That's how you pronounce the name of Juayua, a small town which was our first port of call in El Salvador. We got up stupidly early to catch a shuttle back to Antigua, thankfully this part of the trip passed in a daze as I managed to sleep for most of the way, then we transferred to another shuttle which took us over the border before dropping us off at the side of the highway to wait for a local 'chicken bus' which thankfully wasn't too long in a...

We headed off from Antigua early in the morning to make our way to Lake Atitlan on what we thought would be an hour long bus journey (it's so close on the map!). It turned out to be 4 hours of windy, bumpy roads but wow was the effort worth it! What greeted us was a stunning 130km² lake in the Guatemalan highlands that is ringed by mountains, volcanoes and villages that creep up from the lakeside into the hills. I won't even try and describe it any furth...

So it turns out I was a bit hasty in saying you'd hear from Sophie next.. She's busy planning the rest of the trip so blog duty has fallen to me - I probably shouldn't complain! So we endured the rest of the overnight bus trip without incident, this time being prepared with jackets and beanies to ward off the freezing air-conditioning. We stopped in Guatemala City (which the guidebook isn't too fond of) and immediately jumped into a shuttle which ...

And so we crossed the border into Guatemala, shuttled from one official to another for a series of payments, stamps, passport checks and tourist demographic surveys. Finally we made it through to the other side and were immediately mobbed by taxi drivers, all vying with each other to offer a ride to our destination of Flores. A French-Canadian couple in the immigration queue behind us had suggested we share a taxi to split the cost, so between us we kept barterin...

After one night in Placencia we had to be up early to catch the 6am bus to our final stop in Belize, San Ignacio as it was the only direct non stopping service a day. We caught the bus but it ended up being a local bus which meant massive overcrowding (3 people sharing 2 seats meant a seriously numb bum at the end), it stopping EVERYWHERE and having to change buses at the capital Belmopan! The buses are actually ex school buses from the USA (basically when they&#...