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ryan & debbrial

84 Blog Entries
2 Trips
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Trips:

ryan & debbrial's Travel Blog
Us Discovering the Latin Americas

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http://blogabond.com/ryan_debb


We met through a mutual friend in college about 5 years ago. We were friends for about 4 years and dated for a year and half. We recently got married on Sunday, May 24, 2009.

Now for the fun part... We decided not to do the typical buy a house and settling down, instead it was sell everything we own and follow our desire to travel. We are on our journey through Central and South America (backpacking, couch surfing, hostels, camping, whatever) for the next 3-4 years. While in Central and South America we plan on working at a variety volunteer camps, meeting fellow travelers, teaching English local people, surfing, enjoying the beautiful sceneries and environment, visiting some tourist sites and really engaging the culture that surrounds us.


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TreeFrogJohn
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Tikal Ruins

Tikal, Guatemala


Tikal Ruin
Tikal is the largest collection of Mayan ruins that still exists today. At the height of the Mayan dynasty it was more than 100 sq km (50 sq Miles ish) with a population of 50-100,000 people. Tikal consist of 6 temples, a central great plaza, 2 acropolis, 3 ball courts, a plaza of seven smaller temples, a market place, 9 sets of twin pyramids and several residential areas for royalty and common folk.

Tikal Ruins from on top another ruin
However not all of these structures have been excavated by archeologist yet and just look like a large Mountain covered with moss, plants and trees. Our guide told us that during the Mayan time they cleared out all the trees between the structures so that it was a wide open flat area and the whole city could be seen from the central plaza. Anyways we walked around for about 5 hours with the guide telling us all about the Mayan ruins, cultural and rituals along with the indigence plants and animals around us.

Leaf Ants at Tikal

Strong little bugger
He pointed out the “Chiclet” tree…originally the chiclet gum we get in Tijuana was made from the sap of this tree (now it is artificially made). We also saw some spider and howler monkeys, lots of different birds and held a tarantula that the guide teased out of its hole.

Ryan holding Turanchela

Debb holding Turanchela
And of course the ruins were awesome. We got to climb like 4 of them and look over the jungle canopy. Temple 4 was the highest at 70 m (210 ft ish); we felt in when we got to the top!! The last hour we roamed around the central grand plaza then headed back to the bus.

Tikal Ruin
Two hours later we got back to Flores, hung out at the hostel and waited till 8:30 PM to board the bus to Antigua, a nine drive to the pacific side of Guatemala.


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 17, 2009 from Tikal, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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The Sucky Bus Ride to Guatemala City

Flores, Guatemala

With in 10 minutes of leaving Flores; not even 2 Miles down the road at the next bus pick up spot (and thankfully a bus station in Santa Elena) the bus broke down. Let me just set this picture up in your mind for a minute…this is a two Story 45 passenger charter bus with the motor, storage, bathroom and driver compartment on the first level and all the seats on the second level. The first solution the bus driver and co-workers came up with was to try to push the bus to jump start it. NOT going to happen!! The second solution they came up with proved to be more successful. They changed out the two 2 ½” x 1 ½” and 60 lbs. batteries with some from another bus. This took about an hour so when the bus started first try we were all very excited. For the next 9 hours we just had to hope the bus would not brake down again and second try to figure out how to sleep in airplane size seats with the air conditioner turning us blue. It was SO COLD!!!


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 17, 2009 from Flores, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Boarder Crossing # 2

San Ignacio, Belize

We had problems again crossing the boarder into Guatemala but this time not as dramatic. Before we left Belize City we asked how much it cost to get out of Belize, the answer was about $40 Belizeans or $20 USD each. The question we didn’t ask though was how much it cost to enter Guatemala. None of the other countries had cost before to get in and our travel partners did not expect this either. When we got to the Belize-Guatemala boarder we paid our $40 Belizeans got spare change back and continue on to the Guatemala immigration entrance. In really fast Spanish the immigration agent said we owed $20 quartlez (Guatemalan currency) or $3 USD each. Between the four of us we scrapped together enough $USDs, Belizeans and Quartlezes to get pass. We are now in Guatemala; such a variety of lush green trees, bushes exuberating with colorful flowers and the tall grass swaying in the breeze. Oh and white, brown, black and tan free ranging cows and horse all over the place. Wild chickens, dusty dirt roads that cover all the plants on the side of the road making it look like old volcanic ash and let me know forget the roads that are paved are filled with pots holes after pot holes. All this within another 4 hour bus ride from Belize City to Flores, Guatemala.


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 16, 2009 from San Ignacio, Belize
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Flores, Guatemala

Flores, Guatemala

Flores is an appealing small town on an island in the middle of a large lake. The island connects to the mainland by a man-made bridge and into the town Santa Elena. We arrived at the Los Amigos hostel in the mid-afternoon, got a bite to eat then took a walk around town. It took us only about 10 minutes to walk the perimeter of the island and up and down some of the streets. All the roads are made of cobble Stone and the building are painted bright green, yellow, red, etc.

Streets of Flores
The inside of our hostel has a great atmosphere with a tropical forest surrounding the lounge area and a café area with lots of hanging bamboo lamps.

Los Amigos hostel in Flores

Taxi in Flores

As soon as we arrived this afternoon we booked an early Sunrise tour for Tikal Ruins and a bus to Antigua for tomorrow night. The drive to the ruins is about an hour and a quarter which means we are departing from Flores at 4:30 AM. Followed by a 6 hour English guided walking tour. So tonight once again we are all going to chill out and rest up for another long day.

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 16, 2009 from Flores, Guatemala
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Belize Coral Reefs

Belize City, Belize

Now that we are in Belize there are only a few major interest. One the Wildbird Sanctuary, two more Mayan ruins or three go to the caye (islands) to dive or snorkel. So we decided to go to Caye Caluker, an island off the coast of Belize City and in the Belizean Barrier Reef. The Australian, Dan, the English, Craig, (thought I would mention their names now since we are going to keep traveling with them for a little while) and us walked down to the water taxi district bought a light breakfast of meat pie and a round ticket to Caye Caluker.

Caye Caluker Island
As soon as we got off the boat we meet a tour guide who set us up with all day snorkeling, equipment, fresh fruit and a cooler for beer.

Craig, Daniel & Ryan ready for somce snorkeling

He drove us out about 5 minutes to the coral reef and went snorkeling with us to show us all the exotic fish, huge lobsters, crazy sea shells / urchins, and distinguish between all the different types of reef. It was an absolutely beautiful garden sea. There were so many colors: purples, blues, greens, yellows, turquoise, oranges, reds, and so many more. We swam all the way up to the reef wall. All I could think about was that the open wide ocean full of sharks was on the other side. Ahhh!

Belize Coral Reef

Eventually we swam back to the boat and headed to the next snorkel site. At the next snorkel site we swam with tons of sting rays and some barracudas. The sting rays swam so fluidly and let us get close enough to touch their wings. Also really cool spot. The last stop was just more coral reef that we explored by ourselves without the guide. All pruned up and completely super salt water logged we were all ready to go back to shore.

Drinking beers between snorkel sessions

In a shack hut on the beach we ate lunch and I ordered barracuda for the sprite of things. After lunch we walked up and down the beach then caught the last water taxi back to Belize City. We are all bright red with sunburns on our back from snorkeling and exhausted from the sun so we are going to have a chill night in the A/C room and watch movies on the English speaking TV.



permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 14, 2009 from Belize City, Belize
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Traveling by Bus

Chetumal, Mexico

We are on a 4 hour bus ride to Chetumal, the state capital of Quintana Roo (a state of Mexico) and the most southern main town. From what we hear Chetumal is pretty much just a place to stopover en route to Belize. On the bus with us is the Australian and English guys we meet last night. Between the four of us we hope to figure out how to correctly and safely cross our first country boarders. We also learned from pervious travelers to always take a official buses across the boarders instead of taxis. One couple we meet in [[Mexico/Playa-del-Carmen]] said they took a taxi from Nicaragua to Guatemala: the police stopped the taxi and took most their money on hand. Though we never planned on taking a taxi or crossing boarders at night. Anyhow we are excited for our first boarder crossing and a new country, Belize.


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 13, 2009 from Chetumal, Mexico
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Boarder Crossing # 1

Belize City, Belize

So back to the rest of the day. Once we got to Chetumal as a group the Australian guy, English guy and Ryan and I decided to continue onward to Belize City. This was another 4 hour ride so we bought our tickets for the next bus. Goodbye Mexico! Ooohhh almost, first we had to go through immigrant on the Mexico side. Needless to say this was not as exciting as we had anticipated. The bus stopped at the board, we all got off and handed our passports to the guard. He blabbered something off in Spanish which was translated by the bus driver and our friends that we need a tourist card. WHAT?? A tourist card we never needed one for Mexico before, I don’t remember having one last time I came here and when were we suppose to get it. So our friends showed us theirs and we realized we did get one at the airport when we arrived but threw it away at our first hostel. Oooppps. Then the guard blabbered something more pretty much saying we had to pay an extra $30 for lost documents to get out of the country. The rest of the ride including the Belize board crossing was fine. When we got off the bus in the city we realized there was also another guy and two girl travelers on our bus. So as a group of 7 we crammed in a van taxi with all our bags, pretty much sitting on top of one another, in a van which Ryan said it needed new shocks. Regardless he was really cool with stories and took us to our hostel on the North side of Belize City, the SEA Breeze Hostel.


Dreadlock man in Belize City

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 13, 2009 from Belize City, Belize
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Tulum Ruins

Tulum, Mexico

We got into Tulum yesterday (Sunday). It was a 45 minute bus ride from Playa del Carmen but seem a bit longer. When we got here we checked into the Weary Travel Hostel, which was about a block south from the ADO bus station, then walked up and back down the town. It is a small town only about 12 blocks long with lots of fruit stands and Pizza shops. We tried the pizza it wasn’t half bad! Anyways after we walked the town back and forth we came back to the hostel, picked up our book and proceeded to read in the hammocks under the trees for a few hours.

Today was a more exciting day. We got up early packed our bags for the Tulum ruins and the beach. We got to the ruins just in time cause there were a ton of tourístas behind us. It was 1 km hot walk to the ruins so by the time we got there we were glad the ruins are right on the Caribbean cost with a cool sea breeze. Tulum isn’t one of the biggest Mayan ruins sights but it is definitely beautiful setting with lush green trees surrounding an assortment of gray stone ruin temples on large fields of green grass and the crystal blue sea in the background.


ruin on the beach
We walked around the sight taking pictures and Ryan got some really cool panoramic shots.

Can I climb it?

You look this small compared

Tulum Ruins

About an hour of this and we decided to walk down to the beach, 800 meters. This was undeniably a long hot walk on the gravel road between two jungles.


The long long hot hot road

Finally we got to the beach took a swim and laid out soaking in the sun and picture-perfect scenery. Once we were cooled off and relaxed it was time to hit the hot gravel road again.


Ryan doing a handstand down the long long hot hot road
We caught a taxi back to Tulum village, walked the streets looking for tortas (Mexican sandwiches and Ryan’s favorite meal down here so far) and bought two street tacos for some drunk, haggard guy begging us for money probably to buy a beer. We decided we would rather see our money go to food for him instead though I don’t think he was very grateful but our good deed for the day. The rest of the afternoon and night we hung out at the hostel, BBQ dinner (I made my first salad down here) and meet an Australian and English guy. Ryan and them went back and forth showing their tattoos and their tattoo artists’ work online. A dozen beers later we went to bed.

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 12, 2009 from Tulum, Mexico
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Jardin del Eden

X-Puha, Mexico

Today was an awesome day. We got up early went about our business and then went downstairs to meet up with a group of other travelers in our hostel to go to a cenote . We had all planned this over beers the night before when one of the hostel workers, Joe, said he wanted to take us. So in the group was Joe, Ryan and I, one guy from Japan and two girls; one from Hungary and one from Argentina. So we hopped on a bus and headed south for about 20 minutes then were dropped off on the side of the freeway. Joe directed us down a dirt road and lined with canopy trees were we finally came to the entrance of Jardin del Eden Cenotes.

The long hot path to the Cenote

The sight was breathtaking!!! Hard to describe in words but there were lots of lush green trees, moss covered rocks, pretty birds, iguanas, and tiki huts all surrounding a huge cool, crystal clear natural swimming pool. After our long hot walk we were all ecstatic to jump off the rocks into the water.

Jardin del Eden Cenote

Ryan going into the Cave at the Cenote

We swam around the cenote for a while then later Joe brought us snorkel goggles to explore the fish, eels and underwater rock caves/ tunnels. We did a couple practice dives then made the “big plunge” for the 10 second tunnel. Needless to say we made it through; thought it hurt our ears a bit but was soooo much fun.

Debb Playing in the Rain
About halfway through the day it started pouring rain which was warm and refreshing and perfect because the mosquitoes were driving us crazy. The cenote was absolutely amazing.

After the cenote Ryan and I broke off from the group and went to Xcaret for a night show. The show was in a large stadium outdoor theatre with the performance area in the center and at a lower level so the audience could look down on it. It started with a reenactment of the Mayan life including two competition games they use to play; “Butt Ball” and “Fireball Hockey”. Ryan said he wanted to start playing the blazing fireball hockey when we get back home. Anyways the rest of the show was pretty much a musical describing Spanish invasion and life after through traditional dances and songs from each region of Mexico. We both really enjoyed the show.

In the meantime, back at the hostel all the guys running the hostel put on a hosted BBQ every Friday night for the guests. Luckily we got back from the show just as the meat was going on the grill and everyone started partying. So we cleaned up from the already long day and continued the fun. We sat around the lounge area eating, drinking and talking with about 25 other travelers and 20 locals. Ryan and I hit it off really well with a Norwegian couple, about our age. They are going to be here (Playa del Carmen) for a couple more days but we are hoping to meet up with and travel with them in Belize. Anyways about 2-3 hours later, a group of 10 of us went to the disco/ club district. We all danced together and I started learning Salsa from the Argentinean girl. After dancing for about an hour or two we came back home and went to bed. What a long but super fun day!!!




permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 9, 2009 from X-Puha, Mexico
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Just Chill'n

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Today is our second day in [[Mexico/Playa-del-Carmen]] and we are already taking advantage of its beauty and warm temperatures. Last night we went for a sunset swim. The air was about 85 degrees and the water was like 78 degrees. The farther we swam out the warmer it got. Weird.
But before our swim we went to the Super Walmart to bye groceries for the next few days. We already figured out it is way to expensive to go out to eat for every meal. So we bought things like Sandwich meat, bread, cheese, tuna, fruit, granola bars, eggs, yogurt, etc. This hostel and most have kitchens so we are planning to stick to cooking in.

Debb relaxing & reading

Anyways after our swim, a Sandwich for dinner and a walk down the main strip we came back to the hostel and hung out with a group other travelers in the main lounge area for a few hours.

Debb on the beach

Ryan on the beach

So today, we are back to taking advantage of this beautiful place. We got up walked down to the beach (about a 100 yards) to take pictures. Then we came back put all our stuff down and went back to the beach for a 200 yard swim and long walk.


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 8, 2009 from Playa del Carmen, Mexico
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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