If you told me a month ago the adventures I'd be having in a short two and a half weeks, I probably would have laughed and said sounds awesome, but all that can't be possible! But like my surf instructor told me yesterday everything is possible in El Salvador! And I'll go ahead and extend that to Central America.
The adventures, the people, the scenery has been truly amazing! It's amazing that it has only been a week and a half because it seems like a month! We have had a lot of long bus rides, some comfortable, some very uncomfortable, but at the end of each new and exciting possibilities awaited us!
Here is a brief outline and highlights of our trip thus far. Taylor and I flew into Guatemala City where we met Ellen, who had already been traveling for about two weeks. From G.C we took another flight to Flores and stayed two nights and went to Tekal to see the oldest Mayan ruins. It was incredible! We met some really cool people from Canada, Israel, and Germany.
From Flores we went over to Belize and stayed at a beach town called Hopkins. It was really nice to be on the beach and relax. We were there for two nights then took a bus and a boat to Livingston Guatemala. On the boat ride down we met a man from the UK who owned a hostel and said he was having a 4th of July party and needed more Americans! Nobody ever wants more Americans so we felt pretty special and like it was our duty to represent!
We met two other guys from Kentucky and Texas, so adding three girls from Tennessee, it couldn't get more American! We also celebrated with about 12 other nationalities. The owner had a house on the beach with a pool and we had bbq chicken and potato salad. It was pretty great! We also played a round of ultimate frisbee in the ocean, USA vs Ireland, Australia, England, Canada and New Zealand! USA stomped them! Merica!
From Livingston we went down the Rio Dulce by boat to Finca Tantin. This was our jungle home! We didn't want to leave! Awesome awesome place with cool people and great food! And it's in the jungle! We stayed two nights there and kayaked and went off ropes swings, and contemplated throwing out passports in the river and staying forever!
Needless to say we didn't ditch our passports and moved on to Lanquin. Getting there was quite intense diving through the mountains for hours in a 16 passenger van! Beautiful but a little nauseating. We stayed at a really awesome hostel in the mountains, run by a man from Israel.
We went there because it was close to the limestone pools, that was one thing we were looking forward to the most. However the government had come in and decided they wanted the profits from it, so there was a struggle going on between the town and the government, so the whole thing was shut down.
However we did get to tube down a river and swing off a rope swing. We also got to explore a cave, which was super awesome! Think Indiana Jones! Wading and swimming through water the whole time carrying candles to a waterfall way back in the cave! That we climbed behind and then up. Soooo cool!
From there we headed to Antigua, the oldest city in Central America. We didn't do too much there because we were tired from traveling, but we did go to their market and bought a few things. I also got a donut, which I was very excited about!
From Antigua we went to El Salvador. We met a girl from Canada that told us about surfing and a place to stay so we all stayed at the same hostel in a room with AC, which was heaven! We fell asleep when our heads hit the pillow!
We had surfing lessons the next day for an hour and then we got to keep the boards for the rest of the day. I thought I would be good at surfing, but it was actually quite difficult because you have to go slow and I wanted to go fast! We had great teachers though who were super patient and encouraging after each 403 fall that I took! Later that afternoon we went back out by ourselves, and it was a whole other ball game! Our hips and ribs are so bruised and I've never had so much salt water up my nose and in my throat! But it was epic!! We are now ready to be sponsored by billabong!
We were planning on staying another night, but once we started looking for ways down to Costa Rica it turned out the best way was to take a bus at one in the morning! Which is were we are now! Crossing borders and sitting for hours! It will take us about 24 hours to actually get where we are going! Not fun, but apart of the experience.
This was only a small highlight, but still a lot to write! I would definitely do this trip again but extend it. Everyone we've met have been traveling for months and some have said how we are crazy to do so much in two and a half weeks! If we weren't a little crazy this trip probably wouldn't have happened! It has been such an awesome cross cultural experience! Chalk it up to one of the best!
