11: Guatemala (again), Honduras, and back to Costa Rica

Well, we are now back in Costa Rica, ready to fly back to the UK tomorrow! Since our incredible sailing trip in Belize, we have done a few other exciting things...

Tikal, Guatemala 

We returned to Guatemala, the Eastern side this time, and visited Tikal. I think these were my favourite Mayan ruins, of all the ones that we visited. The ruins are spread throughout the jungle, and you have to do quite a bit of walking if you want to see everything. Some of the temples are incredible, rising above the jungle itself, and you can get some amazing views if you climb up them - not advisable if you suffer from vertigo!

View from the top of Temple IV

Some parts of Tikal date back to about 400BC but its peak was between 200 and 900AD. Approximately 100 000 people are believed to have lived there, but incredibly after it was abandoned in the 10th century, it was only discovered almost 1000 years later. There are lots of other Mayan sites in this part of Guatemala, but many of them are inaccessible other than by a few days trekking through the jungle!

Finca Tatin, Rio Dulce

Our next stop was down the Río Dulce, which is a river that leads to the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. We stayed in a hotel called 'Finca Tatin', a place which is only accessible by boat and therefore amazingly quiet and relaxing. We spent our time there playing games, swimming in the river, walking through the jungle, kayaking, and lying in hammocks! All in all, we had a great time, and were very sad to leave.

Johnny on the rope swing at Finca Tatin

Utila, The Bay Islands, Honduras

We then moved on down to Honduras to visit the Bay Islands, in particular Utila, which is the most popular island amongst backpackers. It's (apparently) the cheapest place in the world to go scuba diving, which means that it's the most popular pastime in the area. We had planned to stay there for a few days, but in the end we decided to move on, as we weren't diving and there didn't seem to be much else to do on the island. It was also quite noisy, with quadbikes and motorbikes driving up and down the main street. All in all I think we both preferred the Cayes in Belize.

Utila, The Bay Islands, Honduras

Santa Elena, Costa Rica

Finally we caught the bus back to Costa Rica, where we decided to visit Santa Elena before heading back to San José. Santa Elena is the base for visiting the cloud forest of Monteverde, as well as the forest of Santa Elena. It's a popular spot for canopy tours (zip lines through the trees), although we decided to keep our feet on the ground. We went on two hikes, first a night hike with a guide, and the following day a hike through the Santa Elena reserve on our own.

The night hike was great, we saw quite a lot of wildlife, including snakes (one viper!), a tarantula, a kinkajou, a two-toed sloth, an opossum, owls, and lots of cool and freaky insects. Our hike the next day was good fun too, although without a guide we didn't see quite so much wildlife. The forest was amazing though, it felt incredibly wild and exotic.

Santa Elena Reserve, Costa Rica

 We are now back in San José, and flying back to the UK tomorrow! It's been an incredible adventure, keep an eye out for the photos on facebook, I will put a link on here soon. 

10: Coastal Ruins and Sailing in Belize

Since our last adventures in Mexico, we visited one more place, called Tulum. It's on the Caribbean coast and there is plenty of beach but also some great Mayan ruins perched on the edge of the coast, which is quite something. We spent a couple of days in Tulum, the first day we just spent exploring on bicycles and going to the beach, and on the second day we visited the ruins themselves. It was quite a relief to be on the coast after being inland in the heat for a while.

The beach at Tulum, below the ruins

Ruins at Tulum

We spent a day relaxing and swimming in the turquoise waters of Caye Caulker, and the following day we set off on quite an adventure. We decided to take a three day sailing boat trip down the coast to a town called Placencia. The trip wouldn't usually last that long but this one is designed to be taken at a very leisurely pace!



Our boat, the Ragga King

The trip was amazing, as we took regular stops to snorkle or swim and there was constant fishing on the boat (Johnny caught a nice big Barracuda). After the first day of sailing we arrived at our first night stop, Rendezvous Caye. This is a tiny island, I think there were a total of about 5 palm trees and you could walk across it in less than 30 seconds. We arrived there and put up our tents, which had been provided. After that, we drank rather a lot of rum punch, until dinner was served - an incredible mix of seafood which had been cooked by the crew on the boat. Much of the food that night included the passengers´ various catches of the day. After dinner the crew set up a campfire which we all sat round, drinking more rum punch!

Rendez-Vous Caye, where we spent our first night

Crewmember Jahlee bringing in a fish

We woke up quite early (and
hungover for some) due to the sun, and after a relaxing breakfast got back on the boat. An awesome day of sailing, snorkling and swimming was had, and then we arrived at our second nightstop, Tobacco Caye. This island is slightly bigger, though  not by very much! After setting up tents, we relaxed and some people went to do some more snorkling. We also spotted a huge sting ray and a turtle next to the dock! After dinner, some traditional drumming had been organised for us to enjoy, which we did, and eventually the locals persuaded all of us passengers to do some
dancing.

The next day was sadly our last, and we sailed down to Placencia not wanting the trip to end! We made some great friends on the boat, all the other passengers (about 12 in total) were lovely people. If you ever happen to be in Belize, I would thoroughly recommend the trip (organised by raggamuffin tours). I wouldn't, however, if you don't enjoy reggae - as our rasta crew had reggae playing during the whole trip - although it did feel kind of appropriate!

Final photo with crew and passengers

Next we're back in Guatemala, seeing Tikal and Rio Dulce. Will keep you up to date soon :)