An amazing year is coming to an end – our first as full-time travelers! Rather than rattle off a list of everywhere we’ve been, check out our year in pictures, from the pre-trip ‘planning’ phase to our current location of Honduras.
Since we began travelling in April 2010, every single day has meant trying something for the first time or meeting someone new. We have had so many new experiences; it has been easy to overlook any cravings for things from ‘home’.
It’s not like I woke up one morning with the burning desire to climb an active volcano, but in a country like Guatemala, with more than 30 volcanoes (many of them active), volcano climbing is the norm.
Maximón is one of Guatemala’s most popular Mayan folk saints, worshipped in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Some believe Maximón, also known as San Simón, to be an incarnation of the Mayan god of sexuality, while others think he was a Spanish priest. An effigy of Maximón in the town of Santiago Atitán is celebrated year round.
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.
The prices in Belize can be much higher than anywhere else in Central America, but with some planning, Belize can be done on a shoestring. Read on for my Belize budget travel tips.
Following our reflections on 200 days of travel, here are the tops and flops of our last 100 days on the road: