Jess

Reflections on the slightly awkward nature of finding budget hotels and hostels for long-term lesbian travelers.

When we heard about Finca Filadelfia, a coffee farm near Antigua that apparently makes some of the best coffee in all of Guatemala, we decided to take a tour of the farm and learn how high quality coffee is grown and processed, plus how to serve it up right.

Two shiny new Ford transporter vans stop along the side of a white cement road and nearly 30 passengers pile out and reformulate into the small groups everyone came with. Dani and I stand off to the side and observe with some shock the other tourists in the group. A group of Brazilians (both female and male) in tank-tops, short-shorts and movie-star sunglasses and several girls in short-ish skirts. Before you start thinking Dani and I to be very prude (standing there in our long pants, closed toe shoes and jackets), we should explain that our tour was taking place in traditional Mayan villages outside of San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. The agency had mentioned that we should wear appropriate clothes out of respect to the villagers – advice apparently very few of us chose to heed.

Belize was meant to be a quick week on the way to Guatemala, but ended up being eleven excellent, adventurous days like none other on our trip. In celebration of our new love of this country, read on for our listing of eleven things we love about Belize, one for each day.

Following our reflections on 200 days of travel, here are the tops and flops of our last 100 days on the road:

It is amazing how much life you can squeeze into 100 days. It seems like forever ago that we wrote our first 100 days on the road post from Mazunte, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Between then and where we are now, in San Salvador, we have visited four countries, explored caves with Mayan skeletons, climbed volcanoes, swam with sharks and sting rays in the Caribbean, lived for a month in a beach front apartment in Playa del Carmen, had two fairly major illnesses, almost got robbed, traveled to places almost completely off the beaten path, met loads of people, worked full time, even took on extra work, blogged more, and we are nearly finished with a globetrottergirls.com website redesign.

In several posts we’ve waxed lyrical about our love of Mexico – the friendly people, colorful and rich traditions, seductive beaches – but nothing can top our passion for Mexican street food.

The sleepy colonial town in the center of the Yucatan peninsula has a classic, authentic feel, the kind of place which is somehow still devoid of major tourism despite its proximity to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza and several beautiful cenotes.

During the 1960s and 1970s a hippie counterculture began to congregate on this isolated beach and, thanks in part to the limited law enforcement, Zipolite steadily gained a reputation in Mexico as a free love paradise, which continued strongly into the 1980s.

With only 702 inhabitants, Mazunte is about as sleepy as a beach town can get. There is a lot of laying on the beach reading or just staring out at the incredible ocean view.