Author Archives: Brandon and Mandy
Granada blah
Granada was weird. I don’t know how else to say it. We got dropped off in the Central Park, which is a common occurrence we’ve found, and we didn’t have a place reserved to stay, so we started walking with our backpacks towards the main street. A guy approached us and asked if we were looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately, the bags on our backs are huge signs that say, ‘HI WE’RE NEW AND NEED A ROOM!’.
Don’t go chasing Volcanoes
The only proof we needed that we were on an active volcano (besides the fact that we had just climbed up an active volcano), was when our guide walked over to the edge of a cliff and pulled out a shovel and started digging.
Nope!
Our two drivers who would take us from El Tunco, El Salvador, through Honduras, and into Leon, Nicaragua didn’t speak a lick of English, which we found a little odd. Usually when there are two guys riding in the bus, at least one of them can speak a little English and between a few of us on the bus who can speak a little Spanish, we can make it work. These guys pulled out their cell phones and typed words into Google Translate for us. If you’ve ever tried to use Google translate, you know how accurate it is, which is to say it’s not. I was staring at this guy’s phone, looking at both the english translation from Spanish and the Spanish he had typed into the box and I couldn’t understand either one of them.
Get Stamped
We had walked across the border from Belize into Guatemala and gotten our entrance stamp. We weren’t on a bus and as it turns out that was a good thing because others who had entered on busses weren’t so lucky.
Beware of the coyotes
Our nine AM bus we booked out of Antigua to San Pedro the day before was 15 minutes late to pick us up and we were getting worried. We had booked it with a nice lady who owned a travel agency across the street from our new hostel and I poked my head around the corner to see if she was open, and she was. So I decided to go see what was up.
Antigua-ish
It was dark when we took our transport into Semuc from Lanquin, so we hadn’t seen the scenery of the bumpy road we took down into our hostel. When it was time to leave for Antigua in the morning, we not only got to experience the bumpy road again, but we got to see what was in the dark the night before.
The Emerald Dream
Six hours into our 8 hour bus ride towards Semuc Champey, the girl sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I spoke spanish. “A little”, I said. “Can you ask the driver if we’re going to stop for a bathroom break?” she asked.
Hotel California Flores
The day before we were set to leave San Ignacio, I asked our hostel staff how much it should cost us on the bus out of town to the border of Guatemala and they told us that we should just take a cab because it would only cost us about $5 Belize each to get to the border and we didn’t have to mess with the bus. So when the first guy we approached asked for $50 Belize, I laughed in his face.
San Ignaci…chill
It was time to leave Caye Caulker way too soon. As expensive as it was, looking back I wish we’d stayed a few more nights. Instead, we caught the water taxi back to Belize City at 12:30 in the afternoon. I had an idea of which direction the bus station was once we landed, so we started walking.
Go Slow
When we landed in Belize, the plane immediately did a 360 and started heading back towards the same direction from which we came. “That was a short trip to Belize” I thought…
2crazybackpackers 