Our next stop was Livingston on the Caribbean coast. It was an interesting Garifuna town with a great local dish called tapado- a huge bowl of soup with squid, clams, mussels, a full crab, and a full fish in a coconut milk broth.
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| We didn't have a picture of the tapado, but we did have this one of a frozen banana covered in chocolate and nuts! |
From Livingston we took a river boat through the jungle before catching a bus to Flores. Flores is a little island city on a lake and a good base to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal. We arrived at the ruins at around 6 in the morning to the sound of howler monkeys in the jungle. They sound surprisingly scary (like a lion's roar)! We spent a day at the ruins climbing temples, playing with tarantulas, and watching some entertaining "profound" ceremonies for the winter solstice (the participants being new-age crystal and rainbow wand donned Americans)...We hear that it will only get more interesting as the end of 2012 approaches.
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| Baby tarantula in hand |
Our next stop was Lanquin. It is an incredibly beautiful place so we decided to spend Christmas there. We went on a day trip to Semuc Champey which is a limestone bridge over a river with turquoise colored pools to swim in. There was also a cave nearby that you explore with a candle in hand while swimming, climbing waterfalls, and jumping into dark crevices. Quite the adventure and definitely different than anything else we have done so far.
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| Adam's Christmas dinner... |
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| Paula's Christmas dinner - unfortunately the stomach flu struck on Christmas eve |
After Christmas we went to stroll the colonial streets of Antigua. It was a nice change of pace from our previous stop and we took our time wandering the city and trying our best to barter in the artesanal market.
We decided to spend the last portion of our time in Guatemala at Lake Atitlan in the town San Pedro la Laguna. The lake was very picturesque and surrounded by three volcanoes. We spent new years eve in San Pedro where they shut down some of the streets for a block party and tons of fireworks. We also took some time to visit the nearby towns of San Marcos and Santiago.
Guatemala was probably one of the most interesting countries that we visited from a cultural perspective. Many people, especially the women and children, tend to wear traditional dress that varies from region to region. The people are very friendly and you would be hard-pressed to walk down the street without being greeted by various passer-bys. At the same time, you can also find people strolling around town (or perhaps sitting in front of you on a tiny shuttle...) with a gun in plain sight. We thought it was a bit funny when we approached one of our first restaurant stops in Guatemala and were met with a "no guns" sign, however this type of sign can be found at many establishments and is perhaps necessary. Although we heard the odd horror story from other travellers along the way, we had no issues and really loved our time in the country. Guatemala will definitely be added to our list of countries that we would like to revisit in the future.
Future Plans: After all of the hard work we have put in over the past four months, we thought it would be prudent to relax with our family and friends in Canada for a few weeks. Thanks for reading and check back for more posts in late January. We are off to Hong Kong on January 25th!
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