More El Salvador, and a bit of Mexico

Hola amigos y familia! 

It has been a while, but we wanted to start to catch you up on our travels. It's almost hard to believe how much we have traveled and experienced since we last wrote.   After leaving the coffee farm near Alegria, El Salvador, we headed to a very sweet little mountain town called Juayua (pronounced why-oooo-ah). Great name, huh? Juayua was sweet. Fresh mountain air, very walk-able , and lots of art. Almost every building had beautiful paintings, such as this mural.

Even the garbage cans were pretty!

We also went on an amazing waterfall hike just outside of town. Our fearless guide carved the way through the bush for us with his machete, and then had us rappel down the sides of mountains. Not necessarily things that would be legal without signing a waiver in the U.S... But super fun and beautiful. 

Oh, and since we were in El Salvador, we continued to eat copious amounts of pupusas. 

 Just when we thought we were ready to leave Juayua, we ran into some friends of friends who convinced us to stay an extra night, and do a hike to a crater lake the next day. We drove through the beautiful countryside,

and hiked through some sweet scenery,

and then arrived here:

The views were really spectacular. 

After Juayua, we headed... back to the beach once again! It was a special treat to see our buddy Lisa as well.

The next leg of our travels took us back to San Pedro, Guatemala. We did one more week of Spanish school, and met up with Jess's friend Anushe, who she hadn't seen since traveling in India 7 years ago.

Plus, it was a great excuse go get back to the beautiful Lake Atitlan.

However, we almost overstayed our welcome (meaning our visas for Guatemala and El Salvador were about to expire), so we high-tailed it to San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. San Cristobal is another beautiful, colonial-style town, located in the mountains of Chiapas.  We spent our days wandering the town and enjoying the food (Mexico wins for the best hot-sauce award!).

 San Cristobal has lots of interesting graffiti.  And of course the quintessential colorful market.

After 2 nights in San Cristobal we found ourselves on another bus, this time to Tulum, in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Jeremy's good friend Nick literally lives on the beach:

And his backyard is a Cenote (brackish waters, connecting thousands of underground caves and creating pools of water in some spots), surrounded by mangroves. Both the beach and the cenote had awesome snorkeling. Basically, it was paradise (besides the mosquitoes).

View from Nick's house, along with a yummy brunch.

Tulum has incredible beaches, with the softest white sand we have ever felt. It was the "temprano bajo" or low season, so the beaches were pretty empty. We filled our days by reading on the beach or in hammocks, cooking, and going with Nick on his snorkel tours. Nick showed us huge sea turtles, amazing fish, and a HUGE eagle ray. We were quite spoiled and had a really special time.

After 10 days in Tulum, we found ourselves en route to the forbidden fruit of Cuba! Stay tuned for the next chapter of the blog...Cuba deserves it's own. But know that it was amazing, and most importantly we made it back to the states without a hitch at the border with customs. Ahhhhhh (sigh of relief).

Biting Back

Hola from El Salvador! The past few weeks have been, well, an adventure. Our last stop in Guatemala was to an amazing place called Semuc Champey. Besides these beautiful pools for swimming, there was also a nice hike, and amazing caves that we literally had to swim through, while holding candles.

View öf the pools from the mirador. We came a day after a big storm, so we almost had the whole place to ourselves!

Jeremy after a dive

Semuc though, was a lesson in balance for us. Because along with a beautiful, chill, special place, came bedbugs. One word: Gross. Another few words: So so so so uncomfortable! And gross.

I'll say it again: Gross. 

Bedbugs are especially bad cause they stay with you, in your stuff, and the only way to kill them, besides fumigation, is with heat. So we had the joy of searching for a dryer in a town where the average temperature is 95... needless to say dryers are not common. Then we found them, and proceeded to overheat two of them by the time all of our stuff was dried. But the good news is, the bugs are gone.

Luckily we found a mellow place to stay on the beach in Playa El Sunzal. The views were amazing, the surf was consistant, and the owner of the place is called "Suavecito." 90 percent of the time all he says is "Buena Vida" and throws us a thumbs up. He also claims to have 30 kids, and says it's "Good luck." But that's another story.

Honeymoon suite view

Jeremy ripped it up for at least 6 hours a day... and Jess was able to catch a few waves as well. The beach was full of surfing, relaxing, reading, and sweating.  It's hot here!

After leaving the beach we caught a ride into San Salvador, and stopped at a downhill skateboarding competition. Random, but fun. We never know what our day will bring..

This is the finish line, a 20-foot bamboo pole, and a local bus, all coming together. 

Now we are in Alegria, a sleepy coffee-growing town in the hills of El Salvador. We are enjoying a respite from the heat, as well as the local art work. Just like Rome, huh?

We decided to come here to visit a family friend who has a farm where she is growing loads of coffee as well as cacao, mangos, bananas, and cashews.

The town is very sweet. There are plant nurseries everywhere, and many of the restaurants have resident tropical birds.

We spent a day wandering around the coffee finca (farm), enjoying the volcano-views, fresh air, and a tour of the crops.

These cacao pods may make your next bar of chocolate

These beans may make your next cup of coffee

A stroll through the finca

Roasting fresh cashews on the farm for a mid-day snack

We are headed back to the beach for a few more days, and then to another mountain town famous for their food fair. We are excited to try some new food... not sure how many more servings of beans we can consume.
We miss you all! 

Stuck in Paradise

Hola! We are writing again from San Pedro...We are "stuck" here because our bank detected fraud with our ATM cards. Then they shut down our account (without telling us), and now we are waiting for new cards to be delivered. Apparently all of Guatemala is "high risk" for ATM fraud. Sweet! 

Nevertheless, we have been enjoying ourselves.

Studying: Meet our wonderful Spanish teachers, Eligio and Letty. Our "classroom" was a beautiful garden next to the lake!

Eating: MMMMM. Pupusas. Enough said.

Volunteering: Our English students; the most well behaved kids on this Earth! Please note the 3 sets of identical twins in the class. What's in the water down here?

Jumping

Falling

Swinging: from trees

Hiking:  This is "Indian Nose"  Can you see el nariz?

Summiting: (is that a word?) San Pedro Volcano, the volcano in the background of the "jumping" and "falling" pictures.

Eating: This time with family! Yes, those are blue corn pancakes.

Celebrating: Semana Santa festivites include making "alfombras," street carpets made of dyed wood chips, fruit, veggies, and other natural materials.

So, our cards WILL (read: should) arrive tomorrow, and then we will head to Semuc Champey - a waterfall/cave/swimming hole/river mecca, and then on to El Salvador!

Estudiando y Disfrutando La Vida en San Pedro

Hola amigos y familia! We are currently writing from beautiful San Pedro, on Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala. But first we will fill you in on some adventures we had before coming here.

After returning to Antigua for a night we took an overnight bus up to the north of Guatemala to the town of El Remante. It´s a sleepy littly town, but super pretty with some great lake swimming, and is located 45 minutes from the famous Mayan ruins of Tikal. We spent the afternoon walking around and swimming in the lake. Quite refreshing, as it was close to 100 degrees outside.

This was the view from our room.

The next morning we woke up at 5 AM to catch a shuttle to Tikal. Though we didn´t make it in time to watch the sunrise, we still got to watch the jungle ¨waking up¨ from the top of old Mayan temples.

Though we don´t consider ourselves to be particularily ¨into¨ ruins in general, we were definitely impressed by both the ruins as well as all of the wildlife. Upon entering the park we were greeted by howler monkeys, which are so loud that Jess thought it was a recording at first. Thank you technology. But then we remembered we weren´t at Universal Studios, and we looked up and saw the noise was truely coming from the trees. We also saw woodpeckers. Don´t know why, but we were particularily excited about them.



After El Remante and Tikal, we spent the day in Flores while waiting for another overnight bus back to Guatemala City. Flores, like Antigua, is another cute yet touristy city with cobblestone streets, a ¨centro¨ with a park and a church, and burrito stands that are supposed to be ¨the best.¨ They were good... But nothing like we get at home. Mmmm. Burritos.



The Central Park in Flores

No one has anything good to say about Guatemala City, so as soon as we got there we hopped on a ¨direct¨ chicken bus to Lake Atitlan. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a direct bus... And, we got caught in a huge traffic jam due to protesters who had set logs on fire in the middle of the highway. The driver did put in a fair effort to get us through the jam, including driving down the wrong side of the highway (everyone was doing it), but we were still delayed a few hours.

We did finally make it to the lake, and were promptly greeted by Joe who is working at a clinic in a town close to where we are staying. The clinic was our first stop. Jeremy´s lovely little infection from India has decided to stick around, but no worries, it´s all under control now!
Lake Atitlan is beautiful, surrounded by volcanos, mountains, and farms. All the creature comforts one could want are here, but it´s still possible to find the locals and experience a bit of the traditional Mayan lifestyle and culture.



Joe took us on a tour around San Pedro. Lovely veiws, even on a coudy day.



After our tour of the town, we set off on a mission to find a Spanish school and a place to live. We lucked out and found an awesome apartment with a shared kitchen and garden space. Our neighbors include a guy from Canada who is also studying Spanish, and another guy from Holland who lives here permanently with his two adorable kids. Oh, did we mention he´s a massuse too? Three points for us!

We´ve been here studying Spanish for 2 weeks, and will stay for 2 more.



Here´s Jeremy on our move-in day.



And here´s the view from our balcony.

Tipical lunch here for us... Veggie tacos and a liquado (fruit-sugar-water-goodness)

Last weekend we met up with Joe and some of his friends and went to a city about 3 hours away called Xela. The bus was so crowded on the way there that the ayudante (ticket collector) had to climb over seats. Awesome.

While in Xela we enjoyed some good Indian food (Guatemalan style), a trip to some awesome hot springs, and a soccer game.



So that´s the update for now! We are really enjoying staying put for a bit. Our apartment feels like home, our teachers are great, and there´s lots of fun stuff to do around town. Last week we went to a talk organized by our school, from a local man who spoke about his experience in the cival war here. It was very moving, tragic, and powerful. We have also enjoyed a salsa dancing lesson, a few movies about the war, various happy hours, and a hike up the volcano that´s behind our apartment. More pictures to come.  

Sending love!