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Reflections: 200 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.

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Go Beyond: The Chichicastenango Market

Along with Antigua and Lake Atitlan, most visitors to Guatemala will include the famous Chichicastenango market to their itinerary, and with good reason. The Go Beyond series looks beyond this bustling market to reveal one of Guatemala’s most charming towns. Read on for what you might miss if you only visit the market.

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Organized Mayan Village Tours: Tourism or Trespassing?

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.

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Please don’t go to Todos Santos…

Please don’t go to Todos Santos, Guatemala. Life in this authentic village in the mountains is much as it has been for centuries, no hordes of tourists here. A trip to Todos Santos is about absorbing authentic village life. That’s why we ask you, please don’t go to Todos Santos (which you really should) – and if you do go, please do so quietly and keep it to yourself…

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