El Salvador -> Honduras -> Nicaragua bus itinerary just about to begin

Trying to get frst to Honduras. On the weekend the border was closed due to Presidential elections and buses were turned around from the border. Now the border should be open and I´m waiting a bus in San Salvador in El Salvador to get to Tegucicalpa in Honduras. I´ll try to just quickly pass these two countries El Salvador and Honduras and change the buses and get to the Nicaragua. These long bus drives, big cities and bus terminals are really boring. Not the highlights of the trip :) I hope to be in Nicaragua by tomorrow. Hoping fast and safe trip...

Volcanos at Antigua

 Sunset in Flores, Guatemala

I stayed one night in beautiful small island (La Flores) in Lago de Peten in Guatemala. Then I had a long 10 hour traverse to another side of the Guatemala. I was not having any christmas party feeling at the bus, but I know it´s just christmas party time at it hottest in Finland. Therefore my greetings to all who have had fun parties and probably some kind of hangover next day.

My christmas greetings together with Guatemalan snowman

Now I´m at Antigua, a small pictoresque town near the capital Guatemala City. Antigua is located next to three volcanos Agua (Water), Fuego (Fire) and Acatenango. There are 63 volcanos in Guatemala and three of them are active: Fuego, Pacaya and Santiaguito.

Volcanos Fuego (on the left), Acatenango (middle) and Agua (right)

Today I climbed (or actually walked) to active Volcano Pacaya to see the lava and feel the heat. It was amazing 2 hours climb from 1900 meters up to 2400 meters. Pacaya is 2552 meters high, but it was not safe to climb up to crater. At 2400 meters we saw just a few meters away lava flowing and heat burning our feet. Wooden sticks started to burn if they were sticked to lava. Heat was nearly unbearable.

Volcan Pacaya in action

Lava flowing towards just few meters away

Antigua is nice town and the area pretty much cooler than in caribbean side, because of the elevation. Nights feels even a bit cold up here, when I have already used to tropical climate in Mexico and Belize. Anyway I´m going to stay in Pacific side for a while and continue tomorrow to El Salvador.

Once in a lifetime experience: ATM cave

It has been unbelievable gorgeous in Belize. I traveled to Western Belize to town called San Ignacio, which has some caving experiences to offer. The most famous one is ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal), which was amazing experience. Wow!!! First we hiked 45 minutes in the jungle and rivers to reach the entrance into the cave.

On the way Carlos, our guide was telling about plants and trees, how they can be used for medicine as learned already by Mayans. We ate termites, they tasted like carrots, but full of proteine. There were couple of Americans and couple of Canadians in the same group. Eventually we got to the gave, we took all of our clothes of except short trousers and swam into the cave.

Then we negotiated ourselves through tiny holes upper and further to the cave when finally after couple of hours entered into huge cathedral, where there were archeologically remarkable artifacts of Maya and bones and skulls.

This cave is protected and only limited number of visitors is permitted to enter the cave with certified guide.


Still at the same day my trip continued to Guatemala and after border crossing I headed to Tikal, the most famous Mayan ruins in Guatemala. Temples were pretty much similar than in Chichen Itza, but the environment was totally different. Tikal is in the middle of jungle, whereas Chichen Itza is not. Chichen Itza is archeologically more interesting, but Tikal for it`s location. The photo has been taken on top of Temple IV and you can see Temples III, II and I.

As a summary for Belize I would say it is a country, which everybody needs to experience. It is great and awesome! People are friendly, they are really investing in eco-tourism and country has something to offer for everybody. It is a paradise for divers, sailers, snorklers, kitesurfers and windsurfers. It has beautiful islands and beaches. Maya ruins and caves are offering once in a lifetime experiences. I just love Belize from now on...

Kayaking

Today I rent a kayak and paddled around the north part of the Caye Caulker island. There were sunshine, heavy showers and strong wind. The north island is pretty much in natural state and there is no habitation. I found some nice small sand beaches, where to stop over.

Tomorrow heading again to inland towards San Ignacio town, which is near Guatemala border. After Belize I will be crossing to Guatemala...

Caye Caulker

This is tropical paradise! Caye Caulker island is a sand bar with no cars on the white sand streets. I got a room from Tropical Paradise Hotel, it has even Wi-Fi and good views to Caribbean palm beach.

I'm going to hang-out here couple of days just relaxing and loading my photos to Picasaweb. You can do kite surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing, sailing, kayaking, swimming, etc... pretty much everything you can do in the water in addition of laying on the beach and taking sun. There are plenty of small hotels, hostels, lodges, guest houses and restaurants, which offer the services for mainly North American tourists.

Let the sun shine!

Crocodiles, monkeys, maya ruins & circus

The big surprise was that circus has been coming to town! It was Russian circus, which I could believed to see in Helsinki, but not in Orange Walk town in Belize. However it's not my thing and I just skip it. Instead I was having a Lamanai tour today...

 

Boat trip to Lamanai Maya ruins were amazing. Carlos was a really experienced guide. He could see and point out the animals from the boat so far away. On the way to ruins we saw Crocodiles, Spider Monkeys, which we feed with the bananas. They were coming all the way down to the boat.

We saw some giant orange Iguanas, and lots of different birds, like black vultures and Jesus Christ birds. There are four different species of vultures in Belize and black ones are most common. King vulture is rare and is as big as condor. Jesus Christ female bird is going from male to male and giving eggs to each of the male to nest and raise baby birds.

Local fisherman on the river had bunch of fishes and there were even a rifle on his boat. Carlos was explaining that hunting is allowed as well and the locals take the guns with them when doing fishing and hunting.

On the site saw some howler monkeys, which were howling like a wolfs. Lamatai Maya site is quite remarkable, only 2% of it's buildings has been restored. There are over 1000 buildings and the area is large, where they have been living. There were couple of nicely restored temples, mask temple and jaguar temple. the highest temple reached 33m high.

When coming back to lodge there were this 4 meter long crocodile on the shore just 10 meters away the terrace of the lodge and the local guy was feeding it.

So I had to do it myself as well...

Orange walk, Belize

Welcome to Belize. Walk slower, take your time, smile, be friendly. Don't worry, be happy. I found Belize a great place to visit. People are friendly, athmosphere is laid-back, great places to see, weather is perfect, food is excellent... Orange walk is a small town and I will be doing tomorrow Lamanai boat trip to Maya ruins in the jungle. Orange walk name comes from the fact that people were walking through orange plants when going to the center of town.

I was surprised for another thing as well. English is the official language of Belize and people do speak fluent American english in addition of spanish. I think I'll spend here a little bit more time than was planning to.

There are Amish settlements around Orange walk and you can see lots of them here. Tomorrow when doing the boat trip we are passing some Amish settlements along the river.

I'm staying at Riverside Lamanai Retreat. I can recommend this place for everybody, it has only three rooms, but what a location!!! Friendly stuff and great service. It looks like this: