Moving through Guatemala and into Belize

We havent been able to do as well blogging as hoped for, but internet has not been great lately and has been a bit more pricey making it difficult to do more than an email check (OK, and see whats going on in NCSU athletics because we have a very unhealthy masochistic addiction).

We last posted from Antigua after an exciting visit from our parents and Adam's sister. Since then we joined back up with a couple of travelers from the states who are on a similar timeline as us, Danny and Jody. We headed out of Antigua with them and met up in Coban to do a bit of traveling together.

We first stopped off at Semuc Champey, a beautiful site in the junglelike highlinds of Guatemala. Tracy and I visited an orchid nursery containing over 400 types of orchids (only about a third were in bloom). We (minus Tracy who doesnt do things that require her head to go under water, except with snorkel gear) took a tour of a cave that was about 2 hours long, half swimming and half walking. The only light was that oif candles which we had to hold over our heads while swimming. Caves are remarkable places and this one was no let down. Bats do, however, give Adam nightmares, resulting in more than one girlish squeal.

From there we hit the highlight, a series of pools on a natural limestone bridge than runs across a river that is deep and an amazing valley. The water is crystal clear with white and turquoise tints and is amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately, we were swinging from a rope swing into the river when Adam went in sideways and burst his eardrum.

We hit the northermost state of Guatemala where we found Mayan ruins dating back to 1000 b.c. We first hit Tikal, the most famous of the Mayan ruins and then the following day we hit Yaxha, a lesser known but equally impressive set of ruins that are much more difficult to get to. Being do-it-yourselfers, we passed on the tours and took local transportation and tried to hitchhike the remaining 11kms. However, hitchhiking is much easier when vehicles actually pass you, so instead we got a good workout. Luckily, we were able to talk our way into an employee of the national park's truck to get a ride out.

From Flores we passed into Belize where we still remain and are exploring the offerings of the country. We knew it would be odd to be in an English speaking country, but we grossly underestimated just how interesting and beautiful Belize would be. The majority of the country are descendants of Africans, brought to what is now Belize to be slaves. However, one group, the Garifunas, successfully resisted the enslavement and still thrive as a wonderfully interesting culture with its own language, foods and traditions to this day. Pockets of Mayan groups, hispanic groups, Asians and Mennonites exist throughout the country in a very visible way.

We first spent time in Caye Caulker (pronounced, key corker), a small island overflowing with local life (and snorkeling/diving trips). We were fortunate enough to arrive about a week after lobster season opened up. Neither of us had previously tasted lobster, but after a few days on the island we had eaten at least 3 or 4 of them, lobster burritos and other lobster dishes served with a Caribbean flare of lots of spices and often coconut rice (as a side note, Adam and coconut have had a long held disdain for one another, however, during this trip they have had several long talks and sorted out their differences and now look longingly at one another, especially when coconut decides to flavor lobsters or rice or any other seafood dish. Adam remains suspicious of coconut's cousin, dried coconut in a plastic bag). We also were able to enjoy the wonders of the barrier reef by snorkeling with sting rays, eagle rays, at least 100 species of tropical fish, nurse sharks, manatees, turtles, moray eels (got to see the eel fight a fish, the eel won because he has really sharp, scary teeth), barracuda (scary in the water, delicious on a plate as we were served this guy as part of one of our Garifuna dishes), conchs, lobster, lots of reef, and more.
A nurse shark swims by right before we jump into the water.

Island life.


We headed to Hopkins from the island. On the way we stopped off for a locally famous treat, a tour of the Marie Sharp hot sauce factory. After setting our mouths on fire, we settled into our room on the beach and basically sat in a hammock on the edge of the warm Caribbean water for a couple of days. Hopkins is a small town with much beauty. The Caribbean gets top billing, but the people make the place. Warm people, most of Garifuna descent, greet you as you walk the streets and excitedly serve their local dishes. No one moves too fast and others are encouraged to move at a similar speed. (at this point in our trip, we don't really do fast, so we think we fit in).



We can't seem to get enough of this new local culture and the amazing food, so who knows when we will move on, but we will try to throw more updates up as we move along. Our time is getting short, so we will try to share as much as possible along the way.

Go slow.

OK, OK, heres what weve been doing...

Alright, I guess time for laziness is over. Here comes an update complete with some photos (many more can be seen on Facebook) from our past few weeks in Antigua.

We started off staying with a local family. Iris and her two children provided us with the usual overwhelming amount of hospitality and delicious food. We got to host Adam´s sister, Maria for a week, had 5 days to gather our thoughts and then both sets of parents came down for 10 days. We have since transitioned to another house (not because we didnt love Iris, but because we had other old friends in Danny and Ana and their children that we wanted to spend time with). During our parent´s stay Tracy and her parents lived with Iris while Adam and his parents lived with Danny and Ana, making for a true Guatemalan experience. Because we are not in the mood for a narrative, here is a list of things we have done since arriving in Antigua with our parents and Maria:
-Walked cobblestone streets surrounded by 16th century architecture



-visited villages of indigenous communities (Guatemala´s majoirty population remains indigenous Mayan, speaking a total of 22 languages and keeping beautiful traditions alive for thousands of years)*Photos are best not taken due to sensitivity in indigenous villages
-shared meals and conversation with local families

-Tracy and both mothers took a class on traditional Mayan backstrap weaving (moms-send us some pictures of this)
-visited traditional street markets in Chichicastenango and Sololá
-rode "chicken busses" (old USA school busses with souped up paint jobs, new transmissions and a load of courage and adrenaline coupled with no fear of death behind the wheel) here and there and everywhere

-caught rides in the backs of pick up trucks with out parents to visit and make an offering of a wild necktie to a Mayan saint (Maximon, look it up, it is fascinating)


-Tracy, Papa Juan and Adam had their feet traced by master shoemakers for a pair of custom fit boots in Pastores

-hiked an active volcano to the lava flow and roasted marshmallows on the lava flow with sister Maria, fathers and the Mami Pumas


-visited and learned about a sustainable macadamia nut farm from a wacky, foul mouthed ex-pat and his loveable Guatemalan wife

-rode boats between small villages in Lake Atitlán
-watched hummingbirds feed off of a wild array of flowers
-did a crafts project with children at El Buen Samaritano in Jocotenango where Adam and Tracy have been spending afternoons helping 3rd, 4th and 5th graders with homework
-delivered lots and lots of supplies to El Buen Samaritano to aid in their work to help with nutrition, education and development of children in Jocotenango
-took salsa lessons (with what we considered to be impressive results)
-celebrated Tracy´s birthday with our Guatemalan friends and our parents, eating a traditional dish called Pilojada, a dessert called molé (made with platanos, not chicken for you Mexican food buffs), a piñata and horchata

-more? maybe our parents or Maria will want to be more specific or will add something we forgot about in the comments section.

We will try to get back on our blogging A game as we enter the last leg of our journey. Orale pues!

Home Sweet Guatemala

We have now been in Guatemala for a couple of weeks and we are enjoying our time. Having both spent two other occassions of about 8 weeks here in Antigua, we have lots of friends and know our way aroun Guatemala well. After 8 months of travelling and making only occassional friends who we would only have the occassion to spend a few days with, it was a breath of fresh air to see people we know and walk streets that feel familiar to us.

On top of our familiarity with our Guatemalan friends, we had a week long visit from Maria (Adam´s sister) and have been planning for 10 days with our parents, who arrive on Friday.

Keep checking back, we will post another update and some photos in a couple weeks before we head to Belize and finally to Mexico (despite reports from Fox News, crossing into Mexico is not instant death), before we enter California for one last hurrah seeing a bit of our own country.

Hope all is well for all of you. Since we are on a bit of a blogging vacation, send us an email and let us know how you are and what is new with you.

San Romero and the Martyrs, art, and waterfalls

We spent the last 10 days in El Salvador. It seems this is a country many travelers skip, but we found it to be a remarkable place.

We started the week at a moving museum that displays the events of the revolution/civil war in El Salvador, the majority of which was fought in the 1980´s.
The museum was very well done and informative regarding the events of the war and it was heartwrenching to hear about the many massacres that occurred in El Salvador at the time. Nearby is the site of El Mozote, a site of one of the biggest massacres. The El Salvador National Guard was using a strategy referred to as scorched earth, fish out of water, etc. The strategy was based on the fact that the FMLN (revolutionary army) had a majority of its support in rural areas. Thus, by "depopulating", a.k.a. murdering, civilians in rural villages, the FMLN army would lose it base of support. El Mozote was the site of a small village of nearly 1,000. All but 1 of its members were murdered by the Atlacatl Battallion, a majority of whom were women and children. (It is no coincidence that similar tactics were used against civilian populations in Nicaragua and Guatemala, other countries who received training and funding from the USA). Our guide during this time was a veteran of the war (fought for FMLN) who had some speech problems due to having been shot in the head and showed us a bullet still lodged in his arm. Needless to say, this introduction to Salvadorian history made the ugliness of much of this history come alive for us.

Several days later, we found ourselves in San Salvador. There we visited the sites of Archbishop Oscar Romero, now referred to by many Salvadorians as San Romero de las Americas. Oscar Romero was named Archbishop in the 70´s by the Catholic church. He was a loved and respected leader by the Salvadorian people, however, his homilies and speeches as well as his basic theology denounced the exploitation and violence against the poor he was seeing in San Salvador. As the situation in El Salvador declined during the early years of the war, several priests were assassinated because their work with the poor and their theology that the exploitation of the poor was sinful and should be opposed was seen as subversive. Romero, having come from a poor community himself, held similar views and only became more outspoken as his friends were being killed. In 1980, while Romero was conducting mass, he held the bread representing the body of Christ in the air and at that moment received a bullet to his heart. He died nearly immediately in front of the church. Although there was a planned and well thought out cover up, it became clear that this was carried out by the Salvadoran National Guard, trained by and funded by the United States. The killing of civilians as in El Mozote as well as priests (6 Jesuit priests would be assassinated along with an employee of the Jesuit Univsersity and her young daughter several years later) continued throughout the war.

So the sites we visited had a incredible meaning for us. As US citizens, as people of faith and as humans who have trouble seeing human suffering, the things we saw and learned we challenging. We stood in Romero´s bedroom where he no doubt had many sleepless nights knowing how real the death threats he was receiving were, yet he continued to preach the good news to the poor. We stood at the altar where he was assassinated and looked on the chapel and could only imagine the horror of that day where people had come to worship and were instead witnesses to murder. We also ventured to the Central American University where the 6 Jesuit priests were murdered. We saw the bloody clothes with bullet holes and got to talk with people who were a part of this history. We also witnessed during the 10 days a people full of joy and hope. These travesties are not long in the history books, yet the hope and hospitality deomstrated to us in El Salvador was second to none and we left today having witnessed the ugliness of history as well as the beauty of a people who refuse to live joylessly, despite the ongoing presence of extreme poverty in the country. There is a link between the joy of the people and the sadness we felt at the sites of massacres and killings, but I am not sure if words can really describe the connection or if either of us are yet able to put into words the meaning of that connection.

A part of that hope and beauty can be witnessed in 3-D in La Palma, El Salvador. We visited this small artisan town for a few days and were struck by the art. The style is called "naife" and was made famous by Fernando Llort. Llort moved to La Palma and began cooperatives that continue today. 75% of the income in the town is based on its art. The biggest cooperative contracts with Ten Thousand Villages (the art often seen on crosses, depicting scenes from the countryside in a way that looks like maybe a 9 year old colored it).

We also visited a couple of locations in the western part of El Salvador. One of which had a weekend food festival where we partook of frog and rabbit among other things. Even aside from the food fair, Salvadorian food is outstanding. From pupusas (stuffed tortillas, usually stuffed with beans and cheese, maybe some meat, and then topped with pickled cabbage and hot sauce), baleadas (kind of a taco with beans, eggs, cheese, and this cream stuff that is truely amazing), and tortas (a grilled sandwich).

Finally we visited a small national park with a local guide who promised us some adventure. We hiked through tropical dry forest (20 years ago tropical dry forest accounted for over 70% of El Salvador, today, less than 2) to arrive at a series of about 7 waterfalls. Tracy admired the beauty and even rappelled down one. Adam jumped from 3 to 10 meters into the pools below in order to continue the journey.

Today we arrived in Antigua. We have already seen a few old friends from our time studying here. We look forward to seeing more in the coming days and feel we have reached a big milestone in arriving in such a familiar place.

OK, now for some photos with possibly some captions we think are witty, but in all likelyhood aren´t:

If anyone watched Voces Inocentes, this was the radio station that the child was tuning in to. Adam is standing with our guide.

This is the chapel, called El Hospitalito by locals, where Monseñor Oscar Romero was assassinated.


Cathedral in San Salvador. Romero stopped construction to this cathedral before it was completed, declaring that it would be completed once the needs of the poor in the country were met. The gaping holes served as a reminder of the poverty of so many in El Salvador for years. The art on the outside was later added after being designed by Fernando Llort (the La Palma guy)


The light poles for many kilometers in every direction from town were painted in the naife way. The buildings throughout town were covered in additional murals and figures.



Tracy prepares to eat Kermit.


Ayyy, ayyy aaamor. Ayyy, ay que dolor...


Tracy, unwilling to let her head go below water, shows off her skills with timing photography.

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee










We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways. --Archbishop Oscar Romero, December 24, 1979

El Salvador Cinema

Hey, we forgot to mention this in our last post, but think it is important for those who might want to do a little travelling with us from your DVD player. There are two fantastic movies about the civil war in El Savador that we highly recommend as they are well made and are histories that we all need to know.

1. Voces Inocentes (Innocent Voices). About the war from the perspective of children in El Salvador who are trying to avoid being recruited by the Army. Sapnish with English subtitles, we know it is at North American Video at Cameron Village for those in Raleigh.

2. Romero. About Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while giving mass in San Salvador due to his beliefs regarding liberation theology. Romero will likely play into our future blog posts as we plan to go to the Oscar Romero center in San Salvador (I hope this does not get jinxed by putting it on the blog beforehand as well).

Enjoy, let us know what you think.

Honduras recap

We are back in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. From here we will head to El Salvador bright and early tomorrow morning. Here is a photo recap of our time in Honduras:

This is the Parque Central in Comayagua, Honduras. Comayagua was the political capital of Honduras until the late 1500´s. The cathedral seen in the picture has an annex next door. This annex stored documents dating all the way back to the 1500´s as well as religious art and various other very important artifacts. A week before we arrived, a fire destroyed about 95% of the building and its contents. We saw where they were trying to salvage many of the documents, which appeared to be a frustrating and depressing task.


From there we went to Lago Yojoa, a nice and rather secluded lake in the middle of Honduras. We visited this nearby waterfall. This was the dry part. We were guided down by a local and were actually able to get behind the waterfall (a feat considering the massive amounts of water pouring from about 48 meters).


Neither of us have ever been interested in bird watching, but the guy with the huge beard (a beard I aspire to) was so enthusiastic about it that we couldnt help but become interested. He is a brit ex-pat living near the lake who knows his birds. I think for one to really enjoy nature, you need a Brit to tell you to look at the "immature yellow bellied warbler" (say it with a thick Brittish accent and you´ll see what I mean). The other gringos in the picture are two folks we met at the hostel who are doing 6 months in Central America.


The lake: (taking pictures of birds with our camera is a lost cause)



From the lake we went to Santa Rosa de Copan. A small mountain town with very little to take in aside from a huge cigar factory. Neither of us are cigar smokers, but it was fun to see how they are made from fermenting the tobacco to putting them into the boxes. About 50 different cigar companies contract with this factory, the most recognizable name being Romeo y Julieta (the non-Cuban R&Js so that they can be sent to the US). Sorry, no pictures allowed inside, we might steal all their trade secrets. Oh, everything is done by hand and we saw almost no machinery, which we thought made it much more interesting. Also about 97% of the workers we saw were women in the factory.


Our next stop turned out to be our favorite in Honduras. It was with a community called San Juan, not to be confused with the San Juan 1 hour down the road. This community collaborated with PEace Corps several years ago to develop community based tourism. This is essentially a way for a community to pool its existing resources in order to give travelers an authentic experience in their community and to aid in the need for additional money in the community. We arranged a home stay with a local woman and were able to arrange several other activities with community members. The people who receive tourists generally make double what they would generally make by allowing travelers in on what they might already be doing anyway or by sharing their local knowledge.
This is a family of artisans who work with clay. They generally make roof tiles by hand, but also make nice floor tiles and these two were mastering their dog making abilities. We got to work along side them a bit and learn how they make their products (apparently they did not fear us stealing their trade secrets). The mother told us she has eleven children and we saw that they are all very talented and contribute something to the family business no matter their age.


Me and the 13 year old making a tile. He could make about 15 of these in the time I made one.

Roasting coffee with Doña Soledad. She taught us how to roast coffee, and we got to drink plenty of it afterward.


You can only imagine how good this smelled.


Tracy and Juan in the cane patch on the way to the waterfall. Chewing raw sugar cane makes the hike all the better.


The canyon and waterfall were worth the three hour hike. It is the Canyon Encantado.


Tomorrow it is in to El Salvador. We will post photos from there in a week or so.

Food post

**Don't forget to scroll down and look at our final Nicaragua post.

Well after allof that excitement, there was no Bojangles after all. The sign remained, but it was being transformed into a disco. Oh, well, we will save the butter biscuits and sweet tea for another time. It did get us thinking. If we were in Raleigh, we actually would want many other things before Bojanlges, which we would be low on the list. Help us think of good local restaurants in Raleigh or Boone. Here are our favorites that came to mind:

(Raleigh/Raleigh area)
Biscuit Station-puts Bojangles to shame and there is nothing more delicious than their Bologna/Egg/Cheese biscuit.

Mitch's-It was our last meal beforeleaving and will likely be one of our first coming back.

Bali Hai-Sketchy looking from the outside, some of the best food in Raleigh on the inside.

Tir-Na-Nog- Irish food is great here and the veggie sandwich is also excellent.

Baja Burrito-oh sweet baja burrito

Amedeos-ok, the food is really good, not really great, but the walls are covered in Wolfpack memorabilia

Lily's Pizza-good and weird

Abyssinia Ethiopian-delicious and unique

Goodberry's-nuff said

McClean's- Zebulon favorite, though it was better before it moved

Gallery Cafe-best restaurant in Wendell and well worth the drive from Raleigh for a great lunch.

(Boone)
Coyote Kitchen-awesome tex-mexish sort of place

Tupelo's-used to be Angelica's. I think it is just as good, but I know Helms disagrees

Peppers-awesome sandwiches

Parkway Cafe-RC Cola on tap, huge burgers, greasy vegetables, you have to go outside to use the restroom...highly recommended (actually closer to W. Jefferson than Boone)

Casa Rustica-Eye-talian deliciousness

OK, help us out with some others. Put the name and some description so we know what it is. It has to be local. (All of this makes Bojangles sounds kind of nasty actually)
Feel free to throw stuff out from other areas as well. (St. Louis-Sheebah Burger!!!)