Guatemala, Belize and back to México

July 9, 2006

Well this will probably be my final communication from
Mexico. I have not been as good on writing my travel
logs in Mexico as I was in India, but that is because
I didn’t want to spend too much time in the cyber cafe
instead of being out enjoying this beautiful
country. I have been writing in English and in
Spanish so those of you whom speak both languages have
received the whole trip thru emails and those who only
speak English may be missing a few pieces, sorry. I
will do a little catch up....
We went from the ruins in Palenque, Chiapas into
Guatemala. There we spent a few days in Flores, El
Remate and a day visiting the ruins of Tical, which was
incredible. Guatemala is definitely on our list as a
country that we must come back and visit and spend
more time in. After that we spent two days on a
little little little island called Key Tabacco in
Belize. It was amazing. It was just like out of a
magazine. Clear turquoise waters and you could
snorkel right off the dock. We saw all kinds of
barracudas, stingrays (all sizes and colours), needle
fish, clown fish and many other colourful fish (which I
have no idea of their names), we also saw pelicans and
watched them fish. From there we went to Tulum where
we spent 9 days on the beach in a bungalow (pretty
rustic), but we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave any
sooner. There were hardly any tourist on the white
sandy beach and the water was incredible. The place
we stayed at was called Playa Selva (Jungle beach) and
the guy who ran it Miguel and another couple staying
there quickly became our friends. We had a great time
lazying about in the hammocks and going for walks on
the beach. We had a paella party on the 4th and on
the 5th one of the girls staying there went out and
caught 5 huge lobsters for dinner. Finally we left
this Thursday and spent a day in the city of
Valladolid shopping and seeing a fresh water cenote
(it is an under water cave where you can go swimming).
Pretty awesome. From there we took a bus to
Chiquilá, a fishing town on the golf, and caught a
ferry to Holbox Island. It’s a small island, 3km wide
and 25km long. It was hit full on by Hurricane Wilma
last year and they are still trying to get back on
their feet. But it is an amazing and relaxing place
and we have already met some nice locals. Yesterday
in the evening we saw Flamingos and more pelicans.
Tomorrow if nothing changes we will be swimming with
the whale sharks in the Caribbean by a little island
called Contoy. I will fill you in.....if we get back.
From here we will be heading for our last 2 or 3
nights to Isla Mujeres, which is right in front of
Cancun and on Thursday we catch our flight to Phoenix.
I am looking forward to seeing my parents and
spending some time in AZ.
We have really enjoyed our trip and would definitely
recommend it. I feel like we have seen a lot of
Mexico and a little taste of Guatemala and Belize. We
are already thinking about next year’s trip which may
include Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador....we’ll
see.