to exit the country. Those Canadians really like to nickel and dime you good, or in this case quarter you.


Milwaukee and Chicago
In Milwaukee we enjoyed spending time with Jodee and David Luke. Jodee took us down to Chicago for a day and showed us the sights. We took a free tour of the downtown area offered at the public library and learned a lot about the architecture. Chicago was a lot more artistic than Michelle anticipated, it being her first visit to the Windy City. While in Milwaukee we toured the Harley-Davidson Power Train plant. We were able to see how they put the engines together. We asked them when they were going to give out free motorcycle samples, but they didn't seem to be very amused by the question.


Indiana
The main attraction of Indiana for us was visiting Matthew's extended family. In Indianapolis we stayed with Matthew's cousin, Jennifer. There we also visited the Indy 500 Racetrack museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the war memorials downtown. After that we headed down to Vincennes where Matthew's dad grew up. We stayed in the house where Matthew's grandparents lived and visited the places that were landmarks for family history. It was really nice for Michelle to meet Matthews relatives since it was her first time visiting.

If you are planning a trip

If you are planning a trip to one of the places that we have mentioned in our blog, please check out our favorite travel websites and travel guidebooks listed in the right margin. Happy trails!

Back on the Road...East Coast

After one week in Lake Powell with Michelle's family we headed out to Bethesda, MD for Michelle's regular medical check up at the National Institutes of Health. After four painful needle sticks and a gamut of tests everything is looking up. We have been spending the last week seeing the sights of the Washington, D.C. area; here are some of our favorite things we've seen:

National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport
This is the lesser known companion to the Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. It's collection is housed in an airplane hanger and it is packed to the brim with planes, engines and spacecraft. Some of its more notable pieces are the Enola Gay (which dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima), the last remaining NASA space shuttle Enterprise, and one of the last remaining of the Concord jets. We recommend taking the tour to get more background info about the craft because the plaques appear to be written by engineers.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Though the brochure says it should take you 1.5 to 2 hours to see the permanent exhibit we were there for six hours. We learned a lot about World War II and the events leading up to it in addition to the tragedy of the holocaust. The exhibit is very well done and doesn't play off of shock value. They do a nice job of telling the story and letting the events speak for themselves. It was an exhausting day but powerful as well.

Manasses National Battlefield Park
This is the site of a few Civil War battles. It was interesting to see the largely-unchanged countryside where the battle took place. This site offers a walking tour to various plaques located throughout the field. It was very educational and provided good insight into what happened there.

National Zoological Park
The zoo in D.C. is great and it's free. Matthew really likes the Amazonia building. It contains an ecosystem recreation complete with fish, sting rays, birds, monkeys and a whole array of Amazon plant life all living together in one humidity controlled room. Michelle's favorite part is the Bird House. Here we were able to see a kiwi bird, New Zealand's national symbol, which is very rare because they are only active at night and they blend in really well in a dark space. This zoo is known for it pandas. When we were here two years ago a baby panda had just been born. We saw it last week and it had grown a lot!

U.S. Capitol Building Tour
The tour through the capitol building is something you have to get tickets for so we hadn't done it on our previous visits. As it turns out, tickets are easy to get if you show up on a day when there aren't a billion tourists roaming around D.C. The tour was interesting. They take you through the rotunda, give you historical tidbits about the building and the artwork it contains, show you through part of the House of Representatives wing and then let you look around it unrestricted areas on your own. We learned that each state is allowed to place two statues in the building. We found both a Wyoming's statues (Esther Hobart Morris--a gal from Wyoming who was the nation's first female justice of the peace, and Chief Washakie, a Shoshone Indian chief who wanted to make peace with white men) but we were only able to find one Idaho statue that being of Senator George Laird Shoup.

We've found that September is a great time to visit Washington, D.C. because it's out of the tourist high season. It's much easier to enjoy the great museums and sites without the feeling of being in the midst of a stampede. We haven't taken any pictures here because we felt it unnecessary to document things that are already in a museum so please use your imagination for now and make the trip out here to see it for yourself when you can!

Yellowstone to Glacier National Park

Just back from a tour through Idaho, Wyoming and Montana--here are some pictures and videos of our trip.

Yellowstone-Glacier Slideshow

Deer on Jenny Lake in Teton Nat'l Park

Boiling mud in Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Geyser in Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Geyser in Yellowstone Nat'l Park 2

Bison greets us in our Camery (commentary by Michelle's Mom, Michelle & Matthew)

Pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park

Click on the following link to view pictures of us in Rocky Mountain National Park!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Colorado, Southern Utah, and a little New Mexico

We just got back from a road trip through Colorado, Southern Utah, a bit of New Mexico and Southern Wyoming. Some of the highlights were Canyonlands National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon National Historical Site and Rocky Mountain National Park. The following link is a slide show with captions to share our great experience.

Four Corners Roadtrip

Video Clips from Central America and Hawaii

These are a few random video clips we took while in Central America and Hawaii...just in case you didn't get enough from our pictures and commentary. Click on the link and enjoy!
Frisky Iguanas at Chichen Itza, Mexico
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 1
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 2
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 3
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 4
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 5
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 6
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 7
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 8
Monkeys at Tikal, Guatemala 9
Pineapple cutting at Kihei, Maui

Slideshow links are fixed!

The links have been fixed on the Mexico and Guatemala slideshows. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Mexico and Guatemala Slideshows

Here are our pictures from Mexico and Guatemala. These are uncut so take as much or as little time as you would like to enjoy them and read the captions below each picture for explanation. Simply click on the location link below and then click on the gold button that says "View Slideshow." Enjoy!
Yucatan, Mexico
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Ruta Puuc and Uxmal, Mexico
Campeche and Chiapas, Mexico
Palenque, Mexico
Western Guatemala
Tikal, Guatemala

Guatemala

Our last activity in San Cristobal was a horseback ride to San Juan Chamula, which is a Mayan village just outside of the city. We thought it might be one of those nose-to-tail-mosey-down-the-trail affairs but it was actually really cool. We took a collectivo to a field in the middle of town and they had 3 horses saddled there, one for our guide and two for us. We mounted up and rode the horses through the edge of town (including some busy traffic areas) and then up into the hills. We were permitted to ride a fast or as slow as we wanted to. Our guide seemed to like trotting speed but Matthew and I preferred (as seems logical) to either walk or gallop (easier on the rear!). He let us gallop ahead of him and we were really clipping along on the dirt road. We rode through several villages that were very humble. Lots of Maya were washing their clothes in the creeks that flowed through. At one point a dog ran out in the street and was chasing Michelle’s horse. She charged on at full speed but the dog suck right to the horse’s front hooves for several yards. Eventually he gave up. It was pretty exciting!

We arrived at San Juan Chamula and spent an hour in the town. There is a really bizarre church there that was built to be Catholic but is now far from it. The place was filled with smoke and the floor was covered in pine needles. There were little groups of Maya people kneeling in front of rows of candles and chanting loudly in front of statues of saints. They offer bottles of soda (supposed to chase away evil spirits) and we even saw one guy sacrificing a chicken. It was really, really strange. The ride back to San Cristobal was nice. Our guide took us on a trail through a wooded area and we passed some Maya boys herding their sheep. The horses were actually pretty responsive except towards the end. They seemed to get crabby and tired and Michelle’s would kick every time she tried to get it to go faster. So after that great adventure, we were very sore, our butts especially. The saddles were wooden with a thin piece of leather "padding" so we took a pretty good beating. The experience was well worth the pain though!

The next stop was over the border into Guatemala, in Quetzaltenango (a.k.a. Xela). This area was very mountainous and covered in pine forests which didn’t look all that different from the scenery we are used to at home. We liked the perfectly cone shaped volcanoes that are visible from most places in Western Guatemala. Quetzaltenango was our first taste of Guatemala chaos. Guatemala was way more hectic than Mexico. The bus "terminal" is basically a big line of old US yellow school buses that pull through a garbage landfill (there is a street under there somewhere!--see picture to the left) and pick up passengers. It was most disgusting place we visited, aside from a few public bathrooms. There is little organization. You just ask around for which bus is going where you want to go and people tell you where to get on.

We did have some wickedly good hot chocolate in Quetzaltenango. A place called Café Luna serves chocolate, melted in milk and topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. Michelle also got her first taste of pupusas, a Salvadorian food that Matthew had on his mission and loved. They are little corn pancakes with cheese, meat or beans inside and topped with some pickled cabbage and hot sauce—pretty good!

Our biggest adventure in Quetzaltenango was trying to leave. The morning we made our attempt we got on a bus around 7 a.m. and made it about 10km out of town when everyone had to turn around and return because a teacher's strike had blocked the road using people and concrete barricades. It was lucky that we made it back into town because the return road was blocked after we passed through so had it taken longer we would have been stuck in the middle somewhere! Anyway, we got back to the bus terminal and another bus said that they were going another way so we jumped on that bus but the other way they were going to go was blocked too so we had to get off of that bus after it had driven for about 20 mins and take a taxi back to our hotel. It was a pretty wild experience! The chicken buses here go about 90 mph whenever they can and they pass on the highway (or streets through town) very precariously. For some reason they seem to always pick the blind corners to attempt passing. This is all with the baggage guys climbing in and out of the buses while we are going down the road!

Once we left Quetzaltenango we went to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. This is a large lake that is surrounded by volcanoes so you get the effect that you are in a big bowl. It is very beautiful there and the weather was just about perfect. We sprung for a hotel room with cable TV, the first we had seen since being at home. It was nice to kick back and watch a few movies in the evening. We took a boat trip to Santiago de Atitlan across the lake to check out their market day. The boat ride was very pleasant on the way to Santiago as the water was perfectly calm but on the way back the wind kicked up and we had some pretty sweaty palms as the launcha smashed over one big wave after another. Some of the Guatemalans in the boat even thought the fiberglass was flexing a little more than it should. We also took a day trip to Chichicastenango, which is known for hosting Central America's largest Maya crafts market. It definitely lived up to its reputation. We saw tons of weaving, painted masks, jewelry, machetes, pottery, etc. The weaving is one of the notable crafts that the Maya women do, so we bought a brightly colored handmade piece for a souvenir.

Antigua is known for its churches. It used to be the capital of Guatemala but in 1790 was hit by a huge earthquake that nearly leveled the entire city. The capital was subsequently moved to Guatemala City. After the capital moved a lot of the churches remained in ruin because there weren’t enough people to fund their rebuilding. It was interesting to walk around and see so many great buildings just laying in ruin, yet they still maintained their charm.

While in Antigua we took a tour to Volcan Pacaya, which is one of the three active volcanoes in Guatemala. We hiked with a group up to the spot where lava was issuing and the smell of melting shoe rubber was in the air. Like in Hawaii, people are permitted to go as close to the lava as they want. The heat was really intense and there were even some hikers that were roasting marshmallows over the cooling lava. We were a little more conservative than some in our group but Matthew still got some great shots of the lava flowing. (more pics in the slide show) This time we had a tripod so our photos are better than those we took in Hawaii. The volcano hike is always a winner. There is nothing quite like watching liquid rock!

On our way from Antigua to Cobán, we made a quick stop over in Guatemala City to change buses. Guatemala City is supposed to be one of the most dangerous cities in Central America so we didn’t linger long. Our cab driver dropped us right in front of the bus station and told us to go directly inside and keep a good eye on our baggage. We followed his instructions and left unscathed. The bus trip to Cobán was reminiscent of the one we discussed earlier between Palenque and San Cristobal de Las Casas—constant turns. Luckily we were well armed with Mexican Dramamine so it was much more pleasant. Cobán was a nice city, though it is situated in the middle of nowhere. We took a day trip to Semuc Champey (which in one of the Maya languages means “river that goes underground”) and the Lanquin Caves. Semuc Champey was absolutely beautiful! It is a river that flows underground for about 300 meters and a dozen pools have formed on the land bridge over the river. The pools are crystal clear, a beautiful blue color and the water is the perfect temperature for swimming. There were even lots of little fish in each of the pools. We spent four hours swimming from pool to pool on this beautiful river in the middle of the jungle. Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures of it because it is a high theft area and since we would be swimming we didn’t want to get the camera stolen. I found this picture on the internet so you can get an idea of the beauty.

The Lanquin Caves were very large but not largely impressive. They have suffered a lot of damage at the hands of the locals so they weren’t like the pristine protected caves you see in the US. It looks like there have been lots of fires burned inside them, so the cave formations are covered in black soot and many of the more delicate formations have been broken off. The highlight of it was the large colony of bats that live in the cave. You can here them squeaking and see them flying around the whole time in the cave. Michelle only came out with two bites on her neck.

Flores was our next destination. It is a town in northern Guatemala on an island in the middle of Lake Peten-Itza which we used as a base from which to explore Tikal. Flores was nice…nice and hot, so we spent every afternoon on the docks of the lake swimming with the local boys and some fellow travelers.

Tikal was the highlight of the trip. It is the site of a ruined Maya city hidden in the deep jungle. We decided to take the “Sunrise Tour” and felt like it was well worth it. We left the hostel at 3:30 a.m., drove the hour to Tikal National Park, and then we walked 20 mins or so and climbed one of the temples from which we watched the sunrise. There was so much fog and cloud cover that we didn’t actually see the sunrise (which is not uncommon) but it was wonderful to be in the jungle just as it was waking up. We could hear howler monkeys in the distance, fabulous green Amazon parrots were flying all over the place and several other birds were joining in singing. It was really magnificent. In addition to the impressive pyramids we were able to see three toucans, several howler monkeys, a spider monkey and tons of green parrots. This site was our favorite because not only did it have incredible architecture, but the setting and the wildlife made it even more mystical. It was absolutely incredible!

From Flores we took a direct bus to San Salvador, El Salvador to catch our flight back to the US. The bus ride took 11 hours and had no A/C and this annoying hole in the ceiling that let the sun beat down on you, but we made it safe and sound. In San Salvador, we enjoyed more pupusas right on the street so Matthew was able to live one of his dreams that he’s had since eating pupusas in Australia on his mission.

Merida to San Cristobal de Las Casas

We ended up staying six days in Merida because it is a great place to take day trips from and the city is very beautiful. It´s only flaw is the heat and the heat wouldn´t be that bad except there are very few escapes from it. When it´s hot in the U.S. you can go to the mall or maybe you have A/C at home or in your car. Either way, there is some way to get some relief. Here, however, very few buildings have A/C so when it´s hot...it´s HOT. Aside from that we had a great time. Merida has the feeling of a European city with its busy Plaza Principal and colonial architecture but you only need to wander a few blocks from the center of town to remember you are in Mexico. Many of the buildings there have had dozens of coats of paint and you can usually see several of them as the new layers have aged. It creates a beautiful atmosphere of unique textures and colors.

We did a full day trip out to the city of Izamal dubed the ¨Yellow City¨ due to being mostly painted in yellow along the streets. It is an old colonial town that was built in the middle of a handfull of Mayan pyramids. There are still three huge pyramids situated right in the middle of town amidst houses and buildings. Some people in that town literally have Mayan ruins for their back yard! It was super hot of course and we probably drank about 3 cold sodas each while there to try to cope with it. We hit the best restaurant in town for a splurge and it was a nice experience. The centerpiece of the town´s focus is a HUGE monestary-cathedral that is raised about 50 feet above the streets since it was built literally on top of the largest of the old Mayan pyramids, using it as a base or foundation. It was really cool to see and interesting at how the Jesuits came in and basically did whatever they wanted to the Maya peoples that were here first.

The Ruta Puuc was also a full day trip in which we visited five ruin sites in one day (Labna, Sayil, Xlapak, Kabah and then Uxmal). The extreme heat and humidity put somewhat of a damper on the experience but nevertheless it was incredible. We figure it was well over 100 degrees F with the sun in full strength and about 40 percent humidity. The ornate Chac-Mool (Mayan rain god) masks are all over most of these sites and for good reason, it´s hotter than hell with the lid on and very dry in those parts of the Yucatan. There are no rivers or lakes in the Yucatan, but around 3000 cenotes which they had to rely on for their water.








This leads into our next day trip which was a tour to a couple of picturesque cenotes out in the middle of nowhere. They are basically caves that are full of ground water. Some of them have stalactites and small black catfish in them, and tons of bats and birds overhead. It appears that most of the wild animals out there well know that fresh water and releif from the blistering heat can be found in them. On the tour we went snorkeling in two cenotes. The water was crystal clear, regular swimming pool temperature and about 40 deep from the surface. They are actually caves so they go way deeper than we could go snorkeling but they are sometimes explored by cave divers and are kind of mysterious. It was the best possible way to take a break from the Yucatecan heat and also a fun adventure.

Next we headed down to the city of Campeche which is on the Gulf of Mexico. We thought this might provide some relief from the heat but were gravely mistaken. The heat was absolutly unbearable there and the water was pretty gross and there were no beaches in town. The city is famous for it´s pirate history and it´s old sections of stone fort walls that still stand in parts of town. Other than staying in the Pirate´s hostel we saw little of it. We got out of town heading south as soon as we possibly could. We are completely baffeled at how people can exist there in that kind of heat. Not our kind of town.

Palenque was MUCH nicer. We stayed in a nice place in the jungle about a mile away from the Mayan ruins of Palenque. This place was a beautiful change! Michelle was kept awake at night by the howler monkeys that start up around dusk and keep at it until around 3:00am. There was wildlife all around that place. We had a little cabin right beside a swimming pool and there was a wild fish pond right next to the pool in which there were turtles and Jesus Christ lizards sunning themselves most of the day. For those of you who are not avid Jeff Corwin fans...we´ll explain how the Jesus Christ lizard gets its name: when they are scared or feel threatened they run away on their hind legs and usually over the surface of water. Since they can literally walk on water, well, that´s where it comes from. We were able to scare a couple of them right over the top of the fish pond! The gekos were our friends since they ate the insects in our room that Michelle was afraid of. The place was crawling in these cool little guys but they are a nice addition.

The ruins of Palenque are absolutly amazing! They are our favorite ruin site yet. They are perched high up in the jungle and are riddled with running creeks and small waterfalls. There are many impresive carvings and the famous observatory tower that it´s most well known for. The whole place was like looking at post cards wherever you turned. We got lots of great pictures at these sites but we are still trying to find an internet connection fast enough that will allow us to post them here on the blog.

The bus ride south to San Cristobal de las Casas was the worst either of us have ever experienced. It follows a picturesque winding mountain road for five solid hours and dispite the beauty, neither of us really enjoyed any of it since we were very motion sick and ready to lose it the WHOLE way! Needless to say, we stocked up on the Mexican equivalent of Dramamine that same evening in San Cristobal de las Casas for futur bus rides in the highlands.

San Cristobal has beautiful mountain scenery and good weather with high temps reaching only to the 70s-80s. There are lots of trees and a lot of the sidewalks and streets are cobblestone. The architecture in general, has more of a colonial feel to it and there are definitly way more foreign tourists here than anywhere else we´ve seen in Mexico. There is a very strong hippy presence here and our hostel eminates a strong smell of weed most of the time. (You don´t even have to buy it here...you about get a free buzz just going to the lounge)...if we were into that sort of thing. You can definitly sense that this area was the center of the Zapatista movement in the mid 1990s. There are tons of machine gun wielding Mexican military personel patrolling the city and we´ve seen a fair amount of Zapatista graffiti and souveniers (i.e., masked dolls holding machine guns...a bit disturbing!). We even passed an operating Zapatista training school on the way into town. There is also a much larger Mayan presence here as we get closer to Guatemala. Every time we sit down to eat in a restaurant or on a park bench or even just walk down the street Mayan children and old women thrust their souveniers in our faces and beg us to buy them. There are also lots of beggers just sitting along the sidewalks. The poverty is very apparent.

The architecture here incorporates much more wood and even some of the big cathedrals have wood floors and ornate wood ceilings and carvings. Overall it´s a beautiful city and it´s easy to see why there are so many other travelers here too.

The food for the most part is nothing like what we Americans think of as Mexican. It´s always served in very small portions and the taste is nothing to look forward to. We have discovered that the reason why they serve soft corn tortillas with EVERYTHING is because if you mix everything on your plate together in one of them it magically becomes edible! (Strange but true...unfortunatly this is only a very recent discovery on our part).

El Yucatan

We are officially south of the border in old Mexico (that´s Mejijo for you Glenn Beck listeners out there). We got into Cancun Tuesday about 2 hrs late because they had to change some part on the plane in Denver before we could take off. This made us a bit nervous since we knew we had a reservation for our first night in Cancun at a hostel and we had no way of letting them know that we were going to show up late. We were lucky and they didn´t give our room away before we got there after all that time. Once we dropped our stuff off at the hostel we went out to walk around a bit downtown (not in the tourist part of Cancun but the real down town) to get taste of what it´s going to be like for a while. After looking around at a number of street food stalls we decided to pass them up and eat for the first time in a real restaurant serving Yucatecan food. Michelle already has had stomach problems since Boise anyways so we have to ease her into things slowly here. (The food at that place was not very good and quite possibly the source of Michelle´s first encounter with Montezuma´s revenge...not pretty).

The first thing the next morning we got on a second class bus bound for Valladolid which is a nice little colonial town about 140 kms due west of Cancun. The idea was to get out of Cancun in a hurry and get into the real Mexico right off the bat...Valladolid was it. The town has a central park which is one city block and across the street on the south side is the town cathedral (very typical of a town down here). The cathedral is huge for such a small town...so we think. Here we caught some of the Semana Santa procession which was basically a small parade of catholics carrying candles, signs, flowers and various other Catholic paraphernalia. They circled the square and entered into the cathedral across the street and there held some sort of mass.

The hostel in Valladolid is called Albergue la Candelaria which is an old house (over 200 yrs old) that has gone through probably a dozen changes from originally being a house for a single wealthy family to a nun convent to various other domiciles and now a hostel. The place was very cool and our room was the best in the house with as small balcony overlooking the park and with views of the big church La Candelaria (a different big church--they are all over the place here). It was super cool and the room only cost about US$20 per night!

While based in Valladolid we took a day trip to Chichen Itza which is the most famous, largest and most restored of all the Mayan ruin sites in the Yucatan. It was completely awesome! We will post all our photos and even the video we took of that day once we can find a decent Internet connection somewhere down here. About all we can find is dial-up and it´s not good enough to upload so many large files. Stay posted!

Chichen Itza was absolutely incredible! The stone carvings and architecture were enough to leave you speechless and there were tons of wild Iguanas climbing around on them, sunning themselves. There are also two huge cenotes (sink holes in the limestone bedrock that form large natural wells) in the site as well. These are swarming with lots of interesting birds. Matthew had no problem filling our 1GB camera memory card and wished he had about 3 GB. This is an absolute must-see for anyone that goes to the Yucatan!

The next day we took the 1st class bus (with movies, A/C and on-board toilet) to Merida which is the capital city of the Yucatan (around 1 million people). It is more like being in Europe than in Central America. The main square is surrounded by interesting buildings, especially the huge cathedral which is one of the oldest churches in the Americas. Merida was once the site of a Mayan city called T´ho and at the time of the Spanish conquest they tore down the Mayan temples and buildings and used the stone blocks to build the immense cathedral along with a handful of other churches near the square. One of them about a block north of the square even has a couple of blocks that still show Mayan carvings on them. (Click on the picture at the left to see the two carved stones in detail.) There are also a number of other interesting buildings around the square like the Palacio de Gobierno (Yucatan´s State Capitol bldg.) which has lots of large murals depicting the bloody history of the region. On the south side is the original façade of the Conquistador´s house with it´s statues of Spanish soldiers in armor standing on the heads of some dead Maya Indians. The whole square is very picturesque with many colors and bustling with vendors, street performers and Merida citizens. The vendors really try to push you hard to buy hammocks and other handmade stuff from them...but we´re going to hold off until toward the end of the trip so we don´t have to haul around more weight and bulk in our packs. The weather is very hot and sweltering with high humidity so we try not to carry them any more than we have to.

Today (Sunday) we went to church about 15 blocks from where we´re staying. Then afterwards we toured El Paseo de Montejo which is a famous street with lots of historic bldgs. lining both sides. The cyber infrastructure is somewhat less than desirable down here so we find ourselves spending more time than we´d like just looking for an Internet cafe that has a fast enough connection to load up the cool pics we have taken to share them with you all and to back them up for our own piece of mind. For now words will have to do.

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Hawaii -- The Big Island

We flew to Kona on February 5 on a last minute flight and immediately enjoyed great snorkeling right in the middle of town. You may know that the Iron Man Triathlon is held in Kona each October but what you probably don’t know is that about 20 feet off shore from where they start the swimming race is fantastic snorkeling! We were amazed that is was so accessible. There are tons of healthy coral, tropical fish and a few sea turtles readily available for the viewing right there. Some of the highlights we saw were a Hawaiian lobster, a huge moray eel, three or four sea turtles, and an octopus. Michelle enjoyed picking all out all of the fish from Finding Nemo. We went snorkeling several times in that spot and had a blast each time.

The thing we were both most anxious to see was hot flowing lava. The Big Island is home to the world’s most active volcano, Kilauea. It’s about 100 miles from Kona to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park so we made the drive in the morning and that afternoon hiked out to see the lava. To see the lava you drive down to where the lava has covered up the road, park your car, the ranger asks you if you have flashlight and water, then tells you to “Have fun!”, then you hike out about 4 miles over a giant lava field. There aren’t any signs or guides out there to let you know where to go. So, we just walked toward the giant plume of steam where the lava was pouring into the ocean.

About two miles into our hike we saw some smoke about 1/2 mile away so we walked over to check it out and caught our first glimpse of red-hot lava. It was a very slow pahoehoe flow that crept along at about the speed of cold honey. Every now and then the silvery outer skin of one of the blobs would break and red-hot lava would gush out. It was here that we realized it is hard to tell the difference between the hot lava and the cold lava during daylight hours because the silvery skin that forms around the hot lava looks an awful lot like the solid(?) rock we were hiking on. We were amazed at the potential hazards all around us and were a little more cautious for the rest of the hike. When we got out to the two spots where the lava was really pumping into the ocean it was just getting dark. Visually, the lava really comes alive at night because you can see the glow so well. We stopped about 150 feet from the flow to watch and at that point the rocks we were standing on were HOT. The rock all around us had cracks that were issuing steam and even more heat. One guy near us melted his backpack when he set it down to take a picture! We stood and watched the lava and the ocean washing back and forth. It was one of the most impressive natural sights we both have ever witnessed and definitely the hottest!

The four-mile night hike back to the car over the lava rocks was cumbersome but really enjoyable because the stars were so bright and there was lava everywhere! We were really surprised because we had seen only the one surface flow during the day. Once it was dark we could see it all the way up the mountainside to our right and along the sea cliffs to our left. It looked like a lot like a forest fire and was all around us in the distance. Needless to say this is a must see; we loved it! The rest of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park consists of steam vents, some big craters that were giant lakes of lava within the last century, including one that was liquid for one hundred years up until 1959 (That would have been incredible to see!), and a lot of lava fields.

We drove over to Hilo on the east side of the island and picked up some groceries. Hilo didn’t seem to have a lot to offer to tourists so we didn’t spend much time there. South of Hilo we stopped at Lava Trees State Park which (true to its name) has lots of lava trees. It is nestled in a lush beautiful rainforest dominated my monkey pod trees which provide a serene canopy. Lava trees are formed when hot lava hits a very wet tree and cools before the tree is completely consumed. They look like termite mounds and range from four to ten feet in height. Near there we went swimming in a volcanically heated freshwater spring. It’s a manmade pool that was cold when it was built, but a few years later something shifted underground and it started pumping out warm water. It was neat because it is partially fed by the sea so there are lots of tropical fish. Matthew snorkeled around while Michelle basked in the warmth. The pool is between 90 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit so you really never get to warm or too cold in it.

Unfortunately this is where Michelle had her first bee sting, we suspect from one of the giant black Hawaiian bumble bees. She was sitting on a rock with the water almost up to the tops of her shoulders when she felt a little tickle on her neck. When she tried to scratch it she felt something fuzzy and flicked it away but not before it left its 2mm stinger in her neck. She never saw the bee. Luckily the sting was on the side that is still numb from surgery so it wasn’t extremely painful. We were worried that she might be allergic because it was her first bee sting but it just swelled up a little and itched and burned a bit. All in all it was an interesting way to get your first bee sting.

After our adventures with the volcano and the bee we returned to Kona for some more snorkeling and to soak up the sun during our last few days in Hawaii. We briefly visited a cloud forest just north of Kona which was very beautiful and lined with many sizeable estates. Just south of Kona, we went to see Pu’uhonua o Honaunau Place of Refuge National Historical Park. It is essentially a site that has several foundations of old Hawaiian temples and other buildings that have now been restored. There is a stone wall there that was built in the 1500s which separates the area where the Hawaiian royalty lived from the place of refuge. It had a really nice picnic area where we stretched out and took a nap on some nice white sand beneath coconut trees shimmering in the breeze. It was screen saver worthy.

We flew back to San Francisco on February 14 where we enjoyed a nice hot shower and a peaceful night’s sleep.