7/30/13

WWOOFING in San Cristobal!

 For my last two weeks of the four month Latin American adventure, I met up with my boyfriend Jay and we headed back to San Cristobal to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) in exchange for room and board. Jay flew into Villahermosa, Tabasco because it was cheap and relatively convenient to San Cristobal. I arrived to Villa on the morning of June 8th and Jay came in late at night, so I hung out with our couchsurfing host Rosa all day. She was super nice and showed me around the city, had a delicious seafood lunch with her parents, bought her brother a birthday gift and ran other errands. We picked Jay up at the airport at night and it was so exciting to see him and so incredible that he was the only friend able to make it down to travel with me! Rosa and I treated him to some local treasures on the first night: Villahermosa's best horchata, fresh tropical fruit, plantain chips and the only real dark beers I'd ever seen in Mexico! It was quite the celebration, even though it was really hot in Rosa's apartment at night. We got up early the next morning and Rosa drove us to the bus station to catch a bus to Tuxtla Gutierrez, where we took a connection onto San Cristobal.


Jay's first night in Mexico, couchsurfing with Rosa in Villahermosa!

Once we finally arrived in San Cristobal around midday the following day, it was relieving to be back at about 6000 ft elevation because it was much cooler! We found La Casa del Pan, the restaurant with a dorm in the back, where we'd be staying. The dorm situation was a little awkward, but convenient to everything in town and about 45 minutes walk from the farm where we worked. That afternoon we met one farm-mate Cory from Minnesota, and the following day we met the rest of the crew of about 2-6 depending on the day, including people from Mexico, Spain and France.
For the next two weeks we enjoyed lots of sunshine and good weather while working at the farm in the morning. We mostly weeded, harvested produce for the Wednesday and Saturday markets, separated seeds from dried plants to give to other farmers and chatted in English and Spanish with our friends on the farm. The farm grew a variety of veggies and fruits to be sold at the market and used at the restaurant La Casa del Pan, including many types of greens, beets, tomatoes, strawberries, rhubarb, onions, etc.
In the afternoon we would walk back to La Casa del Pan for their big vegetarian lunch, and then relax or walk around town to visit markets and drink the most amazing hot chocolate ever! I showed Jay some of my favorite parts of the town that I'd seen in May, and the two weeks we spent in San Cristobal passed by very quickly and soon it was time to take the bus back towards Villahermosa. On our last night in San Cristobal, Jay, Cory and I went on a big shopping trip to the market together and cooked a stellar meal at her boyfriend Dan's apartment!



Big clouds coming out of the hills around San Cristobal


The rooftop garden above the restaurant where we stayed in San Cristobal



Last day on the farm with Cory





Goodbye dinner at Dan's apartment (chicken mole, pork with green chile, horchata, bread pudding...)


View of the town from Dan's deck

We said goodbye to San Cris the next day and took the bus to Palenque, and then rode out to El Pachan, a small group of hotels in the jungle just outside the entrance to Palenque National Park. We found a room for two nights and then went back into the town of Palenque to buy some supplies. The next day we took a van to the waterfalls of Misol Ha and Agua Azul, which I had been to before with my dad, but loved so much and was eager to go to again. The van had some other interesting travelers from England and Spain, and we all enjoyed swimming in the hot and humid jungle. That night we had dinner at a place in town where Jay loved the local food, especially because it included meat, which had been lacking at La Casa del Pan!



Misol Ha waterfall

On our last full day in Mexico, we visited the Palenque ruins, had lunch in the town of Palenque at a taco stand and then took a short bus ride back to Villahermosa. We met up with Rosa again, (she was The Best!) checked out some live music and an art gallery that was having a special event commemorating the city's birthday, and Rosa took us to a locally known food truck that had delicious typical food and lots of white plastic chairs! It was a very hot night, but not long, as we had to get up at about 4am to catch a taxi to the airport on June 26th and say "Adios Mexico"!


Last day at Palenque



7/29/13

You Betta BELIZE it!!

That's right...you better BELIZE it...my mom returned to travel with me for the second time this trip! I didn't think that it would work out, but she is an amazingly persistent woman with lots of time off work, so it did! And Belize turned out to be an excellent place for us to reunite!
On May 31st, we met up in San Ignacio, which was about two hours west of Belize City and only ten miles from the Guatemala border.  We actually stayed a little ways out of town in the Parrots Nest Jungle Lodge, which was near the town of Bullet Tree Falls. My mom got in after her long travel day with just enough time to do some catching up and we ate dinner at the lodge with other guests there.
San Ignacio was the big attraction in the area, so we spent our first morning exploring their well-known Saturday market, traveled outside of the city two small Mayan sights, Xunintunich and Cahal Pech, and ate lots of tasty local food! That afternoon we tubed down the river by Parrot Nest with two sisters from Canada, Hilda and Diana, and they convinced us to sign up for the ATM tour the next day. So that evening we took a taxi back into town and had an amazing dinner plus signed up for the trip.  When we got back to the lodge, we found out that four other people had been talked into signing up by Hilda and Diana as well!


Eating local Belizean food at Hannah's Place


View from the top of Xunintunich

The ATM tour was rewarding and worth it because it was just so incredibly unique. My mom also really enjoyed it, even though she had to be talked into it by quite a few people! It's the only place I have heard of where there have been Mayan sacrifice ruins (human bones and lots of broken pots) found in a cave, and what they call the "missing link" to Mayan archeology. Cameras weren't allowed inside and we had to do some swimming anyways, but the guide sent us some photos afterwards.


Entrance to the ATM cave and a scull found inside



The following day we rode from San Ignacio to Hopkins with an amazing Belizean named Tosh, as well as her husband and grandkids. Along the way we all stopped and enjoyed a cave and the blue hole cenote. Tosh's grandkids and her stories added so much more to the journey and it was also really neat to visit their extended family in a Mennonite community along the way. We arrived in quiet little Hopkins in the afternoon and met Trish at Tipple Tree Beya, where we stayed on a gorgeous Caribbean beach. That afternoon I swam in the Caribbean for the first time and we rode bikes around the town. We also met Cailtin, an Evergreen State College grad who has been living in Hopkins for over ten years and runs a top notch bakery, where spent a lot of money!


Swimming with Tosh's grandkids in the Blue Hole


The view from our porch at Tipple Tree Beya in Hopkins


Caitlin's Bakery (a fellow Evergreen grad that I found in a town of 1500 people!)
 
 

Biking in Hopkins

We set up a boating trip to go out to Tobacco Caye the next day, which my mom heard looked similar to Gilligan's Island, a tv show that she used to watch as a kid. Once we got there, we saw that it was tiny but had a few cute hotels and better snorkeling because it was out on the reef. We spent the day there while our boat captain Luckie and his wife and baby daughter went out fishing. They brought us back to Hopkins in the afternoon, passing many other cayes and tiny islands of mangrove trees along the way. At night we tried more Garifuna food that we'd never had before and it was so good!
The following morning, we caught a crowded local bus to Dangriga, and then got very lucky and spotted the bus to Belize City, even though it was not where it was supposed to be! My mom was worried about taking public transportation all way to Belize City, but we made it in time to catch the midday boat to Caye Caulker with no sweat!



On Tobacco Caye: conch shells and the family that took us out on their boat for the day



Once on Caye caulker, we knew we would see a very different side of Belize that we hadn't seen previously. There was a lot more infrastructure and activity on the island, but it was also a gorgeous location with easy access to the reef. On the second day we were there, we took a motor boat out to the reef and snorkeled in three excellent places. One spot had great coral and plants, another had an impressive amount of fish and finally we were able to snorkel with sharks and sting rays! That was definitely a highlight of the time we spent in Belize! In the afternoons and evenings, we continued to enjoy the reggae beats and relaxed vibes of the Carribean culture. On our last afternoon there we also rented a kayak and explored the other side of the island. And we enjoyed delicious seafood (and one more meet-up with Hilda and Diana!) on our last night in Belize. The next morning (June 7) we each took separate boats off of the island. My mom went back to Belize City and got to the airport to head back to Seattle, and I was off to Chetumal on the Yucatan peninsula.


Restaurant in Caye Caulker


Swimming with Sting Rays!


Caye Caulker sunset


Our last night, and we got to see Diana and Hilda again!

6/28/13

GUATEMALA!!!

After dropping my dad off at the Tuxtla Gutierrez airport and handing off that fabulous rental car, I was on my own again for the next two weeks. I had been thinking for a while that a trip to Guatemala might be an interesting diversion, and something quite new and different. So instead of heading east to the yucatan peninsula, as previously planned, I had one layover night in San Cristobal, and then took a shuttle bus across the border the following morning into Quetzaltenango (aka Xela), in the western highlands of Guatemala. I thought of it as an adventure within an adventure for two weeks, little did I know that I could have used twice that much time in Guatemala!
The first two nights in Xela I was couchsurfing, and during the full day that I had there, I went up to Fuentes Georginas, a hot spring way up in the cloud forest. My travel companions that day were a rugged mother-daughter duo from Vermont, who were very well-traveled and we shared a lot of great stories. On the way back from the Fuentes, we stopped in a small indigenous village for lunch, which included queso fresco, the freshest blue corn tortillas ever and mangos! Then we took the chicken bus back to Xela and spent another few hours talking over some fancy hot chocolate concoctions, theirs even had ice cream floating in it! Unfortunately I didn't try the hot cocoa ice cream float because the second I crossed the border, I came down with a cold, so I had my own Fuente coming out of my nose for the next week.



Fuentes Georginas

Afterwards I went to a pretrip meeting for a backpacking trip. I heard about a group called Quetzaltrekkers before coming to Guatemala and their three day trek from Xela to Lago Atitlan sounded super fun and worked with my schedule! Quetzaltrekkers is the only guide service that donates all of the profits to a local school for children of low income families that otherwise wouldn't be able to attend school. At the meeting we divided up the group gear, and the next morning we met up early and took a chicken bus to the trailhead. The first day of climbing was more difficult than we thought it would be, but the cloud forest was gorgeous! We arrived in a small mountain town just as the afternoon rain was starting and we had the opportunity to use a traditional temescal (Mayan sauna) before dinner and then sleep! I woke up with a really sore right knee, and this proved to be a problem for the next week and a half. 
The next two days we continued hiking through gorgeous mountains and I had a lot of fun chatting with the other hikers in the group, who were from Mexico, England, Australia, Nicaragua, Kenya and Germany. Other highlights included staying with a family in their home on the second night, where we were serenaded by kids around the campfire and fed a delicious meal. We woke up really early the next morning to try to catch the sunrise over Lago Atitlan. Unfortunately it was too cloudy at first, but as we descended to the lake, the sun came out and we had a really nice last day of hiking. We ended with swimming and lunch in San Pedro, a hippie hangout on the lake. Most of the group headed back to Xela that afternoon, and I decided to take a ferry across the lake to the tiny town of Santa Cruz. 


Cloud forest true to form!



Second day photo break



Group shot done with a self timer!


Looking down onto San Pedro and the lake on the last morning 
(this was also done with a self timer!)

The Vermont friends that I had met a few days earlier had recommended an amazing hostel in Santa Cruz called La Iguana Perdida. I was really excited to explore more of the lake over the next few days, but the next morning my stomach was upside down and I spent the following two days resting at La Iguana. I was so sad to have an injured knee, head cold and stomach illness all at the same time, but fortunately I was at a perfect place to just relax and the owners of the hostel took care of me and got me antibiotics. After three mellow nights there, it was time to press onto another nearby gem...Antigua. I spent one rainy afternoon seeing the town and hiking up to an overlook, where I met a nice Canadian lady and we got soaked in the rain hiking around and chatting. The next morning I took another shuttle bus north to the town of Coban, and met up with my couchsurfing hosts Astrid and Evan that evening. They were really fun people and brightened up the otherwise minimally exciting coffee town that I came to in order to see nearby waterfalls. The next day I took a bus and rode in the back of a truck to the waterfalls of semuc champey. It was a bit tricky to get there, but it was so worth it to see this stellar sight, and I met some other fun travelers there, including an Israeli family and an Aussie who insisted on only speaking in Spanish with me! I got back to Coban in the evening and met up with Astrid and Evan after work. Astrid took me to a local film festival that night and then the next morning I went to an awesome cafe with very unique chocolate and coffee drinks with crazy spices. I met a fun group of five travelers from Colorado who had all met each other while working at REI in Denver! I caught a shuttle to Flores after breakfast, and met more interesting travelers and companions. 


Views of Lago Atitlan






A drizzly Antigua street 




Semuc Champey waterfalls from above

As soon as I got into Flores, a rain storm started, so I showed up to the well-known Hostal Los Amigos soaking wet. This was one of the first places that I stayed that was a real backpacker party hostel, however even though I was in the cheapest dorm room (and the only one left) the noise was under control, and everyone else there was really easy-going and we had lots of fun walking around the island eating street food and swimming in the lake. On my first morning there, I got up at 4am to get to Tikal very early, and the tour I went on was fabulous! I liked I even more than Palenque and got back to Flores in time to swim in the afternoon and go on a market adventure with a German friend who also insisted on only speaking in Spanish, which I really enjoyed. She had worked at the school that is run by Quetzaltrekkers in Xela, and it was great to hear about her experiences at the place that the trek profits support. On my final night in Guatemala, we swam, ate street food and watched a far off lightning storm. What a perfect way to end this part of the trip! I was surprised by how much of Guatemala I was able to see in two weeks, and I think traveling alone allowed me to meet more people and join up with other travelers to go to different places. It was really rewarding to be able to stay in backpacker hostels, couchsurf and even go backpacking. Almost all of Guatemala was mountainous and I saw mostly clouds and rain, unlike the Mexican sun that I was used to. On the last day of May I crossed from Guatemala into Belize to meet up with my mom that afternoon, and I was so happy that my path had turned south for a little while, it definitely made me want to come back again and see all of Central America!



The Mayan ruins of Tikal in the early morning



Don't make me leave Guatemala!!

6/15/13

Mayan Ruins and Waterfalls

Continuing our tour of Chiapas state, we drove north from San Cristobal for a few hours to Agua Azul waterfall, where we hiked and swam before the big hoards of tourists showed up. We pressed on a bit further along the highway past impoverished families in the countryside who were holding strings across the road to stop cars and try to sell their bananas. But there are really only so many bananas that you can buy, and most of the time you´d have to honk loudly to get them to let you pass. Instead of bananas we opted for mangos, because we were in the midst of delicious mango season.


Dad eating a mango flower at Agua Azul

I really enjoyed swimming at our next stop, the waterfall Misol-Ha. After lounging there for a while and attempting to swim directly under the flow of the waterfall, we drove a few more miles into the town of Palenque. We arrived and quickly found the best hotel option with a pool, as the climate is very hot and humid there. When we came back to our hotel pool after dinner on the town´s main square, we found that it was filled with 500 unsupervised children who had come in off a tourist bus while we were out. But the temperature was hot enough to make us want to swim around them!  


Misol-Ha waterfall

The following day we drove southeast along the Guatemalan border to our first Mayan ruin, Bonampak. This was probably one of the most isolated places that I visited in Mexico to that point, as there were only small indigenous villages and jungle surrounding the site, on both sides of the border. there weren´t many other people there, but we did meet some Chiapaneco families on a day trip and local Lacandon people. On the way back to Palenque, we stopped at a beautiful set of cascadas for a picnic and refreshing swim. We were so lucky to find this spot, which was off the highways a ways, down a dirt road, and not well described in the guide book. This day trip was also the first time I tried out being behind the wheel of the rental car, and while I was over-cautious at times, I did minimal damage to the underside of the car when going over unmarked speed bumps! My dad was fairly disappointed that missionaries had saturated this remote corner of Mexico and most of the towns along the border highway were dry, so there was nothing refreshing for him to sip on while I drove home! After getting back to the hotel and enjoying the pool and AC quite a bit, I checked my email and found out that I´d been accepted into the University of Washington School of Medicine!! Best of all, I got to share my excitement with my dad, as we celebrated with a seafood feast and lots of hugs that night in Palenque!


Dad welcomes you to Bonampak, which we had almost to ourselves!


Bonampak murals that are incredibly well-preserved


The following day we saw Mayan sight number two...Palenque! We got an early start, but it was still plenty hot at the sight. We found the energy to climb almost all of the monuments and trek around through the jungle. This was a much anticipated day for us, and Palenque did not disappoint! The blue sky + green grass + black and white stonework made for a surreal setting, and we had fun exploring different passageways and thinking about Mayan times. After spending the morning walking through the palaces and patios of palenque, dad and I stopped by the museum briefly and then returned to our hotel to relax for a bit and enjoy the pool, sans young and wild hooligans! It was nice to have a relaxing afternoon and some down time, after we'd been going non-stop for the previous 2 weeks. Some shots of Palenque:





The next morning we headed out early and climbed back up into the mountains to the town of Ocosingo, which is about halfway between Palenque and San Cristobal. There we had some breakfast, bought incredible "doble crema" cheese that is specially made in the region and our usual daily supply of tortillas, which always consists of a hefty stack for 2-3 pesos. We drove a few miles outside of town to Tonina, another Mayan sight. While it is a bit more off the beaten path, and not as visited as Palenque, Chichen Itza or Tikal, we were informed in the parking lot by an overly confident tour guide that Tonina has The Best murals in the entire Mayan world, and those other ruins are crap by comparison! We had a good laugh over his persuasiveness, then decided not to pay him to give us a tour, as we sensed a little too much bitterness. He was indeed correct that Tonina was impressive and had nice stone carved murals. It was also a monster to hike up, with seven levels of pyramids running up the hill. On the way back down, we stopped at a snack shop, which was run by a Zapatista family. My dad was very excited to buy a t-shirt from them and we heard more about the Zapatista's current control of the area and what has occurred since their uprising in 1994. Later in the afternoon, when we were driving down the back roads to the town of Comitan, we passed through more Zapatista towns and were stopped on the road to pay a fee to locals who were repairing the road. The price was of course dependent on how you looked and what kind of car you were driving, but it was nice to have a landslide-free road!





Tonina


We arrived in Comitan in the afternoon and walked around town a bit to see the museum and house of Dr. Belisario Dominguez, a political reformer and medical doctor who lived in the city. While I don't think that Comitan really deserved it's distinction as a "pueblo mágico" or "magical city" like others that I've seen, the main attractions were the nearby natural wonders, including Lagunas de Montebello, where we went the next day. Our rental car really came in handy here, and we were able to see all of the sections of the national park and at least a dozen lakes, of so many different colors! We even went to one that was right on the border, half in Mexico and half in Guatemala! Our favorite was definitely Laguna Agua Tinta, where we swam all by ourselves in perhaps the clearest and cleanest lake I have ever been in!




One of the many Lagunas de Montebello 

On our last full day in Chiapas, dad and I packed up our stuff and drove to the final waterfall of the trip, Cascada El Chiflon. We were fortunate to arrive there early enough to avoid excessive heat and crowds, and I think it was one of the most beautiful places we went in Chiapas. The mist off of the largest "bridal veil" falls felt so good, and swimming in the lower falls was nice as well. From there we drove the backroads to a little town just south of San Cristobal for lunch, then we drove through San Cris to a hotel in Chiapa del Corzo, which put us within striking distance of the airport for the next morning. We decided to take it easy on our last afternoon and not drive up to the Cañon del Sumidero, or go on the boat ride into the canyon because my dad still has a fear of Mexican boats. Instead we went swimming (again!) and ate a fabulous final dinner of street tamales. We stacked up quite a few plates and it was the perfect way to end trip with my dad!


Cascada del Chiflon


 Mmmmmmmmmmango season!!!!