Merry Christmas from Oaxaca

After a few days in gigantic Mexico City (link to photos below), we are now in Oaxaca to escape from the smog and celebrate Christmas in a quieter and more relaxed place.

We would like to take the opportunity to wish you and your families a beautiful and pleasant festive season. We are thinking of you and will certainly drink a shot of Mezcal or Tequila to your health. And here's a little dance for you...

Mexico City Photos

Click here for Mexico City photos.

4 new Photosets online

We have landed in Mexico City, and have finally been able to upload some photos of the past few weeks. Click on the links below to view them.

Mexico - Part 1: Chiapas

Guatemala - Part 5: Flores & Tikal

Belize (Caye Caulker)

Mexico - Part 2: The Yucatán

Celebrating St.Nicholas, snorkeling with sharks, and walking slow.

For a whole week already, we have now been traveling together with 3 other people we had met in Chiapas: Ebel and Marissa from Groeningen, Holland, and Michael from Hambourg, Germany. We decided to celebrate Saint Nicholas by giving a present to each other, draw-a-name-out-of-the-hat-fashion, and had a nice evening together. In Holland they celebrate it on the 5th, in Belgium and Luxembourg on the 6th, and in Belize we waited until the 7th due to Charlie's stomach problems.

Belize is the only English-speaking country in Central America, populated by the descendants of slaves and pirates, but also by Mestizos, Mayas, Garífuna and immigrants from China, India, El Salvador... a colourful mix.

We are on a small island named Caye Caulker (islands not big enough to deserve the name "Island" are called "cays" here), a short hop away from the same coral reef on which we had been diving in Honduras, second in the world in terms of length, after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. There are some golf carts and bicycles here, but no roads - just some white sandy paths. Charlie hasn't been wearing any sandals or shoes now for 3 days, and we are kindly reminded by the street signs (and also by the friendly locals) to please "Walk Slow".

Yesterday we had an amazing day of snorkeling - we went out by a reggae-playing
sail boat to various sites where we saw sea turles, sharks, spotted eagle rays, and fish of literally every single colour in the rainbow.


Thanks to Kerstin and Andreas for recommending us this small paradise.

The New York of Maya cities

After a bus-journey and a very interesting 40 minute-ride by canoe across Río Usumacinta we were back in Guatemala, greeted by a very friendly, but corrupt, border guy charging us 40 Quetzales for the pleasure of his entry stamp (no receipt, of course). 4 hours later we were in Flores, a peninsula on Lake Izabal, 70 minutes away from Tikal. After the busy last week, our plan for the first day was to do nothing, and that's what we did.

Refreshed, the next morning it was time to get up at 4am to catch the shuttle bus to Tikal - The site is in the middle of the jungle, and the reason why we came so early is that there is more wildlife to be spotted around sunrise time. The effort to fight the desire to ignore the alarm clock in the morning was rewarded quickly: During the first hour of our guided tour, we saw a crocodile, monkeys, a couple of coatis, many beautiful toucans and other birds.



Tikal is named the New York of Maya cities due to its high-rise pyramids rising out above the already very tall trees in the jungle. Some astonishing views can be had over the endless jungle from the top of these temples. We learned even more impressive stories and facts about the ancient Maya culture from our knowledgeable guide, but felt like we'd had enough ruins now to deserve some relaxing time in the Carribean for a few days, which is why we headed further North-East to Belize.

Zapatistas, Waterfalls, Posh and Ruins

We knew that our first visit to Mexico would be a short one, because our plan was to visit only the region of Chiapas, and then travel east through the jungle back to Guatemala before heading to Belize and finally back to Mexico to see the Yucatan peninsula.

For our week in Chiapas, we had a rather busy programme. Using the beautiful and lively colonial city of San Cristóbal de las Casas as a base, we headed out into the surrounding fur-wearing Tzotzil Maya village of San Juan Chamula, where we tried the sacred sugarcane aguardiente named posh. Inside of the church we could observe a very special ceremony - the church has no chairs, only a floor full of needles from local pine trees, hundreds or thousands of candles, and Maya families sitting on the floor praying and pouring soft drinks and posh over the candles.

On the way to the colourful lakes (everything from dark blue to turquoise) of Montebello, we explored some caves nearby San Cristóbal, and got wet at the spectacular 70m-waterfall of El Chiflón.

We took a boat ride through the crocodile-filled river on the bottom of the Sumidero Canyon, and on the following day left for the famous Maya ruins of Palenque, stopping on the way for some beautiful scenery around the "Agua Azul" and "Misol-Ha" waterfalls.

After being impressed by Palenque's high-rise temples and pyramids (very different from the lower constructions we had seen in Copán Ruinas, Honduras), we spent the night in a cabaña in the middle of the jungle, getting woken up by the roaring sound of the howler monkeys, ready to go back to Guatemala.

You better Belize it!

Hi!!! We are now in Caye Caulker (Belize), after some days visiting Chiapas (Mexico), and Tikal, in Guatemala...we will add some pictures soon...