Dani

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 .

After 11 wonderful weeks, we Globetrottergirls are finally moving on from Mexico. On the bus on our way to Belize, we were already reminiscing about our time here, and came up with 33 things we love about Mexico…

Chichen Itza is one of the best known Mayan ruins in all of Mexico, and has been voted one of the Seven New Wonders of the World.

Anyone who has been to Playa del Carmen knows 5th Avenue, or ‘Quinta Avenida’ in Spanish. That is, if you ever needed to use your Spanish while you were in Playa.