Travel-Trotter

When we were in Antigua, Guatemala we went to a chocolate making class after school.  When it started we all got aprons on and walked into a room that had things that help make chocolate. Our guide thought us about how ancient Mayans made chocolate and the difference between cocoa and cacao.  Cacao is the paste made by crushing fermented roasted, shelled cacao beans and is what is considered real chocolate.  Cocoa powder is when the cocoa butter has been removed from the cacao and our guide told us this makes a chocolate flavored bar only.  Once he finished telling the process of making chocolate (harvest, ferment, dry, roast, peel, grind,) he told us that most popular white chocolate brands make fake white chocolate with different products like palm oil and shay butter instead of cocoa butter.  After we went back to the table and we made chocolate bars with lots of toppings like sea salt and shredded coconut when we finished our guide put them in the freezer.  Then we made three chocolate drinks. The first was ground up cocoa beans, we added honey, chili powder, ground corn and hot water. The second one was cacao bean shell tea with cacao bean shells, hot water and sugar. and the last one was fancy hot chocolate it was made with milk, cacao and cinnamon.   My favorite was the third one drink.  Then we got our 70% cacao chocolate bars back and it was so good.

 

With our visit to the lowland Mayan ruins completed we boarded a plane in Flores, the one hour flight was in a smaller propeller airplane with about 25 people on board.  We flew south into Guatemala City the capitol of the Guatemala and a city of 7 million people!!  The city was located in basin situated beneath two large volcanos.  The highlands of Guatemala are well known for their volcanos and earthquakes and there is a massive line of volcanoes that stretch from northern Guatemala down through Honduras and Costa Rica.  The sub-ducting Cocos plate is the engine for all the volcanic activity.  There are at least volcanos that were actively erupting during the time we were visiting.  It was recommended to us not to stay in the city but to head out of town to Antigua the old colonial capital of Guatemala.  We got picked up from the airport by a hired car and navigated our way through the narrow-convoluted streets of the capitol city; I was very happy to not be driving as it was chaos.  Once we exited the periphery of the city the landscape changed and we began climbing into the mountains and back into the jungle.

Antigua was very charming and was centered around an old Spanish colonial square with beautiful arching walkways leading to government buildings.  The city ceased being the capital after a large earthquake destroyed large portions of the city in 1773 and presumably was unable to function.  There are many baroque style churches and other beautiful architecture that remain from the cities past.  The city is a UNESCO world heritage site and they have great gelato as well.

After Tikal we headed to Flores. It was a pretty easy and scenic drive there, through the countryside and past lovely lakes.

Flores is a little colonial town on an island in lake Peten and is connected to the mainland by a bridge. You can also take little water taxis everywhere around the lake.

We had a bit of anxiety about our lodging. We had booked an Airbnb which was part of/next to a hotel, but the owner informed us that due to an issue with previous guests the apartment was not available. I thought it might be one of those scams going around but they went out of their way to accommodate us in the hotel. We got three lakefront rooms, each with a balcony. The hotel had a pool and restaurant where we got a nice big free breakfast each morning. So it all ended up just fine!

There was lots of loud music happening and street closures when we got there. Our lunch waiter told us there was a celebration in the town for 2 weeks that we arrived in the middle of. Something about the anniversary of becoming a county or something? In any case it meant we got to see some little parades, hear lots of loud music, and enjoy the very loud sound of firecrackers basically all night long both nights we were there. It was mildly annoying but we got used to it.

We were pretty chill while we were there. Did some school and work, strolled around the town, ate in cute restaurants and street food stalls. Jules and I went out on a paddle boarding ride around another little island near us, which was a ton of fun and very good bonding time.

Hotel pool with restaurant and view of the lake in the background

View from our balcony with the little island Jules and I paddled around

View across the lake.

Gorgeous sunsets

Selfie time

Darling Caroline looking all tropical

Tuktuks heading up the little streets. We never needed to take one because nothing is more than a 5-10 min walk

One of the parades. This one had a band and some dancing clowns

We finished up our time for now in Belize and headed to Guatemala for 3 weeks in the jungle.  We got rid of our rental car the day before and took a taxi to the border.  We were very familiar with border crossing with a vehicle from our time in South America and decided against taking a rental car to Guatemala.  Once we crossed the border we met our hired car, who had a sign with our name on it,the driver was very patient while we purchased our tickets for Tikal (you must buy them at a bank) food and got money out of an ATM.  The money is called the Quetzales and is worth 7.7 Quetzales to 1 dollar at the current rates.  We also convinced our driver to take us to a nearby Mayan ruin called Yaxha.

Yaxha was only 30 minutes out of the way and was a spectacular ruin, situated by two lakes, Yaxha is translated as Agua Verde or green water.  The ruins are laid out on a sprawling site, laid out in a linear cross pattern dotted with temples some that reached above the tree line.  Only the biggest temples were excavated leaving many structures covered by dirt and trees.  We climbed some towers in the blazing heat, after summiting the northern temple I left feeling impressed by the Mayans.

As we were getting ready to leave the site we heard some noise in the tree above us, and after some posturing were able to see some spider monkeys.  They were so graceful in the trees and used their tails so well, it was our first monkey sighting so we were very excited.  After getting eaten by bugs and melting in the hot sun we met up with our ride, had lunch and then were on our way to Tikal.

We arrived in Tikal and checked into our hotel the Jaguar Inn Hotel which was situated just outside the park for easy access and will allow us to get into the park early and beat the heat.  After the long ride and walking around in the hot sun the kids were in what we call slap happy hour.  This period of time usually ends with them saying mean things and yelling.  This time the kids were yelled at by a French woman which after the fact is pretty funny…

We woke up at 7:00am the next morning and set out on our Tikal adventure; we had purchased the tickets the day before.  After much cajoling to get the kids up we were off to the Jaguar Temple.  We had to hike a kilometer or so before we emerged into the grand plaza…  As we emerged from the jungle the base of the Jaguar temple emerged into our view and was somewhat recognizable like it had always held a place in our consciousness.

There were lots of stelae or large sculpted stone shafts around the park with interesting carving, many of the Mayan kings were depicted on them.

We visited lots of temples and ruins including climbing the temple that showed the famous view from STAR WARS.

We hiked about 5 miles around the park in the hot sun, I was frankly amazed that the kids lasted as long as they did.  Once we all got hot and crabby we headed back to our hotel and had lunch at a neighboring hotel that had a pool.  We had lunch and paid $15 for two kids to play in the pool (Mimi didn’t want to) it was lovely to cool off in the heat of the afternoon.  l think I ate the biggest burger know to man and loved it.

Later Mimi and I took advantage of our tickets for the park that didn’t end until 6pm, apparently you had to pay more to stay for sunrise or sunset.  We re-visted the grand plaza and the main temples and enjoyed being awe struck.  We all went to bed early that night being exhausted.  We were off to Flores the next morning.

By Mimi

Our family went to visit a cave in Belize. It is called the ATM Cave, short for Acton Tunichul Makual. To get there, we took a van on a bumpy road. Then we had to hike for 45 minutes to get to the cave. On the hike, we crossed rivers and heard screaming ants.

In the ATM cave when we were done swimming, we climbed up a boulder and saw some artifacts. Later I learned about them and guess what? The Mayan’s ceremonial rituals included offerings in handmade vases or pots. These included blood, handmade chocolate, vapor from food and human sacrifices. At the end, part of the ceremony was to throw the pots or vases onto the ground so they would smash. The Mayans just left them there. I also saw human bones and pots like the smashed vases, they were growing crystals on them. I think they crystals were formed by either drips from stalactites dripping down or tiny waterfalls from holes up above washing down on those items. Or a mix. When we were swimming, I saw some cool rocks, from big boulders, big rocks in the water to tiny pebbles tossing and turning in the current. It was really fun, plus I like swimming and the hike was nice. This place is great!

Hi. It’s me, Julie, and I’m going to talk about the amazing iguana. If you don’t know what an iguana is, it is a scaly lizard. And guess what? It can grow to 7 feet long! Wow! That is a pretty big lizard.

I’m going to start at the beginning. We get in the car. I was so excited. I tried to go to sleep but I just couldn’t. I twisted and turned. By the time I was about to go to sleep, we were there. I was confused at first because we were at a hotel. I saw our guide a little while later. Our guide led us through a passage way and we hiked about 10 minutes and we were there. I saw a humongous spider. I was terrified, but then I saw a big iguana. It was super cool. Then we sat down and the guide told us some facts and rules.

Big Spider

One male with 2 females

Another male came to see the females but couldn’t get in the cage

This is an iguana sanctuary. The green iguana is endangered so they try to breed more of them and rescue injured ones. They also go and collect eggs from the riverside so that they can incubate them and more will survive, then they release them to the wild.

Petting the iguanas

We went into a room with iguanas. It was so cool. I asked the guide if it was a boy or a girl. He said if it is a male it is orange. He said the males cannot be together because they fight. So there were lots of females but only one male. We looked at the beautiful iguanas for a minute. My sisters saw one pooping. It was grosssss! Then the guide asked if we wanted to feed them. We all said YES! (Except for my mom and dad.) The guide brought out some big leaves and then he brought out a ladder. I got up the ladder and fed some iguanas up high. It was so cool. The iguanas were munching down the leaves.

Feeding the iguanas

One leaf, two mouthsBefore we came, mom told us we could hold baby iguanas. But the guide said they don’t do that anymore because the iguanas would lick people and ingest bug spray or sunscreen, and some of them died, so they decided it wasn’t a good idea. It was too bad because the little ones are SO cute and bright green! But we did get to see some of them, who they keep separate from the adults.

A leaf full of baby iguanas. You can see why we wanted to hold them. They are so cute!

They do let you hold the big iguanas! The guide went to get one big one. We got on our knees to hold it. I was the first one to hold it. And then me and my sisters held it together. It scratched me a little bit but it was worth holding. It was cool touching them because it felt like a scaly creature.

Holding the iguana

Putting her down gentlyThen we went down the trail and then I noticed iguana poop was on my knee. It was disgusting. I just washed it off. But it was still disgusting.

If you go to Belize you should go see the iguanas!

We arrived at our eco-resort the Maya Mountain Lodge and checked into our bungalow a slightly musty hut with two rooms and settled in for several days of exploring the Maya interior and ramping up school.  I went exploring the downtown area to get my bearings of the area and got scolded by several traffic officers apparently I tried to cross the one way bridges the wrong way.  In my defense they have zero traffic signs so how am I supposed to know???

We completed school the next day and took a swim in the very cold pool, burrrrr.  We explored the local Maya site in the afternoon called Xunantunich (pronounced shunantunch).   It was our first big Maya site at it was very impressive.  It was built on a hill adjacent to the Mopan River, there is one major temple that dominates the site and some huge plazas that allows you to gaze at the temples and feel very insignificant.  The Mayan constructed their temples so the tops of the temples would appear just above the top of the jungle canopy likely to allow them to worship the sun, one of their many gods.  We climbed the largest temple which was a bit scary running after the kids climbing up steep inclines.  There was also a nicely preserved ball court, shaped in map view like an “I” with parallel sloping sides.  This is the only ball court that has been discovered in Belize with vertical hoop goals perched at the top of the walls.

After spending a few days in Siene Bight we discovered we were living in a Garifuna community.  The Garinagu are a people who are a mixed African/Indigenous people defined by their Garifuna language a dialect of the Arawakan Language.  They were a population that originated on Yurumein, now called the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the in Windward islands of the British West Indies in the Lesser Antilles.  They are a mixture of Red Carib, Arawak Indians and African slaves who were ship wrecked near the island.  After an uprising on St Vincent island they were forced into exile taking 5 years to reach several locations in Belize, Hondouras and Guatamala including Siene Bight.

We were lucky enough to meet Joshua who arranged for a drumming and dancing demonstration.  We were treated to about an hour of history, drumming and dancing.  They got us involved in dancing and it was apparent that this community was very passionate about keeping their cultural identity intact.

I tried some of the food at a local restaurant it was a mixture of Carribean food with African influence including cassava and spices as well as seafood.  I had fish with beans and rice, it was one of the best meals I had while in Siene Bight.

The Garifuna have their own celebration day to commemorate their landing in Belize around the early 1800’s.  The celebration occurs in mid-November and includes lots of dancing and donning of costumes.  In 2008, UNESCO proclaimed the Garifuna language, music and dance as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”

We finished up our time in Placencia with packing up our stuff on Sunday, always an onerous chore.  We headed out toward San Ignacio a three hour drive west toward Guatamala.  On our way we stopped at the Marie Sharps hot sauce factory, this was the ubiquitous condiment on the table at every meal in Belize and we have developed a love for it; yes I’m including the kids.  We tried more than 20 different hot sauces but the habanero is still the best.

Further along toward San Ignacio we stopped at the Blue Hole National Park (not the diving one) but a flowing spring that fills up a sink hole until it overflows and drains to a cave system.

We explored for about an hour and enjoyed our time but knew we had to get to San Ignacio so we went on our way.  We stopped for lunch at an Indian restaurant at Maddy’s request and had a wonderful experience, got face paint and apparently ordered about 5 times too much food and then felt a bet ripped off when the bill came.  Oh well.

We drove from Belize City south about 3 1/2 hours toward Placencia a long sandy peninsula that parallels the coast.  The kids did well to endure the car ride with ipad time and snacks.  We picked up some fresh fruit from a road side stand; lots of Mandarin Oranges, limes and Pinapples.  When ended up staying at the Nautical Inn in Siene Bight the town next door to Placencia.  We were right on the beach and it was a great start to our trip perfect for relaxing on the beach.  The Caribbean in this part of Belize is very shallow with very small waves perfect for the kids.  The coast is protected by a barrier reef off the coast.

After we vegged for a day or so we visited a preserved area call the Cockscomb Wildlife Basin, known to have one of the densest Jaguar populations in all of Central America.  The area was a preserved tropical jungle with beautiful huge trees and dense forest.  We were going to do a hike to a waterfall but got a hearty “no” from the kids instead we settled for a tiny hike to a wrecked airplane

and an inner tube float down the river.  It was quite fun and refreshing in the hot weather.

No sightings of Jaguars, I think it is pretty much impossible to see them during the day,  but we learned that they get lots of pictures of them from camera traps.  There are estimated to be 60 adult Jaguars and various other large cats including Puma, Ocelot, Margay and the Jaguarundi in the 128,000 square acre tropical jungle.  Although we didn’t see any wild cat sightings we did find this life sized statue that was perfect for a ride.

  I think actually seeing a Jaguar in the wild would scare the hell out of all of us. 

 

The frantic days of packing and tying up loose ends are over and we are off on travel!!!  We started our journey to Belize on New year’s eve leaving out of the Milwaukee airport.  We had one of the kids babysitters drive us to Milwaukee on that morning to avoid a large seven week parking bill.  Even though there was four inches of snow the night before we had little trouble navigating the roads to the airport.  Our flight with Southwest was on time and we were off to Houston and then onto Belize City.

Although not the capitol, Belize City is one of the larger cities in the country and where most tourists fly into.  We walked off our plane into the warm moist air and truly knew we were out of the Midwest, winter fading quickly away.  We rented a car for this first portion of the trip to see some of the far flung locations.  After a quick drive into town we checked into our hotel.  Unbeknownst to us the hotel we are staying at is throwing a huge New Years Eve party, with music until 4am in the morning, Ugghhhh our first major fail.  We ate dinner and took a quick walk around town; we took a picture with the big Belize sign then went to sleep.  We endured the music and the loud party using ear plugs and most everyone slept reasonably well.

The next morning both Maddy and I went on separate runs around the town, mostly the downtown area of Belize City which is situated on the two sides of Haulover Creek.  It was interesting to see what appeared to be a mostly run down city, with a bit of investment could be a very charming downtown area although they are missing beaches so will likely miss out on the associated tourism.  We ate breakfast and then began a 3 1/2 hour drive to Placencia.