Pathetic Pair

It all started yesterday, when "Montezuma Strikes Back" (the sequel to "Montezuma's Revenge" first premiering in Belize) returned to Kimmy's stomach. Our plans to drink Pina Coladas and relax in the sun was hampered by some clouds, and Kimmy's constant trips to the bathroom. Luckily she was able to drink some fresh squeezed Lime Daiquiris during a heated Rummy Tournament. But in the middle of the night her stomach pains increased and we debated going to the Emergency Room. I served her ginger infused chamomile and eventually things settled so that she could get some sleep.

This morning, I guess I decided that sympathy pains wouldn't be good enough this time, so I busted my head open. I had the trash bag in one hand, and was fumbling through the dozen keys we have to open up a side gate, when BAM (and I mean BAM!!!) I walked right into an air conditioner sticking out the side of the house. Things went black for a split second and I dropped the keys and garbage bag. Kimmy found me kneeling next to the laundry sink with quite a bit of blood pouring through my hair and fingers. We found some Hydrogen Peroxide and Kimmy cleaned me up, bloodying quite a few paper towels in the process.

Here's the air conditioner and the hair it took from me. I'll spare you the pictures of the actual wound, but you get the idea. And yes, I am up to date on my shots. Don't worry Moms and Dads, the cut isn't too deep. Head wounds just tend to bleed. And Kimmy has had a victory today. She kept down her morning toast.

Kimmy and I have thus spent a pathetic afternoon in the TV room. Me with one hand applying pressure to my leaking head wound, and the other rubbing Kimmy's bubbling tummy. Have pity on us.

As for Ruby, she is very confused about whats wrong with her new friends. She also has acquired a taste for Doggie Fungal Cream and important documents. Don't worry Karine and Tom, these are just growing pains.

El Sauce

After 15 dives, 13 boats, 9 hostels, 6 buses, 3 countries, and 1 tractor we have made it safe and sound to La Ceiba, Honduras. Before getting too settled in our new digs, we took a 3 day trip to Roatan, Honduras - one of the Bay Islands. Roatan is a fairly large rainforest island that has 1 main road and lots of beaches and great diving. Since we have been doing a lot of diving lately, and are planning to return to Roatan and Utila during our stay in La Ceiba (the islands are about an hour boat ride from the main land), we decided to forgo diving this trip and so some above water exploring. We rented a scooter and traversed the island from one end to the other in search of the perfect wedding spot. We found 2 spots that we loved, and next time we go back we are meeting with a wedding planner to help us paint a picture of what the day would actually look like.

So now, back to La Ceiba. We've spent the last 2 days getting to know our housesitting hosts, Ruby their dog, and getting acquainted with the area. La Ceiba is the third largest city in Honduras, with Dole being one of the main industries. They grow bananas and pineapples in the surrounding regions, and their headquarters are close to the city center. Dole is kind of an establishment here, our hosts Karine and Tom are in fact teachers at Dole's private school. You can learn more about them at their Blog. There are little neighborhoods surrounding La Ceiba's city center - we will be living in El Sauce (pronounced El Sow-Say). It is a nicer neighborhood, about 7 square blocks of pastel houses with gated front yards and guard dog sentinels. Some houses have Pulperias (pronounced poolperias) - a section of the building right up to the sidewalk from which they sell "corner store" type products. Within walking distance of the house is a street-long market with a dozen different vendors selling fruit, veggies, cheese, eggs, flour, and sugar for next to nothing. Also close to our house is a big mall with department stores, boutiques, a supermarket, and cinema. With all these conveniences AND Internet in the house, we don't feel half as isolated as we thought we would.

Last night we all had shish-kabobs and headed out to a "friendly" soccer match between Honduras's national team, and Haiti's national team. The streets were filled with vendors, and fans dressed in Blue and White regalia. The 20,000-25,000 person stadium was filled with a thriving mass even an hour before the game (when we got there). There was a tall riot fence with barbed wire around the field, guarded by riot police and Honduran army soldiers. Beers cost a dollar each, and there were even kids who would take your order from your seats. Honduras dominated the game, especially in the 2nd half when all there better players took the field. Final score was 3-1, with two of Honduras's goals being penalties kicks. People stood throughout the game, blew horns, and threw half empty beers into the air after goals. During the game we also discovered our new favorite snack. It consists of a bag of barley ripe mangoes, doused in spicy vinegar and a salt spice (raw salt and crushed, roasted, gourd seeds). Kinda sounds gross now that we write it down, but its a tasty balance of sweat, sour, and salt with a shot of fiber and vitamin C.

Here are some pictures from the game:

With one of the Honduran soldiers


Food Stand


Us with Karine and Tom


The crowd


Mango Delight


Right now we are cooking breakfast, drinking coffee and enjoying the heat of the day. We'll probably go to the fruit stands and grocery store, and then enjoy a quite evening at home. After 3 weeks of traveling, we have come to appreicate some things that we took for granted before - a clean kitchen with silverware, sleeping in a quiet place, air conditioning, our own cooking, and lime juice.

The Guat without a map

The rain god has spoken!

We stepped foot into "the Guat" (as we affectionately call Gutamala) and it rained the whole time. A long Guaty bus ride took us to Flores, a very un-Gutamalan city. Flores is an Island in the middle of a lake, so we felt that the real town was on the other side of the bridge, and this cobble stone island in the middle of a misty lake was a European escape. We got a 3rd floor hotel room with a private balcony that looked out over the street and onto the lake for only $10 a night. After dropping our bags off, Kimmy quickly lead us down the cobble stone streets and into every fabric store. We haggled and haggled and got a skirt for Kimmy (which she has been wearing every other day since), and a beautiful bed throw. Next on our list is a hammock(s) which I think we will find in La Ceiba. Flores was CHEAP! We had eggplant burgers and shared giant bottles of Gallo cervesas for next to nothing.

We got picked up at 3:30 am for a sunrise tour of Tikal. About 5 km from the park, a tree had fallen and blocked the road, which meant that 5 men were using their machetes to cut up the tree and get it out of the road. These Central American's are amazing with their machetes and the whole process probably only delayed us 5 minutes. Once we got to Tikal we rushed through the park and up the tallest Myan ruin in Mesoamerica. There we sat watching the mist clear, temple tops appear, Howler monkey growl, Tucans chirp, and Tapirs nuzzle through the jungle foliage. We had a pretty good tour guide who then led us around, and up and down temples. He spoke English that he had learned from all the different tourists and archaeologists that he had interacted with since he was a boy. As a result every few words he said were in a different accent (eg. American South, Canadian, Australian, Whales). It was kind of hilarious. Tikal was really impressive. Especially the Grand Court where two identical temples (one containing Lord Cacao, and the other his wife) stood facing each other.

The next day, we got on another bus to Rio Dulce. We don't have a tour book of Guatamala so we didn't really know where we were going or what we were going to do, or where we were going to sleep for that matter. Operating on rumors, and broken explanations in Spanish, we decided to check out the thermal waterfalls in Paraizo. We were jammed into a minivan and taken FROM Rio Dulce deep into "the Guat". The van had seats for 15 at the most, and at one time there were 22 people on board for the ride. We were in the back, claustrophobic and hot. After an hour of this we were dropped off on a dirt road next to a bar. We found out that the hotel was a 30 minute walk in one direction, and the thermal waterfalls were 10 minutes in the other. The scuba suitcases were too heavy for a thirty minute walk but luckily we hitched on ride with the hotel's food delivery truck and arrived at Paradise, Finca Paraizo. We were the only guests at a bungalow hotel on the banks of Rio Dulce. After dinner and a swim in the Rio, we retired to our bungalow with the coolest orbiting fan yet. The next day we hiked up the road, and were lead to the thermal pools by some kind bar patrons. The river was very cold, but a smaller river that cascaded over a small cliff was VERY hot. Only Chris was able to tolerate the hot pools above the waterfall, but we were both enjoyed swimming through the cold water, and being battered by the hot waterfall above.

We got a ride back to Rio Dulce from Finca Paraizo on the back of a pick up truck. This ride was much more pleasant, and put us in good spirits for a boat ride to Livingston. Livingston is a small Garifuna village on the other side of Rio Dulce. Garifuna's are old African slaves who were too troublesome/rebellious for their masters and were thus exported to villages throughout Belize (eg. Caye Caulker, Punta Gorda), and here in Livingston Guatamala, to live free and abandoned. A crazy, sputtering Garifuna, clutching a Conch forced his assistance upon us and led us first to a hotel too expensive for our budget, and then to the dingiest, buggiest hotel yet. We decided to stay anyway, rationalizing this thrifty decision with the fact that soon we will have a beautiful A/C house of our own in La Ceiba. Livingston kind of had an island village feel but was a little dingy on the edges. One night there was a deluge of rain that flooded the streets and shut off the electricity. Some other travelers showed us an amazing hole in the wall restaurant where we ate Breakfast and Dinner on the second day. It was the best food we've had yet, and the owner knew it and wasn't afraid to tell the world how every thing she touched turned to gold. That afternoon we took an 8km walk down the beach and across a rope bridge to the Seven Alters. It was a fat, crystal clear river that cascaded through lots (probably 7) little swimming holes (kind of like a mini Havasupi). The last pool up the river had a waterfall and was deep enough for cliff jumping. Our first plunge into the river was conducted in this way. It was very relaxing.

Back in Livingston we arranged for a boat/van combo ride all the way to La Ceiba. With city buses and city water taxi's the trip would take 10 hours. Ours only took 5 and it was so comfortable, and not much more expensive. We've made it to La Ceiba. But this post is too long to start all that. We've spent a night here, and today we're headed to Roatan. We will tell you more about it when we get back this weekend.

Island Hopping

Since we last updated this, we have been doing a lot of relaxing. We spent two days in Placencia which was a quaint little beach community where the locals were extremely friendly. At breakfast one morning we started talking to the owner of the restaurant and the next thing we knew she was taking us in her minivan to check out a potential wedding spot (no decisions have been made yet, we are still planning to look in Honduras as well). There were two roads in town, one main road for cars and then a sidewalk about 100 yards from the ocean connecting the beaches, restaurants and shops. If you wanted to get from the main road to the sidewalk, you walked down 'streets' which were people's backyards (ie just sand).

From Placencia we took the Hokey Pokey water taxi back to the main land and then a bus to Belize City. We thought the bus came at 11:00am so we made sure to get there at 10:30 to be safe. Of course as soon as we got to the bus station we learned that the next bus wasn't until noon. Luckily there were some young local girls hanging out at the bus stop selling their mother's cooking. We got 4 empinadas for $1 and they were delicious!

This is Eralon - one of the little girls selling empinadas

At noon the old non a/c school bus pulled up and we piled in for a 4 hour ride to Belize City. The whole way the bus's pimped-out stereo was bumping KC and Jojo, Maria Carey, Boys to Men, and other 90's jams. We pretty much relived all of high school in those 4 hours, it got old quickly. When we finally made it to Belize city, we hopped directly onto our second water taxi of the day and headed to Caye Caulker (Caye is pronounced like Key btw). Caye Caulker is a beautiful beach island where compacted sand roads lead you to fruit stands, restaurants, bars, and sunset spots. The stars have been amazing as well. Last night we laid out on one of the piers and star gazed for a long time. They have a slogan there, “Go Slow”, which we were constantly reminded of by Rastas and Garifunas ushering us along the way.

Land crabs were all over Caye Caulker. Check out that claw!

Yesterday we went on a 3 tank dive to the Blue Hole and surrounding Cayes. The Blue Hole is a large underwater cave that collapsed into itself years and years ago. It's like a flooded cenote or sinkhole. After swimming among 15 foot long stalactites at 130 feet below, we ascended upon a group of reef sharks. At first we could only see their creepy silhouettes lurking in the deep blue, but slowly we were at the same depth as the sharks. We have both seen sharks before, but something about these guys was extremely peaceful and daunting all at the same time. It was almost like they knew they were putting on a show and came extra close just to give us the willies. We did another dive off Half Moon Caye (where we had lunch and saw the local bird sanctuary), and then the third dive was at 'the aquarium'. We saw turtles, squids, schools of Chums (we call them the Mafia because they look like fat gangsters), a manta ray, huge tube sponges, groupers the size of Spike, and coral reef tunnels that we swam through. It was a great day.

Now we are in Ambergis Caye – probably the most famous spot in Belize. In the past week we have gone from Punta Gorda where we were two of the only tourists, to Ambergis Caye which is a packed Island city – with traffic and everything. It's crazy to see our beers and hostel rooms double in price as the beauty of Belize is slowly diminished by all kinds of construction and tourist traps. We've had a great time in Belize, and have thoroughly relished in our last English-speaking adventure. Tomorrow we head to Guatemala for a few days to see Tikal which is one of the biggest and apparently most impressive of the Mayan Ruins. We have a little over a week before we start the housesitting job, so we'll see where the journey takes us.

Strings of Pearls

We have just made it back from our week-long private island scuba diving adventure. We were doing 3 dives a day returning to the island after each one to rinse off, eat, and recuperate. It was a beautiful small island, with three beach cabanas, a scuba diving equipment room, a dining cabana, and a staff house. There were coconut trees everywhere for the drinking, dogs and puppies who liked to hunt for fish, hermit crabs, and horrible sand flys (that was the only downer). We dove with a group of 7 people, who we became good friends with by the end of the trip. Chris did some fishing with another diver, Paul, the captain, Chuxs (far right of photo), and his clumsy sidekick, Pip (far left of photo).

The diving was great, but instead of describing all the different things we saw, we'll talk about one night dive in particular. It was one night after the full moon. We dove down to 30 feet and knelt in the sand with our flashlights off. Slowly, phosphorescent lights started to glow in the distance. They increased in number until we were completely surrounded on all sides by a dense galaxy of lights. We left the sandy patch on little space flight expeditions through the lights. It is completely unexplainable and unphotographable. Just imagine swimming by thousands of chains of lights that slowly light up in sequential order until they terminate at the sea floor, or in the turbulence of your bubbles. They look like a lit up pearl necklace, hence the name 'string of pearls'. These daisy chains of lights were Snapper egg larva that hatch after the full moon, and apparantly are only seen in Southern Belize and a little bit in Honduras. And if that wasn't enough, there was also some phosphorescence that strobed, and some that just glowed green. To top it all off there was heat lightening in the dark skies above. It was an amazing night.

We got back to Punta Gorda, Belize (PG) this afternoon. We packed our bags and jumped on a bus to Mango Creek. We played dominoes with some local kids then took the Hokey Pokey water taxi to Placencia, Belize. Now we are in a different kind of paradise. Surrounded by gringos, on a windy beach bar eating Mango Rum Chicken and Garden Salad. Tomorrow we'll do some more scuba diving, laundry, and hopefully have time to relax on the beautiful beach.


We miss all of you guys, so please drop us a line and let us know what you have been up to. We know it's only been a bit over a week since we left, but it feels like forever!

3 Countries in 5 hours

At 5:00am on Friday, Luis drove us to the bus terminal. Feeling excited about not using out Spanish book too much while talking to the ticket agent, we got tickets to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. We thought it was going to be a hot and sweaty school bus, but thankfully it turned out to be a giant air conditioned tour bus. Three hours down the road a Honduran immigration agent came on board and looked at all of our passports. A mile later the bus stopped again and another immigration agent came on board and looked at everyone's passport. Three miles after that the bus stopped AGAIN and two Guatemalan custom agents boarded and reviewed passports. Eight miles later the bus stopped again and we were all told to get off. Outside was a 4th immigration stopping point, this time a Guatemalan agent took our passports and disappeared inside. He came back one minute later and gave us the ok to proceed.

So we're back on the bus, not believing how many different people have had to thumb through our passports, when we noticed a fork in the road - and we weren't taking the fork that said 'Puerto Barrios'. After dumbfounded looks at each other, I decided to ask the bus driver. He quickly pulled over and kicked us out. So there we were, in the dust of the tour bus, surrounded by chickens and children, with two HEAVY scuba suitcases, two hiking backpacks, and no Guatemalan money. We crossed the street and started walking back toward the Puerto Barrios intersection.

A packed minivan pulled up and we were lured in. At first we didn't see any space, but they squeezed us in. Kimmy didn't really have a seat, she was just kinda floating between two smiling Guatemalans, with her hiking backpack on her lap. So for the next 15 minutes we bounded down a dirt road, shuffling our bodies and luggage as people squeezed in and out of the van. After some coaxing I got the driver to accept our Honduran money, and we got out at Puerto Barrios.

After walking all the way from the van to the pier with our suitcases, we were told that we missed the immigration office. What the hell? We walked half way back to where the van dropped us off, found the immigration office (this one was much more official), got out tickets for the water ferry, and walked back to the pier. The water taxi ride was about an hour and really refreshing after being cooped up on buses for so long. We arrived in Punta Gorda Belize, and had to go through immigrations, yet again.

So here we are in Belize. We met some people at a bar yesterday who work for a conservation dive operation off Belize, on an uninhabited island. We are headed out with the group (about 6 people from the US, Canada, UK) on Monday and will be there until Friday. Although the island is uninhabited, the conservation group has a bar and small restaurant there, which are operated by some Punta Gorda locals. We sleep in cabanas on the beach and drink rum out of coconuts (verbatim from one of the divers). We'll update you all with details from the week next weekend, but won't have internet access until then.

Here's a Garifuna band that plays at the bar we met the divers at (we have a video to upload later but this internet connection is really slow). And look at my fish! It was delicious.

San Pedro Sula

We made it!! We got in late last night and are staying at the Los Mollinos B&B which is owned and run by Blanca and Luis. It's located about 10 minutes away from downtown San Pedro Sula, and about 4 blocks from the City Mall. This morning after breakfast, Luis drove us downtown so we could see the few sites and also exchange some of our money. He speaks very broken English, and Chris speaks even more broken Spanish, but between using lots of hand gestures and looking up words in our phrasebook, we were able to understand that he wasn't taking us to any old currency exchange, but to the 'black exchange'. We assume he meant black market exchange.

As we were driving down the main drag, we turned an inconspicuous corner and saw probably 10 guys standing up and down the street with huge wads of Lempira (Honduran Money) shouting to all the passer-by's. Luis drove to the end of the block and found someone he seemed to know, did some shouting, and some quick math, showed us a calculator with a figure on it, and this guy threw a handful of Lempira into the car for us to count, took our US dollars, and was off. Chris and I looked at eachother and just shrugged hoping we hadn't been totally ripped off (We checked the exchange rate at a bank later and found that we had made a few extra Lempira in the shady dealings).

After we had some Lempira, we had to spend it. So we went to a hotel for lunch and our first Honduran beers.

After lunch we meandered back to the B&B, sweating like we've never sweat before. Yesterday was a record high in San Pedro Sula - Luis said it got to 40C (~110F). We decided to try to cool off so we went to El Museo Natural, which was more like a compilation of 5th grade science fair projects than a Natural History museum. There were lots of laminated posters, animals in jars of formaldehyde, LEGO dioramas, black lights, and toys... yes toys. Got to keep the kids interested I guess. To top it off it wasn't air conditioned, and at this point we could hardly focus on anything anyway.

We made our way home and now are relaxing in our A/C room. Tomorrow morning we're starting a long, multi leg journey to Belize that is guaranteed to provide interesting stories.