Eight days, two beautiful countries...

It's been an action packed week, traveling from an island, to an inland mountain town, across the border to Guatemala.

Caye Caulker was incredible...it was beautiful, with the most friendly, outgoing people ever. Even though it was an island, it didn't have any real good beaches. It did have the most beautiful clear water though, and the second largest coral reef in the world after Australia.

I was lucky enough to meet a few awesome US marines who invited me for some drinks, where I met two sweet girls who turned out to be my roommates!

Life is good with awesome people, so I spent the weekend with these cool kids.

Sunday my roomies invited me to go on a snorkeling tour, and it turned out to be such an amazing experience!! We started out boating over clear blue water, to our first stop where a huge manatee was floating around with some big fish. He ignored us as we jumped in the water and slowly stalked him, but unfortunately my camera doesn't work very well under water so the creature will remain anonymous. :)

Next was the coral reef, swimming among sea turtles! We saw three different kinds of turtles, all with different shapes and designs on their shells.

The coolest was swimming with sharks and stingrays. Our guide would toss in a conchal shell and the critters would go wild trying to get the food. They let us swim along side them and up to them, and let us pet them! Dude. I pet a wild stingray! One of them scared me when he came up behind me, swimming three inches below me. He was bigger than I was.

We also got to kiss a shark (nurse sharks are generally harmless unless severely threatened) when our guide swam along one and pulled him to the surface, holding him on his back. The shark was so chill, he didn't struggle or try to get away, he just sat there as we stroked his belly and kissed him just to say we did. :)

After shark adventure my roomies and I headed out for some ice cream- I've since been told that it's not that unusual, but I thought it was completely unique and awesome when the local mixed up the ice cream and poured it on a frozen pan. 

After a few minutes of smoothing out the bumps, he scraped the milk-and-sugar-turned-ice cream into rolls. He said he taught himself with the help of YouTube.

Monday morning I took a last walk around the island and randomly ran into Leonell who I had met earlier. He was such an energetic sweetheart who engaged me in conversation for quite awhile before I said goodbye to head back to the mainland. I love these people.

I headed back and got the boat to Belize city where I met up with my dear friend Marya! We grabbed some lunch and hung out with a dear old man Tom who works at the bus station. Such a dear soul and I so wish I had gotten a photo with him. He was such a helpful guy and helped me through many bus exchanges this week.

Anyway...we grabbed a bus to San Ignacio, bought some watermelon and tamarindo juice in plastic bags, and settled in for the three hour bus ride across the whole country of Belize.

In San Ignacio we had a lovely time meeting this Scot named Chris! 

Together we adventured into an old Mayan cave - a three mile long, pitch black cave with a river running through it, huge rock boulders and tight spaces, tons of antient artifacts from over a thousand years ago, and human remains...

This was an untouched skeleton of a 16 year old Mayan girl who had been forcefully hit between her head and shoulders from behind, likely as a human sacrifice. It's crazy the story the bones tell, and unbelievable to think about the reality that happened hundreds of years before in the same place we stood. 

Sporting helmets and headlamps, we explored only 3/4 a mile of the cave for over two hours. When we got back, we were treated with a typical meal and Belizian rum punch!

It was an amazing experience with an amazing group of people, and my goodness did our guide, Patrick, love to laugh. Everything was a joke, and you couldn't help but love to be in his presence.

The other San Ignacio adventures included trying cow-foot soup! It's a local favorite, and even though the broth was delicious, I couldn't bring myself to take more than a few bites of the foot itself.

There are little lizards everywhere.

We make the best food when we travel.

And try lots of new ones.

(Dragon fruit)

(Red avocado)

And a wonderful "farmers" market.

This morning, we said goodbye to Chris and San Ignacio and caught a collective taxi to the Guatemala border. We had a flawless crossing - one man tried to tell me we had to pay to enter Guatemala (Which is common. Often they don't let you enter unless you pay a bribe.) but I just laughed at him and the conversation was about like...

"You need quetzals to pay to enter Guatemala."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"Haa. No. I don't." I laughed and walked away as he shook his head...but I didn't have to pay. Luckily he was the only annoyance and the stamps went quickly with not a single bag check.

At the border we met four girls traveling the same direction, so we hopped a taxi with them and came to Flores, a lovely little island town. It's beautiful, and I'm in love.

The Spanish speakers mostly. I'm so excited to speak soanish again. Guatemala is also so much more of a third world country than Belize, and it's obvious. But it feels like home.

Also, it's loads cheaper. Let's talk about the food...under three dollars for this delishiousness. 

So looking forward to the next month in this beautiful place. :D