Since were approaching the 90 day limit on our Guatemalan visas, it was time to make a visa run to Belize. Although we were moving on from Guatemala, the 90 day visa is for the entire C-4 countries region (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua), not the individual countries. Honduras and Nicaragua were our next intended targets, so we needed to move north to reset our visas before heading south.

We made our leave from Guatemala by way of Rio Dulce and Livingston. In both places we took it pretty slow and had a quiet relaxing time. It rained the whole time we spent in Rio Dulce (4 days), which was fine by us, as the hotel had wi-fi and we needed some time to catch up on our blogging anyways.

In both towns, the only notable day trips we made were visits to the local waterfalls.

Getting My “Geek On”

The Hot (or more accurately, lukewarm) Waterfall:

Rio Dulce is close to the famed Hot Waterfall at Finca El Paraiso where water is geothermally heated to about 30 degrees Celsius before cascading into a quick flowing cold river below. Getting there is as simple as taking a half hour collectivo ride from Rio Dulce for 15Q and paying a 10Q entry fee at the finca. The entry fee includes the cost of a guide who walks you down to the waterfall, strips down to his speedo, and spends the day swimming with you. He showed us where to swim across the quickly flowing river and where to climb up the waterfall to sit at the top in the warm pools.

It was a lot of fun swimming the quickly flowing river, and bathing under the warm spray. Truth be told, when we were sitting in the warm pools at the top of the waterfall, we found the water was not as warm as we had expected. It was still a lot warmer than the river it flowed into though, leaving no doubt as to the earth’s heating potential. This lukewarm waterfall was the result of all the aforementioned rain…when the river is swollen, there’s just too much water for the ground to heat as hot as it usually does.

The Hot Waterfall

Las Siete Altares (The 7 Altars):

Las Siete Altares are located 6 km north of Livingston along Guatemala’s Atlantic Coast. Every local that we talked to in Livingston recommended the walk, and raved about its beauty. The walk was fun, but not really that beautiful in my mind. Mostly, I noticed the lack of a walking trail, sketchy bridges (one of which I had to construct myself) and a lot of plastic garbage. I don’t think I can emphasize that enough, A LOT OF PLASTIC. Mostly we saw the remains of pop bottles, plastic forks, shoes and flop-flops. It was enough to make us want to rid our lives of plastic.

Although the 6 km plastic landfill took away from the beauty of the walk, the waterfall itself was impressive. The water flowed through several pools reminiscent of Semuc Champey. There was a small cave behind the waterfall with space to sit, and a couple of pools deep enough to jump into. Like Semuc Champey, we also found the fish that nipped away at our toes (and, for something new, our stomachs). We’re still not fans of fish pedicures, in case you’re wondering.

Plastic Shores

Ashley Making the Waterfall Look Good

Final thought: Waterfalls always make for great photos, but these Guatemalan falls made for especially good day trips. It’s something special when you can put the camera down, hop in, and go for a refreshing swim with such great scenery.

We wrote another guest post!  This time it was part of a fun series put together by On a Junket.  We were asked to detail our top 5 travel moments, and our worst five.

You can read our first instalment here: Traveled Earth’s Mike & Ashley Top 5 Best Travel Moments

Why is it you never hear Robin saying “Holy Guano Batman!”?  I mean Batman operated out of “the Bat Cave”, and if it’s anything like the bat caves we visited in Lanquin, the stuff is everywhere. Then again, these bats didn’t have Alfred cleaning up after them.

You mean I’m walking on bat poop?!?

The Grutas de Lanquin are located a reasonable half hour walk from the town of Lanquin.  At the entrance, there is a lean-to complete with a guard waiting to collect your 30Q entry fee. The caves are huge, extending several kilometres into the earth. According to our guide book, the full extent of the caves is yet to be fully explored.

A small part of the caves near the entrance is normally lit.  The power was out when we arrived though, so we recommend bringing your utility belt, including your own light source and shark repellent.  You never know when you might need some shark repellent.

Don’t get caught in the dark…

As you may have figured out, the caves are full of bats (and where there are bats, there’s guano).  If you really want the full bat experience, plan to visit the caves just before dusk.  When the sun sets (about 6:30pm) the bats take to the air. It’s a good idea to be near the entrance at this time where you can spend a half hour or more watching thousands of bats soaring over you and around you to get to the entrance.  As I understand, this performance is repeated nightly, same Bat Time, same Bat Cave.

Zork!

Spooomf!

Flap!

It was a very cool experience to be in a bat cave.

We were asked a few weeks ago to write a guest post for Nomadic Vignette as a part of their Destination Home Series.  Sorry to disappoint everyone back home, but we chose to write about our home away from home at the time, San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala.

Check out our story on Nomadic Vignette

San Andrés Xecul is located a short chicken bus ride from Quetzaltenango (Xela).  It’s snuggled up against the mountains, giving the whole town a steep slope.  They have an indoor market, plenty of dyed threads hung out to dry, and two brightly coloured churches. I believe one of the churches is actually a cenotaph commemorating those who died during the civil war.

If you’re in Xela and decide to make the trip, be sure to get on the direct chicken bus.  We made the mistake of hopping on the first bus going in that direction and were dropped off on the highway about 7km outside of town.  Also note that there are two San Andres in the immediate vicinity, so it is necessary to specify which one you desire to go to.

Without further ado, I give you the Technicolor Dream Church (and the cenotaph):

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, I can hardly believe that we left home 100 days ago today. When I say it out loud, it sounds like a long time. A really long time. Especially when compared to the insignificant number of three – as in “three months,” which is what I was using just a few days ago to describe the length of time time we’ve been on the road.

Infobox:
In 100 days of travelling, we have visited 3 different countries, slept in 16 different beds, and eaten more than our fair share of local street food. Some of our favourite activities have included: Spanish classes in San Pedro, swimming with whale sharks in Isla Holbox, water caving in Semuc Champey, snorkeling with nurse sharks & stingrays in Caye Caulker, and climbing volcanoes in Guatemala.

So, how does 100 days feel? Like a long relaxing vacation. In truth, 100 days is about the perfect length for a vacation. If I could have a job where I could take 100 days out of every 365 as personal days, I would be quite content to work and holiday until the day I died.

Surprisingly, way more than I care to admit, I find myself thinking of work (as in the job I quit), sitting down to a glass of scotch with my good friends back home, eating a hamburger with a side eggroll at the Gateway Cafe, and wondering if the Town Hall building has fallen down yet. It’s just so hard to come to grips with the fact that this whole trip isn’t ending next week, or next month, or even next year. It really does still feel like a vacation.

We think a big part of the reason our trip is still feeling like a vacation, and not a lifestyle, is because we’ve been treating it like a vacation. We’ve been doing a lot of touristy sight-seeing, staying in touristy areas, and more importantly not working. It’s been a lot of fun, but I think we’re ready for a few changes.

Self Discovery:

Self discovery is a big part of our trip. We both left home thinking that we were going to travel the world, and in the process discover ourselves and what we want to do for the rest of our lives. At first, it was more of an undertone, but now it’s become a major focus in our trip. We don’t have anything figured out yet, but we are starting to learn a bit more about ourselves, and at least have a few ideas of things we know we like, and a few more we’d like try.

• We Like Having a Place to Call Home:

One of the things we’ve learned about ourselves is that we don’t like travelling quickly. We both really enjoyed our time in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, where we stayed for 6 weeks. We liked getting to know our favourite market vendors, having our own kitchen, not having to pack our things up every day, and not having to spend 30% of our lives on buses. We liked sight-seeing and being tourists too, just not for long stretches of time.

• We Don’t Need a Big House:

When we chose to sell our house to embark on this trip, one of the big arguments in favour of selling it was that the house was too small for us. It seemed only natural that when we returned home we would have to sell it and buy something larger anyways, so why put up with the hassle of renting. That perspective has changed after seeing the size of houses people live in here in Central America. When we think back on the house we sold, we almost feel that it was slightly too large for just the two of us, and anything bigger would be more than unnecessary.

• We Feel Better When We Don’t Drink:

This is two part, we feel better in the morning because of the lack of hangover, and we feel better when we look at our bank account. In the last 100 days, we have consumed a total of 1 box and 2 glasses of wine, 6 beer, and a couple ounces of rum. We really appreciate what we do drink, but we rarely crave it, and get by just fine without it. And yes, the last beer I had was enough to get me drunk… it’s kind of fun being a lightweight again.

• We Want to Volunteer:

Not working has actually been a little difficult to deal with. Not so much from the “we need more money” point of view, but more from the point of view that we’ve had 100 days to ourselves, and we haven’t really accomplished a whole lot. We want to start mixing in some accomplishments to look back on with our touristy fun, and we can’t think of a better way to do that than to volunteer some of our time to help someone else. We haven’t quite figured out what to do or where yet, but we are both ready to try our hand at volunteering.

• We Want to Become More Spiritual:

This is a really weird thing to say for us, but we want to develop some sense of inner spirituality. I’m not talking about following an organized religion, or any specific set of teachings, but about developing a stronger set of personal beliefs and principles and changing our behaviours to better reflect them.

Thinking About the Future:

After 100 days of spending money, and not earning any to replace it, it has become obvious that this lifestyle is not sustainable. Sure, our travel funds are still holding out okay at 96%, but one day they are going to run out. Hopefully before that time comes, we will know what the next step is for us. Right now, we just have a few ideas, and a few things to try out before that time comes.

• Return to our Careers:

We’ve tried the traditional careers (Mike being an Engineer, and Ashley a high school math teacher), and it may just be that we will return to that lifestyle when this is all over.

• Work on a Farm:

We really want to try our hands at farm life. We both envision a small farm as a wonderfully rewarding job and healthy lifestyle. Not the kind of grain farms we have in Saskatchewan, but a really small family farm like they have in Guatemala. We love the idea of having fresh eggs, milk, cheese, with organic fruit and veggies every day. We expect it will be incredibly rewarding to have a direct hand in the production of the food we eat. Of course, that’s easy to say having never lived on a farm and experiencing the realities of the work, so we’ve decided that at some point on this trip we will try our hands at farming. We don’t know who’s farm, when, or where. Suggestions welcome.

• Start a Hostel:

One idea that’s been burning us up a little bit, is the thought of starting our own hostel. We are quickly learning what makes a hostel good or bad, and we already have a list of ideas that we’d incorporate into our own place.

• Becoming Location Independent:

Over the next little while, I’m going to try my hand at learning to be a web programmer. If it works out, I’d like to offer programming services on a contract basis through the internet. I’m a computer geek anyways, so I doubt I’ll mind the work, and the advantage of being able to work from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection, and being able to take time off form work when I like is really appealing to me. Likewise Ashley has had similar thoughts about performing contract editing, transcription, and translation (Spanish -> English).

Conclusion:

We’ve really enjoyed each and every moment of the first 100 days of our trip (even the rough ones, looking back on them) and wouldn’t have done anything different. We are loving the journey and are hoping that over the next 100 days our heads transition from feeling like this is a vacation to feeling it is a lifestyle. I expect the next 100 days will be quite different than the first, but there’s no way to really know, is there? If nothing else, I think we’ve embraced the motto of the island community of Caye Caulker for this trip… Go Slow.

I know what you’re thinking, you’re imagining that we got all pissed up in Xela, bought a bunch of cheap drinks, mixed them all together and came up with a bunch of campy names that we just couldn’t wait to tell you all about. Now listen close… for once, your wrong. Or, maybe just mistaken.

Contrarily, the drinks I’m about to tell you about contained no alcohol and not a drop of our own creative juices went into their design. These are just everyday drinks of Xela, Guatemala that we purchased off the street like hundreds of other people each day.

Orange Juice ‘n Egger:

In one word, delicious. Unless Ashley is saying it, in which case the word becomes vomit. Of course the Spanish have their own way of saying it “jugo de naranja con huevo”. The drink is made exactly the way you’re imagining, oranges are freshly squeezed by hand into a glass and complimented with a whole, raw, room temperature egg or two, your choice. No stirring required for this simple delicacy. In truth, it tasted like extra rich orange juice, until you got to the yolk which broke on my tongue delivering a strange yet complementary flavour. Mmm.

In life, the simple things are often the best

Corn Batter Delight:

It’s real name is Atol de Elote which, in English, means a corn drink made from cornflour. To me, it tasted somewhere between corn bread and muffin batter. It was warm, thick, sweet, battery, and had a nice bit of texture from the corn that was crumbled atop of every mug. It was delicious, warming, and filling all at once.

Like Guinness, it’s a drink that eats like a meal

Ponche de Leche:

I figured milk punch was a clever enough name that I didn’t need to cheese it up. I have no idea what’s actually in it, but if I had to guess I’d say milk was heated to a scald with cardamom and a bit of rice flour. They serve it warm with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Out of all the drinks we tried in Xela, I think this was our favourite. It tasted a bit like a chai tea latte… warm, soothing, and perfect for a cool rainy night.

Does she look excited? This was her second one so she knew what she was getting

Pineapple Soup:

Not really a soup, but it is served with a small plastic spoon. I’m fairly sure it’s just water, pineapple, papaya, and apple heated and served. They call it “caliente de frutas” meaning hot fruits. Tastes like warm apple cider. It’s warm, but not boiled too long, as the fruit still have all their texture. I really enjoyed this drink, and give it a close second to the Ponche de Leche. Likewise, perfect for a cool rainy night after your shorts have been soaked through and your shoes flooded.

Hard to tell from the photo, but I’m really cold

Caliente de frutas