Belize and Guatemala Part 2, Thanksgiving, and Elections

Alright, this is going to be a long one so hang in there! To pick up where we left off, after Tikal in Guatemala we headed across the border to Belize. It was weird because right as we crossed the border everything switched to English and miles. Most of the people close to the border still spoke Spanish but on the first bus we took, Shannon automatically talked to the bus ayudante in Spanish and he said “Solo hablo inglés” which was weird since we have never taken a bus in English. We stayed two nights in San Ignacio, not too far from the border. About an hour from San Ignacio is this really awesome cave called the ATM Cave. It was the site of Mayan ceremonies and it quite an experience. We were not going to go at first because it is quite expensive but everyone told us it was the thing to do so we did. We had a really small group, just us and a Canadian guy so that made the experience even better. The trip started out with a drive to the jungle. Then we walked about a mile (crossing a river numerous times) to the entrance of the cave. It was beautiful and we had to swim to enter the cave. We wore helmets with headlamps on them and had to hike/swim about a half a mile through the cave. Our guide was awesome and really went the extra mile. At one point he had us turn our lights off and he told us the story of the Mayan underworld…it had seven levels and it all started with darkness and the sound of water. We then put our hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us and walked for about 10 minutes in the dark, sometimes up to our waists in water. It was such an awesome experience and all we could see was darkness and hear the sound of water. We ended up in a couple of giant rooms full of Mayan artifacts and bones, 90-some percent of which have never been moved. We were able to walk right up to the artifacts and a clumsy person (luckily Shannon was in an unusually un-clumsy mood) could have fallen and smashed them. It was such an amazing experience that we would never have been able to have in the U.S. where there would have been walls and fences around everything!

From San Ignacio we headed to Placencia which is a beautiful white sand beach. We spent the day swimming and eating delicious food (they had gelato!). We planned to stay another night and spend a day snorkeling around the cays but it rained all morning the next day so our trip got cancelled and we decided to press on. We did, randomly, run into a girl on the beach that was in Shannon’s dorm freshman year of college. It had been years since we had seen her, what a small world! Belize was extremely beautiful and we were sad that we were not able to spend more time there. It did not seem like Central America, more like the Caribbean. The food was totally different without tortillas (thank goodness) and more seafood and coconut flavors. It was a nice change of pace and we hope to go back since we were not able to meet up with Shannon’s friend from when she studied abroad.

We took a boat across the ocean from Punta Gorda in the south of Belize back to Guatemala. On the boat we met this really nice girl who happened to live in the city we were going to. She invited us to stay at her house which overlooked the bay. We had a nice, relaxing night in Livingston which is one of the few Garifuna communities in Guatemala. Most of the people there are black and the food is different, more fish and things cooked with coconut. They also have an alligator pit in the central park…a little different for sure!
From Livingston we took a boat down the Rio Dulce. It was a nice trip and we stopped at a traditional village where they sold crafts and also at a hot spring. We then headed to an area where there are a lot of Stelas (really tall Mayan statues) and spent an hour or so looking at them. It is really amazing how tall and intricate they are! Then we headed to the border town of Esquipulas where the famous “Black Jesus” is housed in the Cathedral there. We got in late and got ripped off on the worst room in the history of the world. It was so tiny that the bed barely fit, no towels or toilet paper (we didn’t even know that was possible), no toilet seats in the shared bathroom, and not even a sink, just a pila. It was definitely the worst hotel we have ever stayed in! We saw the Black Jesus in the morning and it was an interesting experience. As the church service was going on, there was a line of people in the front of the church waiting to see Jesus. We probably waited in line for about half an hour. Everyone would walk up and kneel down to pray or take pictures and then walk backwards out of the area until the Jesus was out of sight. It was definitely something that we had never experienced before.

We crossed the border on Kevin’s birthday and then spent the entire day traveling. We stayed at our friend Hillary’s and she saved Kev’s birthday by making him dinner and a little cake complete with candles! We then headed back to Catacamas the next day and finally arrived around 5:00 PM. It was a lot of traveling and we were exhausted when we got back but it was a good trip. We were surprised that we were actually happy to get back.

The week after we got back we both had our one year site visits with our bosses from Peace Corps. They talked to our counterparts and people in the community to see how we are doing and they both went really well. Shannon did almost her entire visit in Spanish and was told that her Spanish has really improved so that was nice (Kevin did not talk much in Spanish in his so he couldn’t get complimented but his Spanish has improved too).

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving at our house with about 20 people. Shannon spent the entire day in the kitchen and now feels that if she can make a Thanksgiving dinner for that many people in Honduras, it will be a piece of cake in the U.S.! Kevin made the turkey and everyone really enjoyed all of the food. We had enough to feed an army and everyone had leftovers the next day. All in all, it was a huge success and a lot of fun!

Sunday, were the elections for president and all of the mayors of the different municipalities. There were no problems and a new president was elected. Pretty much all departments elected someone from the National Party and the president is from that party as well. It seems that everyone wanted a change. That means that everyone in our mayor’s office will be out in January and an entire new crew will come in. This will be weird for Shannon as two of her counterparts work for the municipality. It should be interesting. The new president takes office January 27, 2010 (Shannon’s birthday) and we are hopeful that it will be a smooth transition.