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Sarah & David's Travel Page
Hola muchachos!!!
It's been a busy month or so and we thought we should update the blog to let you all know what we've been up to...
So... in January we left Flores on a bus bound for Guatemala City and it all went ok until we got in a taxi in that hell hole at 4am... Unfortunatley that city is particularly dangerous and so we hoped to get a bus to another town straight away but unfortunately our spanish let us down and the taxi driver was evil and we ended up taking a taxi there by mistake and having to pay $100!!! Oops.
Anyway we finally got to a place called Lago de Atitlan and it was worth the wait, absolutely stunning lake surrounded by volcanoes. We basically chilled out there for a few days and then made our way to Antigua to start Spanish lessons...
We took a 4 week course and, we could do the basics before but now we are MUCH better!! We can have a conversation and get by without too many problems, still a long way to go before we are fluent but it was money well spent! We feel really lucky with the teacher that we had, Juan Luis. He was really funny and explained everything really well and I really liked it because some days all we would talk about were beers and English football, both of which Juan Luis loved!
We were also living with a Guatemalan family for a month which helped our Spanish too, very interesting experience!! The family were really nice and the food was traditional Guatemalan food and really good (Sarah ate every meal despite not liking it 50% of the time!). The only thing was that even though we lived with a family, they were kinda set up like a business. We only saw four rooms while we were in the house - our bedroom, the kitchen, the bike rental section, and the Internet cafe (that we needed to pay extra for!) but we spoke with them every day and it probably was the 'total immersion' that the school said it would be.
We managed to get to the beach one weekend, Monterrico, and met some people who were studying at the same school as us so it was fun.
We also climbed a live volcano, and stood maybe one foot from lava...(with no safety precautions or barriers of course, we were in Guatemala after all) very cool though!!!
We also managed to get to a Guatemalan football game which was fun, Antigua vs Aurora. Kinda like the matches that we went to in Mexico bit with 50,000 less people. They're both in the second division in Guatemala and Aurora was our Spanish teachers favourite team. Guatemala love their avocados but, Antigua takes it a bit too far. Their team are called the 'green bellies', their club badge is an avocado, and! they have a huge avocado running around on the pitch before the game!
It's been a fun month but we were both happy to be leaving Antigua. It's a gorgeous city but, it felt a bit like a theme park, without the rides. It's surrounded by volcanoes and is really clean and safe but there isn't really much to do and it is rammed full of tourists so everything is expensive and everyone speaks English, not great when you're trying to learn Spanish! It isn't very 'Guatemalan' to say the least!!
After Antigua we went to Lanquin and I really spoiled Sar on Valentine's Day by taking her to some bat-filled caves! The day after we went to Semuc Champey, and these two days were a bit more adventurous. The bat caves had some rock climbing and Semuc Champey had water caves so a bit more climbing, swimming, and treading water while holding a candle so you can see (or not) the rocks you're about to swim into. Semuc Champey is beautiful, and we had a chance to swim in the pools and go tubing down the river.
From Lanquin we got a bus to Rio Dulce, a huge river that runs into the Caribbean in the north of Guatemala. Here we got a boat across the river and stayed in a jungle hostel! It was really nice and we took kayaks out one day and the river is so peaceful that at one point I felt like it was the most silent place I've ever been to in the world. Actually, apart from us breathing heavily... it seemed like a good idea to kayak to a town 2 hours away...and we are not that fit apparently! The jungle hostel was really nice but, as it's in the middle of nowhere, at night you have no choice but to eat there. Each night they have a family meal where they only prepare one dish and we had spinach quiche that was disgusting. It was run by a French family and, I really didn't come all the way to Guatemala to eat French spinach quiche!
After Rio Dulce we made our way to Copan in Honduras. This was only our third country in the seven months we've been away so we're being quite slow! We're definitely getting better at the traveling. To get to Copan, as well as tackling a border crossing, we had to use about 6 buses and a boat to get there and it all went pretty smoothly! Copan was another amazing Mayan ruin and maybe our last.
It's been a busy month or so and we thought we should update the blog to let you all know what we've been up to...
So... in January we left Flores on a bus bound for Guatemala City and it all went ok until we got in a taxi in that hell hole at 4am... Unfortunatley that city is particularly dangerous and so we hoped to get a bus to another town straight away but unfortunately our spanish let us down and the taxi driver was evil and we ended up taking a taxi there by mistake and having to pay $100!!! Oops.
Anyway we finally got to a place called Lago de Atitlan and it was worth the wait, absolutely stunning lake surrounded by volcanoes. We basically chilled out there for a few days and then made our way to Antigua to start Spanish lessons...
We took a 4 week course and, we could do the basics before but now we are MUCH better!! We can have a conversation and get by without too many problems, still a long way to go before we are fluent but it was money well spent! We feel really lucky with the teacher that we had, Juan Luis. He was really funny and explained everything really well and I really liked it because some days all we would talk about were beers and English football, both of which Juan Luis loved!
We were also living with a Guatemalan family for a month which helped our Spanish too, very interesting experience!! The family were really nice and the food was traditional Guatemalan food and really good (Sarah ate every meal despite not liking it 50% of the time!). The only thing was that even though we lived with a family, they were kinda set up like a business. We only saw four rooms while we were in the house - our bedroom, the kitchen, the bike rental section, and the Internet cafe (that we needed to pay extra for!) but we spoke with them every day and it probably was the 'total immersion' that the school said it would be.
We managed to get to the beach one weekend, Monterrico, and met some people who were studying at the same school as us so it was fun.
We also climbed a live volcano, and stood maybe one foot from lava...(with no safety precautions or barriers of course, we were in Guatemala after all) very cool though!!!
We also managed to get to a Guatemalan football game which was fun, Antigua vs Aurora. Kinda like the matches that we went to in Mexico bit with 50,000 less people. They're both in the second division in Guatemala and Aurora was our Spanish teachers favourite team. Guatemala love their avocados but, Antigua takes it a bit too far. Their team are called the 'green bellies', their club badge is an avocado, and! they have a huge avocado running around on the pitch before the game!
It's been a fun month but we were both happy to be leaving Antigua. It's a gorgeous city but, it felt a bit like a theme park, without the rides. It's surrounded by volcanoes and is really clean and safe but there isn't really much to do and it is rammed full of tourists so everything is expensive and everyone speaks English, not great when you're trying to learn Spanish! It isn't very 'Guatemalan' to say the least!!
After Antigua we went to Lanquin and I really spoiled Sar on Valentine's Day by taking her to some bat-filled caves! The day after we went to Semuc Champey, and these two days were a bit more adventurous. The bat caves had some rock climbing and Semuc Champey had water caves so a bit more climbing, swimming, and treading water while holding a candle so you can see (or not) the rocks you're about to swim into. Semuc Champey is beautiful, and we had a chance to swim in the pools and go tubing down the river.
From Lanquin we got a bus to Rio Dulce, a huge river that runs into the Caribbean in the north of Guatemala. Here we got a boat across the river and stayed in a jungle hostel! It was really nice and we took kayaks out one day and the river is so peaceful that at one point I felt like it was the most silent place I've ever been to in the world. Actually, apart from us breathing heavily... it seemed like a good idea to kayak to a town 2 hours away...and we are not that fit apparently! The jungle hostel was really nice but, as it's in the middle of nowhere, at night you have no choice but to eat there. Each night they have a family meal where they only prepare one dish and we had spinach quiche that was disgusting. It was run by a French family and, I really didn't come all the way to Guatemala to eat French spinach quiche!
After Rio Dulce we made our way to Copan in Honduras. This was only our third country in the seven months we've been away so we're being quite slow! We're definitely getting better at the traveling. To get to Copan, as well as tackling a border crossing, we had to use about 6 buses and a boat to get there and it all went pretty smoothly! Copan was another amazing Mayan ruin and maybe our last.
We are writing this in San Pedro Sula, the second biggest city in Honduras and tomorrow we are taking a bus to Nicaragua. And, it's my birthday in five days! What I really want to do is spend it on the beach and have my first surf lesson so hopefully we'll make it to the South of Nicaragua in time.
Anyway, we hope you're still enjoying the blog.... keep in touch!
Sar & Davy
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