Belize

After spending a month and a half in the chilly mountains of Mexico and Guatemala, Dan and I were itching to get to the white sandy beaches and crystal clear Caribbean waters one thinks of when there is talk of Central America. We hoped to find just that in Belize!
We crossed by boat into Punta Gorda where we didn't find a whole lot going on. We travelled North to beachside Hopkins where we spent a few lovely days relaxing in the sun, swimming, and checking out the very talented Garifuna kids play traditional drums and attempted to shake our booties even half as fast as them (Dan came pretty close) and trying one of the delicious local dishes, hudut, a coconut soup with fish and spices served with mashed plantain.. so good!
We brought in the New Year on the beach of Hopkins Bay Resort listening to live music and watching the sky light up with fireworks. It felt oddly familiar, returning from the beach to a dorm room with the same New Zealand fellow I had somehow snagged 3 years previous in a much too similar setting in Phuket, Thailand.
From Hopkins we took the bus to Belize City and caught the ferry to Caye Caulker where the motto is "go slow," just what we were after! At this point we were pretty good at the Belizean chilled out beach ways and spent a few more days relaxing, but just had to slip in a day of diving to the world renowned Blue Hole.
The boat ride out to the Blue Hole was great in itself! We had dolphins playing in our wake and pilot whales jumping right next to the boat!
The Blue Hole itself was exactly that- a huge, very blue hole that seemed bottomless. We quickly descended to about 130ft to see the stalegtites then back up. There wasn't a lot of life, just some Caribbean reef sharks and a few in our group were lucky enough to see a hammerhead! We did a second dive at the more colorful Half Moon Wall where we saw spotted drummer fish, lion fish, an octopus, barracuda, grouper, cleaner shrimp, trigger fish and a big sting ray! We had lunch on Half Moon Caye and checked out the booby observatory where we could see many of the birds nesting over their unborn eggs. There was also a snorkel group feeding a shark and a sting ray right off the beach! Our last dive was at a site called Lion's Den named after the abundance of lion fish that had taken over. Here we also saw a puffer fish and eagle ray amung some other cool stuff!
We had one more relaxing day on Caye Caulker before heading back to Belize City and bee-lining it to the airport to catch our flight to Nicaragua!

Guatemala

Guatemala is a whirlwind of vibrantly colored blue bird buses, highly armed officials,  helpful locals and deliciously cheap eats!
We crossed into La Mesilla where we had our first experience of the well-known 'chicken bus', which isn't used to transport chickens at all anymore, or any other livestock for that matter. Only as many people as you could possibly cram into a school bus plus approx. 14 more..
Our first desination was Quetzaltenango (more commonly referred to as Xela), a mecca of foreign spanish language students and a thriving tourism industry catering to adventure seekers like ourselves. These locals took full advantage of their surroundings, with some of the most popular hiking in Central America. We took to some horse back riding then a bit of premature relaxation in the Fuentes Georginas Hot Springs before we indulged ourselves in a two day trek amongst the active volcano, Santiaguito. This beauty was in a state of erupting 3 to 50 times every day! An early start got us up to a viewpoint at around 9:00am (before the predictable cloud coverage) where we could look across and get our first experience of the eruptions. We continued through thick brush and narrow paths until we came to steep, slippery volcanic rock. We clambered down only to be faced with an equally steep climb back up to where we would camp and have easy access to another clear and much closer view of the volcano's crater. The six hour trek was well worth the reward. We found ourselves in surrounds we had never experienced before. No traces of human life, not even wild animals appeared to have made this their home.. we were alone. Once darkness had fallen and the rain clouds cleared, we all climbed about 10 minutes to where we watched in awe this natural phenomenon take its course. Each eruption as exciting as the last, we even got to see lava tumbling down the mountain!
The morning after we returned, we headed to the bus station. Now, when I say bus station in Guatemala I am referring to the mad cluster of chicken buses with destinations being yelled at every turn. I'll just call it a station because it seems as though there is an abundance departing from here. We were destined for the country's largest lake and holiday destination for tourists and Guatemalans alike, Lago de Atitlan. The lakeside town of San Pedro Las Laguna was beyond slow paced, and where we stayed, the Happy Hippy Hostel, took it even further. We gorged on "holy moly nachos" and soaked our tired trekking muscles in the solar hot pools, then took part in the Sunday poolside bbq that served even more ridiculous portions than Cafe Atitlan did with the "holy moly nachos"! We reluctantly carried on from the laid back San Pedro Las Laguna and travelled by water taxi across the lake to Panajachel where the streets are flooded with arts, handicraft and any kind of souvenir you could imagine!
Four chicken buses later (each with equally frantic change-overs) we were in Antigua where Dan and I spent our Christmas, able to skype both our families and enjoy the beautiful city. We splashed out on a minivan/1st class bus for the longer haul between Antigua and Rio Dulce which wasnt exactly the elegant city I was expecting by it's name.. we did however have a whole dorm to ourselves in the upstairs of a meat shop! And the hot waterfalls was well worth the trip. We took a cruise up the river to Livingston, unique in Guatemala as it is home to the rich Garifuna culture not found in the rest of the country.
Off to the beaches of Belize next!

Mexico

Our Mexico adventure began in style. Dan and I jetted off to Cancun where we made our way to Cozumel and joined 8 others on a 7 day all inclusive dive trip. Three dives a day led by our local divemaster, Jose, took us over vibrant coral, passing by swim throughs and greeted by turtles, nurse sharks, octopus, and lion fish (just to name a few!). A week flew by and Dan and I found ourselves in Playa del Carmen saying goodbyes to our new-found dive buddies. Then we were off on the the kind of travel we knew and loved - with a backpack on our backs!
From Playa del Carmen we took the bus to Tulum, a town set apart by its ruins overlooking the sea. We lucked out in meeting a great couple from Quebec, staying with a very generous local fellow who lent us a tent and let us stay on the small campsite he was the caretaker for. A backpackers' paradise hidden among dozens of high priced cabanas and resorts and only steps from the beach! We had a great couple days checking out the ruins, learning to cook some local cuisine, practicing our spanish, and simply enjoying great company before continueing on to Valladolid, greeted by beautiful colonial buildings and easy access to Mexico's greatest Mayan attraction, Chichen Itza. From Valladolid we continued west to Merida where we indulged in our first couch surfing experience. Our amazing host, Areli and her two beautiful daughters did an excellent job showing us around their city which is rich with museums, art, music and a highlight for me was a trip to a locally known jem, the Xlakah Cenote. For those who don't know, a cenote is a limestone sinkhole. Many of which can be found throughout the Yucatan, sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrifical offerings. We enjoyed some excellent snorkeling in this particular cenote with crystal clear water and loaded with colorful fish (some even nibbling at our toes)! From Merida we were bound for Campeche, a town whose walls were build to ward off pirates after an attack in 1663. We, however,didn't see any pirates. Only a town with a festive Christmas spirit! Next we found ourselves venturing to more ruins, this time in the jungles of Palenque. We continued to San Christobal de las Casas where we surfed the couch (and by that I mean he had a whole spare bedroom just for couchsurfers) of the very generous Oscar before heading out for a week at Tierra Plena. Where I even start to descibe this family I don't know. We found Beti and Rodrigo through couchsurfing. This couple had bought an old school bus, towed it to their property, where they lived in it while building up a sustainable home for them and their two little girls. They built a small wooden house, moved in and converted the bus into a dorm for couchsurfers and volunteers. Our time there was a mixture of planting seeds, cutting king grass, learning to make tamales (steamed corn dough) and ponche (a local christmas fruit drink), ground buckwheat flour, pruned fruit trees, helped build a chicken coop and even formed a team and ran for then Virgin of Guadalupe. A tradition of the Catholics of Mexico who form teams with family and friends to fulfil their promise to the Virgin by running to a chosen Cathedral, some travelling for over a week! Our team of 4 shared the run of about 24km from Tierra Plena to the Cathedral in San Christobal de las Casas, each taking 1km stints, wearing our crayon drawn Virgin of Guadalupe t-shirt with a framed picture of the saint in tow! Our travels of Mexico finished via Comitan and finally Ciudad Cuauhtémoc where we entered Guatemala.