Loading...
Start a new Travel Blog! Blogabond Home Maps People Photos My Stuff

Us Discovering the Latin Americas

a travel blog by ryan & debbrial


view all 335 photos for this trip

Show Oldest First
Show Newest First

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
Send a Compliment

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
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

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
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

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
Send a Compliment

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
Send a Compliment

Guatemala City

Guatemala, Guatemala

Nine hours later, about 7 AM, we made it to Guatemala City with no other problems (besides the lack of sleep). Originally we booked our bus ticket to Antigua which is an hour north of Guatemala City so as soon as we got off the bus in the city we had another driver meet us to get on another bus. As we drove through the city Ryan referred to it as an old Tijuana (TJ). The bus station was in downtown. All the surrounding building had bars in the windows and barbwire on the roofs. I must say to their credit that the bars on the windows were ornately designed, helping the façade just a bit. Once we got out of downtown we climbed a hill and descended into another TJ look-a-like. Despite the fact that the hills were covered with abundant green trees there were House stacked upon House on the side of the hills like TJ. We made it to Antigua in half the time (the first fast driver we have had).


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

The small town of Anitgua

Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala

Antigua is completely opposite of Guatemala City. The town is set in a valley surrounded by three Volcanoes. The streets are cobblestone and the building are like Spanish / Italian / Southern European style.

Street in Angitua
People here are friendly and there is definitely a community / family atmosphere. We arrived here on Sunday, which is market day, so all the local people were out and about. Most the women and young girls were wearing authentic Spanish dresses and walking down the street with cloth bundles on their head.

Local ladies walking with baskets on their head & carrying babies
On the way to the market we came across a fútbol (soccer) game in the dirt where the audience was going crazy.

Soccer game in Antigua
Around the corner we came to the market. It was pretty much like a swap meet with tons of stalls with the same stuff one after another. They sold mountains of fruit, clothes, belts, watches, sunglasses, hats, toiletries, racks of pirated CDs and DVDs and tons of colorful textile blankets, purses, hair bands, tablecloths, etc.

Market Place in Antigua

Fruit stand at Market Place in Antigua

We walked around for a little longer then decided to head back to the hostel to rest before we went on a Volcano tour later in the afternoon.

Old building & Cobblestone Street in Antigua

Church in Antigua

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

Pacaya Volcano

Guatemala, Guatemala

The BEST Adventure YET!!! It is hard to believe the amazing experience we just had. It was an afternoon tour to Volcán Pacaya (2552 m); the only active volcano near Antigua in San Francisco de Sales. There was a group of 14 us that the driver picked up from Antigua. When we arrived at the small mountain town of San Francisco de Sales we were bombarded by children trying to sale us walking sticks.

Local boy selling sticks for Volcano hike in San Francisco del Sales
We were all like “we don’t need those we are young, athletic we can climb this mountain” which proved to be true for us but some people in the group should have gotten one. Anyways we started our 1 hour hike up the mountain on a narrow, steep mud path through the dense jungle.

View of Guatemala City from Pacaya Volcano
Our guide brought his two dogs so we had them to lead the way half the time. Haha. Out of breath and at the top of the mountain we were stunned by the awe-inspiring view. We were just below the volcano base and just above all the dense puffy clouds. Ryan got amazing photographs.

Clouds at the base of the Pacaya Volcano

View of Agua Volcano from Pacaya Volcano


Debb & Ryan at the base of Pacaya Volcano

Debb, Ryan, Daniel & Craig at Pacaya Volcano

Turning around 360 we stared at our next challenging climb; up the volcano’s vertical cone. We thought we were done with the hard part but not even close. The cone is covered in black basaltic rock that is shed from the crater and is like climbing up a giant sand dune or snow covered mountain. The 20 mph cool winds didn’t help much either. In Spanish the guide told us “one step forward, two steps back”. It took us about another 30 minutes to climb from the base to half way up the volcano cone where the lava was flowing out of the mountain. Higher up we climbed the fine basaltic rock gradually started turning into a black sharp volcanic desert. We knew we were close when we felt and smelt warm sulfur gases coming from the cracks in the rocks. Just up one more level and around one more corner. One more deep breath. One for leg cramp. There it was red hot flowing lava!! Only in Guatemala does the guide say okay go for it. In small groups we climbed as close to the lava as our skin would allow us and took a few pictures before the sole of our shoes melted off. This actually happened to one guy in our group.

Lava from Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala

Lava from Pacaya Volcano

Standing next to the lava and thinking about the challenging climb we just completed Ryan and I agreed this is why we are on this trip.

Ryan touching the Lava
Once everyone had taken their pictures with the lava we were on our way back down the mountain. It was dark by this time and the now cold winds were picking up to 35 mph on the volcano cone. We had 5 flashlights to share between 15 of us; luckily it was a lot easier to slid down the basaltic rock and down the narrow mountain path. About 45 minutes later we were at the bottom of the mountain and on our way back to Antigua. Even though we were super excited about our volcano climb we were also all very exhausted from the climb and still tired from the barely any sleep the night before. Needless to say we got back to Antigua had McDonalds for dinner and went straight to bed still with a grin on our faces!!


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

Our Amazing Race: Challenge Buying a Van in Guatemala

Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala

Our five day car search finally came to an end!!! The first day we walked all around town like chickens with our heads cut off. We collect and call numbers out of the newspaper classifieds, searched the main street where for sale cars are parked and asked tons of locals where to buy a vehicle. And at the end of the day we got no where. Day two started off as a disappointment as well; walking up and down the streets and calling classifieds again. After about 3 hours of that we were on our way back to the hostel for a break via the main road. Our eyes were wondering back and forth, car to car hoping for something new to pop up. Then one block and a corner from hostel we saw two ladies park a “minibus” van for sale. All three of us quickly scurried across the street, dodging on coming traffic. By the time we got to the van the two ladies were out of sight. Vanished!! They could not have gone far; probably in one of the several shops roundabout. We waited for a few minutes then Craig went into the shop where the van was parked in front of to ask if she knew who the van belonged to. She said, “Yes, the family across the street behind the large wooden door” (like most the mysterious doors around here with who knows what behind them). Anyways so we rang the bell and solved the mystery. There was a long drive way that lead to several car ports, a furniture shop and a large communal house where we later found out a family of 3 brothers, 1 sister, children, spouses, and grandparents all lived. Like a typical Latin American family. The sister and her husband were selling the van. They both spoke English which was a dream come true to us at this point. Ryan looked over the entire van and went for a test drive. Since they were asking a little more than our original budget we had to sleep on it. Later that afternoon after rolling it around in heads we decided to go for it. The van is in good condition, clean engine and even better we have space to pick up other travelers in our hostels. The next morning, day three, we went back and agreed on a lower price, the easy part. Now to the nitty-gritty. 1. Ryan had to get a foreign identify number for Guatemala. 2. Pay Antigua residency tax ($3) 3. Go to the ladies’ lawyer to release her liability 4. Make double copies of everything 5. Take over her insurance, which is good for the next 5 months 6. Find someone to take all that paperwork to Guatemala City to get a title transfer. Day three was a lot more productive than day one and two. Today, day four, we went shopping for the van: ice chest, extra fuses, a jack, some tools, etc. We checked out of the Yellow House (Casa Amarillo) hostel and are waiting for the title to come back from Guatemala City, then its up the road to Lake Atitlán…… Bummer!! So the language barrier finally caught up to us in this round about adventure. The guy we sent to Guatemala City only got part of the paper work needed for the title transfer and did not actually do the transfer. Now we have no hostel to sleep in tonight and still have to go to Guatemala City tomorrow. Guess this is Night One of sleeping in the van.

Ryan and Craig in Chiquimula

Ryan & Debb with Chiquimula

Ryan and the Van

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 22, 2009 from Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment

The Final Challenge

Guatemala, Guatemala

Well Night One of sleeping in the van did NOT work out so great. We started by trying to find a safe and quiet street to park on. In our past four days in Antigua we agreed this is a nice, family community town and we would have no problems sleeping on the street. We draped up sheets around all the windows, gather clothes for pillows and settled in. Well not sooo much. The problems came when Ryan and Craig tried to fit laying down on the bench seats to sleep. Neither of them fit since they are both 6 ft tall. I was laughing cause I fit, 5’ 1” tall. So the guys decided to take out the middle bench, lean it up against the second bench and we could all sleep on the floor. That was a good idea until they couldn’t fit between the front seats and the back bench either. LOL again!! By this time sleeping in the van didn’t sound like a very good idea to them and we were all cracking up. We ended up driving around to three hostels before we found one with vacant beds. Grabbed our bags and to bed.

NOW day five, the final day of buying a car in Guatemala. We took the documents we had back to the Antigua transportation office only to find out we had a few more forms to fill out and fees to pay. Back to the lawyer and the bank. Needless to say this took most of the morning since the lawyer was out to a long morning brunch and the bank’s computer system failed in the middle of our processing. Finally by noon we got all the paperwork we needed and headed down to Guatemala City to do the title transfer ourselves. In the end this proved to be the second easiest part after buying the car.


Busy Guatemala City

Busy Guatemala City

We navigated through the crazy New York City / Beirut / Tijuana-like streets to the municipal center easily and again through the DMV lines.

Guatemal City building and Flag

Within an hour Ryan had an original title to the van in his name and in his hands!!!! (This is necessary to cross boarders). So after all that we now own a car and can go where we want, when we want. And on our way to Lake Atitlán.

Guatemala City

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 23, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
Send a Compliment
Viewing 11 - 20 of 86 Entries
first | previous | next | last

View as Map View as Satellite Imagery View as Map with Satellite Imagery Show/Hide Info Labels Zoom Out Zoom In Zoom Out Zoom In
find city:
ryan & debbrial ryan & debbrial
2 Trips
436 Photos

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...

trip feed
 author feed
 trip kml
 author kml

   

Blogabond v2.40.58.80 © 2024 Expat Software Consulting Services about : press : rss : privacy