June 2011
3 posts
Top 5s
Top 5 sites:
1: Tikal
2: Chichen Iza
3: Xunantunich
4: Tulum
5: Arenal Volcano
Top 5 experiences:
1: Snorkelling with sharks, rays and turtles at Shark Ray Alley, Ambergris Caye, Belize
2: Swimming with dolphins, Placencia, Belize
3: Climbing the tallest building in Tikal, Guatemala
4: Floating in hot springs in a thunder storm, Arenal, Costa Rica
5: Watching a lighting storm...
Last Post - Costa Rica
We’ve been really slack at posting as of late. I guess because we’ve been concentrating on making the most of our last weeks, rather than taking the time to reflect on them.
And what a great few last weeks.
I’ll be honest. When we first arrived in Costa Rica, we were a little let down. It’s a beautiful country, to be sure. But there’s something soulless about the place. But we quickly realised...
May 2011
21 posts
Back in Guatemala
Speedboats are a pretty cool way to travel. Especially when it comes to border crossings. Another trip across the Caribbean sea and we arrived back in Guatemala, this time to Puerto Barrios.
We were instantly jumped upon by men offering to take us to Honduras, or Livingston, or lots of other places that weren’t where we wanted to be. We eventually worked out that we could either take a tour down...
Central American drink guide
Coca-Cola - Everywhere The prolific traveller’s staple. Requires zero language skills.
Corona - Mexico Thirst quenching cold beer. Slightly more cool than Sol. Drunk with Lime.
Sol - Mexico Drunk by blokes in white jeans in the UK and by everyone in Mexico. With lime, cold, on the beach.
Pacifico - Mexico Nice beer. Slightly darker and more tasty than others.
Gallo - Guatemala Gallo means...
“When a man with a shotgun asks you for a cigarette, you don’t say no.”
– Idle thoughs
Cacao, chickenbuses and crystal skulls
From Placencia we headed for a great little rainforest lodge called Hickatee in Punta Gorda owned by fellow Brits Ian and Kate.
Ian met us from the plane and informed us we’d increased the number of Brits in south Belize from 12 to 14. He knows because he used to work for the High Commission. Although now that he’d told us, he’d have to kill us… Strange that the people...
Belize just became extra brilliant
It was while hanging out in Miramar, our air-con’d apartment facing the sea in Placencia, that I got a rather fantastic email. Well, a Twitter Direct Message, in fact. From an awesome agent saying that he’d like to take on my book.
I couldn’t quite believe it. And I waited for a few days, expecting him to message and say he’d only been joking. Or he had been drunk. But on...
Whale Sharks
Back over the border to Belize and a quick flight courtesy of Vern again (who we now like to think of as our personal pilot) and we arrived in Placencia – famous as one of the few places in the world where you can hang out with Whale Sharks.
Now, we’ve already snorkeled with Nurse Sharks which get up to about 9ft. But Whale Sharks can get up to 40ft! So we headed off the first day after...
Tikal
So you’ve probably guessed by now that we’re pretty keen on this Mayan stuff. And Tikal has been top of our ‘must see’ stops ever since we started planning this trip. So when we headed off to see it, early on Saturday morning, we were pretty excited.
All I can say is that it not only lived up to our expectation, but totally blew them away. And it’s going to take a far...
La Lancha
We had heard that the Western border crossing from Belize to Guatemala could be a little moody. So we took all sensible precautions: getting picked up by our lodge; hiding our money and cards in various ‘cunning’ places, including tucking $100 inside the packaging of a tin of sardines (why we have been carrying a tin of sardines all the way from Holbox deserves a blog post of its own at some...
The San Ignacio Iguana Project
In the San Ignacio Resort hotel, where we’re staying, they have an Iguana project. So, with not much else to do with our day but watch a bit more American TV, we decided to pop down and see it. It was awesome.
Eddie, the guide there, set up the project to educate people about Iguanas as they have been hunted into dangerously low numbers being, apparently, pretty tasty. So we got to have some very...
Xunantunich
We’re hanging out in a town called San Ignacio, slap bang on the Guatemalan border, ready to cross over to Flores tomorrow, where we’re going to see Tikal. But as an extra bonus, we went to see another Mayan ruin, just 20min drive from San Ignacio –Xunantunich.
Xunantunich has been our favourite ruin so far. A beautiful series of castillios peeking out of the jungle, it’s only partially uncovered...
Belizean Tale
Holidaymaker: Hey! Whatcha doin’?
Local: Fishin’.
Holidaymaker: Wow, looks like a great spot there, friend. Imagine, you could charge guys like me and take them fishin’. Why, I reckon you could fill a boat full. Then you could get a few more boats. Hell, I reckon after a few years you’d have yourself a fleet. You’d be rich and you could retire. Just think what would you do with all that time and...
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Chan Chich
What an amazing place! Our last day here and we’ve had an amazing time. Chan Chich is 40 miles into the interior of the rainforest, not far from the border with Guatemala. Originally it was the site of logging woods such as mahogany and cedar. Now it’s a luxury lodge within the Gallon Jug farmstead.
Chan Chich is an unexcavated Mayan ruin, the lodge and cabanas are situated amongst the mounds of...
“The Fer De Lance is incorrectly called ‘the three step snake’. Three steps and...”
– – Marvin the birdman guide
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Wild life update
So the jungles around Chan Chich are literally crawling with life. Without even leaving our cabana we’ve had frogs in the bedroom, lizards and humming birds in the porch and only had to see off a few snakes (which is becoming a bit ‘the norm’ in Curran-Goodson holidays).
Here’s a bit of a list of what we’ve encountered…
Birds
Lots of these. A danger of me becoming a bit twitchy I...
“Climbing up a temple is physical, coming down is psychological”
– Mayan guide
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Lamanai
A 2 1/2 hr drive and 1 hr boat ride from Chan Chich and we’re in Lamani, the longest continually populated Mayan site. Dates from 100BC to well into 1500s. Lamanai means temple of the submerged crocodile and spans 15 miles along the new river. Sadly most of it hasn’t been excavated.
Spanish conquistadores failed to conquest so they sent in the missionaries who built an Indian Church. Mayans...
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Flying to Chan Chich
Meet Verne – our pilot. Let me say that again. Our pilot. I tell you, I could get used to this life. Or Verne’s life for that matter. Verne originally hails from Canada. He and his pilot wife were on holiday in Belize, when they saw an ad at Tropic Air – the local airline here – looking for pilots. So they popped in, were told a job would be waiting for them, went home, sold their flying lesson...
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Un-Belizeable
Sorry. We’ve been too busy having adventures of late to update the blog. Adventures that have included zip lining, cave tubing and, most incredible of all, snorkelling with sharks (which will have a post of its own once we get the underwater pics developed). And all of this in the fours days since we arrived in Belize.
The hop across the border at Chetumal was the easiest crossing ever. Three...
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¿Donde esta su bebe?
I’m writing this three hours into the bus ride from Tulum to Chetumal, where we will be crossing over to Belize tomorrow. The journey might be four hours or eight. We really have no idea. Poor Chris has had to stand up all the way as there aren’t enough seats. While I have spent the last three hours being quizzed by an ancient Mayan woman. I think she’s off to visit a friend. Or maybe...
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Tulum
Tulum is a small Coastal town about two hours from Cancun where people seek out eco chic huts to escape the overwhelming commercialism of Cancun. We stayed in a couple of these places - Coco Tulum and Posadar Lamar – and lovely they were despite the lack of electricity and presence of scorpions.
However when the battery drained on my laptop I decided we needed a little more of the modern...
April 2011
28 posts
1 tag
By Ek Balaam chief
By ek chief, it’s Ek Balaam!
Ek Balaam means black jaguar or star of jaguar and very impressive it was too. One of the longest populated Mayan temples (right up to Spanish conquest) and still being excavated.
The coolest thing about Ek Balaam is that it was only in the 80s when they were doing further excavation that they realised that one of the blinkin’ ‘uge walls covered...
“Cleaners will still walk into your room and speak Spanish to you even though...”
– Idle Thoughts
“Going up Mayan temples (although hot and sweaty) is strangely easier than coming...”
– Idle Thoughts
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Chichen Itza, you and I know.
Wander for more than 5 mins in Valladolid and you’ll get young men hissing ‘Chichen Itza’ at you, as if they’re offering some illegal substance. These guys are the drivers of the collectivos – the mini buses that will take you to and from the main sites around the town as soon as their buses are full. So Chris and I hopped on one of these early yesterday morning, squeezed in with old ladies and...
Valladolid
A three hour ride on a freezing bus (if you ever have to travel on one, bring a jumper!) and we arrived in Valladolid. It’s a pretty, colonial town with brightly painted stucco walls and a large square overlooked by an impressive cathedral, called San Gervasi.
Everyone has greeted us with a cheery smile and seems happy to have us in their town. Perhaps because Valladolid has been mostly...
“No one likes papaya. They should rename it poopooya.”
– Idle thoughts
Goodbye Holbox
Well, the island let us go, eventually. And the taxi that arrived to pick us up at 4am was met with mixed feelings. Not only because it was sodding early, and I don’t do early very well, but also because we enjoyed Holbox so much.
NOTE: When I say Taxi, I really mean a golf cart painted New York Taxi cab yellow with ‘Taxi’ painted on the side. Because they don’t have cars on Holbox and instead...
“Sunsets never get boring”
– Idle thoughts
Leaving Holbox
Is actually harder than it seems…
Kim and I were up at 4 to get a 4.30 taxi to catch the 5am ferry to connect with the 5.30 direct bus to Valladolid to go and see Chichen Itza. When the taxi didn’t show we knew we’d missed our boat. Now locked out of our room and watching the sun slowly rise. Perhaps we’ll try that again tomorrow!
“Colour works better outside of the uk. I think our contrast settings might be...”
– Idle Thoughts
Wild life
In between sipping cold beers and generally loafing I’ve been taking an interest in the local wildlife (and I don’t mean beach clubs). Here’s what we’ve had so far.
Frigate birds - these guys are incredible, like huge swifts mixed with delta wing stealth bombers they just hover and soar. All day. Without stopping. Just because they can. Looks like they really enjoy it...
“Sol tastes better in Mexico on a beach.”
– Idle Thoughts
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Day 1-2: Cancun & Hol Box Island
After a surprisingly easy 10-hour flight to Cancun we arrived in Mexico. I had expected Cancun to be my idea of hell: all heat and high-rises. But what we saw of it was very pleasant, the people friendly and the temperature only nearing the high 20s. So all good. The truth is, what we saw most on the first day was the inside of our eyelids. But let’s pretend we hit Cancun hard and partied till...
Away we go
Well, the time has come. April is upon us and this Thursday we fly off to Mexico to begin our 3-month trip around Central America. Here’s where we’ll be blogging about our adventures, including some stunning (we hope) pics of Mayan temples, Caribbean beaches and exotic jungles. And maybe some not so stunning pics of us two.
Our route map for Mexico
View Kim & Chris in Mexico in a larger map
