In mid March, 2022 Mike and I flew south to Guatemala. We had a wonderful time, packing in as many visits, shared meals, hikes, and market visits as we could in our week and a half there.
The flights down were uneventful, a good thing.
We stayed in our favorite little bed and breakfast hotel near the Guatemala City airport, Villa Toscana, Wednesday night and headed to Lake Atitlán the next morning with our favorite driver.
One of the first things on the list was food shopping - this bright boy looked about 9 or 10 and took care of every part of our purchase.
Friday night there was a Lent procession, the Stations of the Cross.
We went on some lovely hikes along the lake.
The first Saturday we attended a soccer game - the home team won 3-0 which meant 3 opportunities for the fans in the end bleachers to unfurl the gigantic banner.
The next day we went hiking and birding in the Tepepul Reserve near Santiago (a 20 minute pre-dawn boat ride plus half an hour in the back of a pickup) with an amazing guide I’ve gone with 3 times in the past, Rolando Tol Gonzalez. The group included Mynor and Josefa and their sons and some additional friends.
Seeing resplendent quetzals in the wild is amazing - the combination of a great guide and good luck served us well. We had more than a dozen sightings of what Rolando figured were 3 males like the one below and 2 females.
That evening we celebrated Mynor’s birthday with live traditional music and an awesome barbecue at the stunning lake-side home of a good friend of Mynor’s.
Always a highlight: the markets, which are important for social reasons as well as for purchases.
Hoping for scraps from a friendly meat seller
Spices
Used huipils (woven blouses); this woman was from Nebaj, further up in the highlands.
Because of a construction project at Mynor and Josefa's house, we couldn't stay in our own little apartment, Ti Wachooch, which sits on the top. They graciously offered us one of their beautiful apartments on the Lake.
There are lots of wonderful cultural photos on the walls including this array of local men wearing the traditional clothing.
The apartment came with a pet - Luna.
She kept Mike company when he used the exercise equipment on the terrace.
Beautiful gardens surround the apartment.
And we never got tired of the views toward the lake.
We purchased two works of art this trip. The first is this stunning embroidery by an artist in a women's cooperative in Santiago that our birding guide, Rolando, provides with photos.
Detail
This beautiful oil and palette knife creation was done by a talented friend in San Pedro, Lorenzo Cruz.
Detail
We went out to eat three times - lunch with 2 expat friends including one who grew up in The Dalles and dinner with new friends we met at Mynor’s party. I visited some of our graduates in their homes and businesses.
Rosalinda and family
Dorcas
Karina and her husband in their bakery
Mariano in his clothing store
We hopped on motorcycles and visited the homes of the 4 amazing girls whose education Mike and I support through Beca Project.
Maria Guadalupe
Mayra Elena
Jesús Elizabeth
That evening we took about a dozen families shopping for food and household supplies.
We went to Café Panorama, owned by our friend Lorenzo from La Cooperativa Spanish School and run by a Beca Project graduate and the friend's daughter; I've known both since they were young girls.
We made 2 trips to neighboring San Juan. Mike and I visited in order to hike to the beautiful mirador (viewpoint) above town.
A few days later we visited again on invitation from Mynor and Josefa to join the family in a traditional temascal (sweat bath) and out for dinner after.
Eventually we made our way to Antigua with the family for an overnight stay at
Posada La Merced.
The next morning we went on a hike up the active Pacaya volcano - we could roast marshmallows in the hot vents!
We have a very special place in our hearts for Guatemala for reasons too many to list; these photo depict a few of them. ❤️
NEXT STOP: BELIZE!
We flew from Guatemala City to Belize City and on to Caye Caulker.
We love the fresh seafood! We ate out a few times and other times we purchased fish from the docks and Mike prepared it for us in our cabin.
I went diving with French Angel dive shop and this nice group of divers that represented 5 countries.
Creative shipwright
Pesky remoras
Lots of nurse and reef sharks
Green moray eel
Massive loggerhead turtle
Another day Mike and I went on a snorkeling trip, also with a guide from French Angel.
The Tarpon Reserve
Batfish - looks like a pointy-nosed toad walking on the bottom
Seahorse
'The Split'
Big nurse sharks and rays
A curious squid
Huge rainbow parrotfish (3 and a half feet, maybe?)
Mike caught some bonefish
Scale prints on his shirt 😊
No trip to Caye Caulker is complete without dinner prepared by our friend Maurice at
Wish Willy (photos never do the food justice).
Sunset from the Colinda Cabaña dock
Thursday Mike and I flew from Caye Caulker to the mainland and then broke up the road trip to Placencia with an awesome adventure: the Antelope Trail hike and waterfall rappel at Bocawina Rainforest Lodge. It started with a challenging hike that ended above a series of waterfalls where there were vast views and a wonderful swimming hole in which to cool off. Then Mike and I harnessed up and rappelled down the waterfalls before hiking back down to the lodge for lunch.
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Ropes helped out on the steeper bits
Mike
Me
We stayed at Placencia Villas, the same place we stayed 10 years ago on our first visit to Placencia. Our little apartment was bottom right in the blue building.
The municipal pier
Main Street (it’s a sidewalk)
The beach
Placencia sits at the southern end of a long, narrow peninsula. Friday we took a short cut to the mainland - the Hokey Pokey boat. We went by road to Red Bank Village for a birding trip with a local Maya man, Celso Sho. The big draw there is the scarlet macaws that winter there; we were too late for the macaws but it was a day well spent that included dozens of bird sightings and a lovely lunch provided by Celso’s wife, Iris.
We passed a Mennonite village on the way to Red Bank.
Acorn woodpeckers
Roadside hawk
Hotlips plant
Polewood fruit - bird candy
On Saturday Mike went out fishing in the Sapodilla Cayes with Wayne Castellanos, the same guide he fished with in 2012. Mike was THRILLED to catch a permit, one of the most challenging saltwater targets.
Sunday we went back across on the Hokey Pokey boat and broke up the trip to Punta Gorda with a stop at the stunning Belize Spice Farm and Botanical Garden. We had a private tour in a golf cart of the grounds that include acres of flowers, fruit, and spices. We stopped frequently to learn about what we were seeing and to smell and taste flowers, leaves, and roots.
Vanilla - they pollinate acres of it in one day by hand with a toothpick
Turmeric root
After our visit to the Spice Farm we were delivered to our looks-like-a-6-year-old-girl’s-birthday-cake hotel, Beya Suites. We were really comfortable there and it was just a block or so from Mike’s fishing base, Garbutt’s.
The first night in Punta Gorda we walked to a locals’ place for dinner and I ordered the special: gibnut stew. Locals call it 'the royal rodent' because it was served to the Queen of England when she visited years ago.
I walked down to the fish shop with Mike the first morning to see him off.
Guide Alex poling and his son Adier
Beautiful water, lots of permit, true to their reputation as one of the toughest fish to catch.
After Mike went out that first morning I stopped at a local cafeteria for a Belizean breakfast (stew chicken with beans and fry jacks and water melon juice) and then walked around town and through the market.
This was the trash can in our bathroom: "and let's feel urgently the fresh family's atmosphere". Keep in mind that this is a country where you can’t flush toilet paper. 😁🤢
Mike’s 2nd day out fishing I visited the jungle cabin place where we’ve stayed on our visits to Punta Gorda in 2012 and 2014, Hickatee Cottages. Happy birthday to me!
I renewed my friendship with Box Mix (pronounced Boash Meesh) from 8 and 10 years ago, visited David at the butterfly farm, and hiked a loop trail.
Sunset that evening on the way to dinner.
The morning of our final full day we flew to Placencia for a last night close enough to the international airport to connect with our flight out early the next afternoon. I can see both our hotel and Mike’s fishing shop in this photo.
We were on the beach for this last night of the trip at Beachside Villas (view from our deck). We had a swim in the pool, walked out on the dock, and sat on the patio by the bar while we waited for our shrimp ceviche.
So there you have it: another wonderful trip of shared and solo adventures, old friends, new friends, new places and past favorites. We were grateful for our time in Guatemala and Belize and grateful to be heading home.
If you'd like to see the complete photo sets from this trip, they're on my Flickr site HERE.
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