Dani

Two cayes – two entirely different ways to experience Belize…Read on for our breakdown of which island we think you should visit..

On 2 November or Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), there are big kite festivals all over Guatemala. We were lucky to take part in a kite festival in Chichicastenango where the kids are kite crazy.

Todos Santos Cuchumatan is a village in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, and the Mam Mayans make up by far the largest part of its population.

The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave has been featured on Discovery Channel, History Channel, twice on National Geographic TV and in the New York Times.

Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala, has frequently been hit by earthquakes, but especially the earthquake in 1773 left severe damages, and up to today, dozens of ruins of churches and convents can be seen throughout the city.

Mexico was only the second country of our trip, but we (unexpectedly) fell in love with the country and extended our stay there again and again – in the end we spent 88 days there, and traveled more than 3600 kilometers (2370 miles) through the country.

We had just gotten to Guatemala and stayed in the city of Flores for a couple of days, which is actually a beautiful island in Lake Peten Itza. One day, as we sat on the dock just soaking up the sun, an Guatemalan ‘anciano’ (or really old man) came over and started to chat with us. He introduced himself as ‘Miguel de San Miguel’, Miguel from San Miguel, a little village on the other side of the lake.

We were greeted by ‘tropical depression’ Matthew within 12 hours of our arrival to San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, a small island off the coast of Belize. This was our first severe storm since setting off on our trip.

The German car company Volkswagen produced its famous Beetle in Puebla, Mexico, from 1967 until 2003, where it held its classic 50s look until the very end. The Beetle reached cult status in Mexico and can be seen everywhere.

These cenotes are reached by riding on horse drawn carts (note: not carriages, these were far from romantic) on centuries’ old train tracks through the jungle. This sounded just quirky enough to recapture that magical feeling we were looking for on our visit to Merida .