Tikal and beyond!

Yesterday we went to visit some incredible Mayan ruins, called Tikal, in the middle of the rain forest.

The day started around 5:30am taking the bus for about 30 minutes from the sleepy town we were staying in, El Remate. On entering the Tikal national park we drove along a road cut into the thick forest for about another 10 minutes, all the time passing signs to watch out for the jaguars, snakes, turkeys and other wildlife. On arrival we had a quick brekkie and then walked to the main site.

Unlike other places like this that I've visited, there aren't crowds of people, so walking between the sites through the jungle you feel like the only people there. There was tons of animals too, especially birds, and the sounds as we walked about were straight of a nature documentary.

The pyramids themselves were spectacular, some of them completely cleared from the jungle, others left covered in trees and dilapidated. We were able to climb some and the views from the top was amazing, just thick jungle to the horizon with the occasional temple poking out.

Getting back down again varied from merely nerve racking to terrifying because we didn't realise how steep they were on the way up, in fact a couple of people have died by falling from them. The highest pyramid is 62 metres..!

After that we had a relaxing day at a nice hotel back in Flores. Today I'm going to stay with a Guatemalan family and learn Spanish for a week whilst Amy finishes her studies off at ARCAS. Catch you later.

Finished at ARCAS

We both finished our week volunteering at ARCAS a few days ago and have been enjoying the benefits of civilisation for a bit.

Even though we were mainly cleaning up and feeding the animals its been a great experience, its not everyday you get to be so close to wild animals. Our favourites were the toucans, tayra (like a big ferret) and a baby spider monkey called Mona.

The tayra was a real handful and took both of us armed with brushes and raw chicken to coax him into not biting us as we got into the cage to clean up. The toucans were a lot of fun too, always giving us sideways looks when we came in with food and would even take little pieces of fruit out of our hands.

The baby monkey, Mona, was very unsure of me at first and much preferred Amy. Initially she wouldn't even come out of her cage until I hid around the corner then shed cautiously climb onto Amy for a bit of exercise. After a while she got more used to me, but always seemed a little suspicious of me. I must smell like a bad monkey or something.

We had a lot of free time too, so we mainly hung out with everyone else playing cards and drinking a little rum from time to time. We were right next to a beautiful lake too, so we could swim whenever we liked.

All in all, we had a brilliant time and were both pretty sad to leave, but it was a relief to get away from the mosquitoes and freezing cold showers.

Some more photos from ARCAS

Some photos from ARCAS

Just a quickie..!

ARCAS

Today we went to check out ARCAS (http://www.arcasguatemala.com/), an animal rehabilitation centre where we´re going to volunteer for a week. We´ll be helping out by feeding and cleaning out their jaguars, ocelots, monkeys and everything else they have that they´re planning to release back to the wilds!

We were both allowed into the ocelot enclosure today as they were being fed and were just feet away from them. Couldn´t get a good photo, though, they just wouldn´t stay still long enough! Still I´ll have a whole week to get some.

Anyways, I´ll be out of contact for the next week or so, but I´ll update as soon as I get back to civilisation!

Out of Belize, and into Guatemala!

It´s been a while since my last update. Mainly because the internet in Belize is so expensive, but also because after Caye Caulker Belize was a bit shit.

Placencia was billed as a backpacker place with an amazing beach in our guide books, but it felt much more like a semi-expensive resort town and the beach wasn´t that great. After that we went to San Ignacio near the Guatemalan border, again billed as a great backpacker place with lots to do. Admittedly they were lots of tours we could of taken, but they would all of broken the bank, so instead we moved straight on to Monkey Bay so that Amy could get her studies done. We were hoping to do loads of activities here, but it turned out that you needed a big group to do this, so mostly I just read whilst Amy got on with her interviews and study.

So overall we were very happy to leave Belize for Guatemala. At the moment we´re in Flores in the north and we´re staying in a great hostel (something we haven´t been able to find anywhere). It´s a beautiful place on a small island in the middle of a lake with cobbled streets and a European feel. So far we´ve just been soaking up the atmosphere in the hostel and chatting with other travellers to get to lowdown on the rest of Central America, but we both have a good feeling about this place and I think we´re going to find it hard to tear ourselves away.

Well that´s about it for now, next stops are a Jaguar conservation project and Tikal. I´ll keep yous informed!

Unbelizeable!

Well not quite, but it's pretty nice!

We eventually managed to tear ourselves away from Bacalar early in the morning a few days ago. Crossing the border into Belize was really quick and simple, and after a few hours we found ourselves in the capital Belize City. It's hard to believe that a country the size of Wales can only have a population the same size as Brighton's, and that the capital city only has about 60000!

Still, it manages to be a noisy, hustle-bustle place and according to our guidebooks not a place to stick around in after dark, so we took a ferry straight to Caye Caulker. It's mainly a backpacker island and although I've never been there, it feels just like the Caribbean probably does.

After a panicked half hour or so we found a place to stay at the end of the island with the help of a rasta called Gilbert. He spoke in such a strong Creole accent that we could only understand about half of what he was saying. After walking us to our place we gave him a couple of dollars and he went off to find more tourists, and judging by the state of him later on a beer and some smokes.

Caye Caulker is supposed to be a great place to dive and there's tons of tours you can take. We spent a while browsing around what was on offer, but everything seemed like the same package, so we went for a beer on the beach at the Lazy Lizard "A sunny place for shady people" to think things over. As luck would have it a brightly painted rickety boat was docking right in front of the bar with a smiley family getting our thanking the two rastas who ran it. After a little inquiring we decided to join them on their next trip the following day.

They made a point of telling us that their trip was much more laid back than the others and that they were happy for us to bring beers along with us. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great for snorkeling but they managed to let us out in a few places. The first was shark and ray alley, which was teaming with rays about 2 feet across. They were very curious too (probably because they get feed by the people running the tours) and would crowd around you, but I found it difficult to put the crocodile hunter out of my mind. It didn't seem to bother the kids who were with us, they were happily stroking them and with the help of one of the rastas were holding onto them for photos.

The rest of the trip was very lazy, we did a little more snorkeling and dove down for conch shells that the rastas cooked up for us. On the way home we circled the island and scared a small crocodile out of the mangroves, unfazed one of the guys jumped straight in to pluck out some sea horses and pass them around in a big jar.

Anyways, at the moment we're back on the mainland in Placencia after a very hairy bus trip, but I'll write about that another time and hopefully add some photos!

Embarassing injection at Laguna Bacalar

After a visit to the doctors it turns out that my cracked rib is probably broken. I say probably because the doctor and I had a hard time understanding each other. Amy sat in as interpreter with our Spanish dictionary, so were reasonably sure that´s what was said.

Bizarrely the treatment was an injection in my arse! I had to lie down face first with my shorts pulled down a little, as the female doctor, two curious nurses and Amy looked on and giggled! Still along with the painkillers and anti-inflammatories I´m feeling much better, if a little spaced out...

Other than that we´re in Laguna Bacalar at the moment, staying in a cool hotel right on the bank of a huge lake. It´s very peaceful (even without the painkillers!) and we´re just lazing around considering our next move to Caye Caulker in Belize.

We did a little snorkeling in the lake this morning, but we only saw a couple of fish. Although that´s probably a good thing because crocodiles live on the opposite shore of the lake, but if the mosquitoes appetite is anything to go by they´d probably make an exception for me...