First week - Belize, beaches, and boats!

Hey kids! Ok, well the first week was pretty much a blast. Upon arriving in Guatemala city on the night of the 29th, I met up with my travel friend April. We crashed out pretty hard after some excited minutes of realizing we´re not in the cold but in a tropical, central american country. The next morning we caught a 6 hour bus ride to what I think is the end of the world: A guatemalan city named Puerto Barrios. This used to be the main ocean shipping town of the country, and it had some shadey characters and the worlds crappiest room to rent for the night.  Nevertheless, we ventured out and found a neat little place to eat right on the water and had a couple drinks to celebrate the day.  Afterwards, we wandered around and found a late night soccer game going on, and 3 local kids cam over and chatted us up for over an hour. They don´t see many gringos there, so they were pretty stoked. Interestingly, they don´t have to attend school after grade 6, and who knows what they do with that minimal education.  But eventhough they are extremely poor, they were happy and playing, and very social.

The next morning, we grabbed a 1.5 hour boat ride accross the Carribean to Punta Gorda (fat point) in Belize, and immediately grabbed a bus going north to the town of Independance. The bus ride was uneventful enough, but beautiful on the way.  Again, we saw lots of poverty and ramshackled huts on the way. The local indiginous, whom are descendants of the mayans, seem to be the poorest of the country, and still speak regional dialects that have nothing to do with spanish.

In Independance, we caught a small 15 minute boat ride to the Placencia Peninsula... which was almost exactly what you´d expect in a carribean town.  Beaches, hammocks, creole english, and our favorite - cabins rite down by da beach.  So we had to rent one.  It´s ridiculously sheap to sleep in a cabin with your own private hammock for the days.  And the gentle ocean breeze kept the mozzies and heat away at night.  Perfect.  Days of sleeping, eating, swimming, eating, swimming, eating, snorkeling, sleeping, swimming.. (well, you get the idea) followed.

Then on Thursday the... 5th we left Placencia and headed back towards Punta Gorda.  On the way, we hit up some Mayan ruins named Nim Lii Punit.  They were pretty interesting, and we´ve got some photos to upload when I find a computer with better capabilities. HA! 

Anyhow, we checked that great stuff out, and then on Friday we returned to Guatemala city.  Today, we´re gonna go cehck out some of the markets and see the locals peddle their wares.  Then tonight, April´s gonna go meet up with her study group whom she´ll be spending the next 2 months with studying povery and social activities in Guatemala.  Tomorrow, I head to the town of San Andres itzapa, outside of Antigua, to where I´ll be doing volunteer work for the next 5 weeks at this place - mayapedal.org.

Updates to follow... Thanks April for being a patient travel companion!