On Friday, I was waiting outside my Guate-house at 3:35 am. It was dark, and a little scary. Then a big stray dog stopped and stared me down for three minutes. Then he barked at me. Then he walked away. Then I peed my pants :) The bus showed up at 3:50. We picked up two other people (both from the Netherlands), Cindy and Jasper (pronounced "Yasper"). Then we were on our way!
I was really counting on finishing up on sleep in the bus. However, this was not like the Korean buses I am so used to sleeping on. This was the bumpiest road trip I've ever taken. Remember my comment about the tuc-tucs in Antigua? Imagine that, but for at least 4 hours at a time. Ouch.
However, Guatemala is an extremely beautiful country... this is a view from the highway (when we were essentially stopped because of a terrible accident... one of at least 5 terrible accidents we saw on the road):
We stopped at Quiriguá, which is a smaller group of Mayan ruins. The really special thing about this place (besides the beautiful jungle setting) is that it's home to the tallest stone monuments the Mayans ever created! From what I read on the stones, most of these were constructed around 750 A.D.
It was also home to one of the tallest trees I've ever seen in my life:
There was also a great plaza area:
Cindy taught me how to spy birds in the trees... And I saw my first real hummingbird! He buzzed around our heads, and the noise was amazing. His movements were like a cartoon... it was fantastic!
I also liked this lizard:
It was super hot in Quirigua, so I was kind of glad that we just had an hour there. Our next stop was a coastal town called Puerto Barrios, where we had to wait a while for our boat to leave. Apparently, rather than have a fixed schedule, the boat leaves when there are 20 people on it :)
That's our boat, front left:
Then we cruised on the Caribbean Sea (ok, a bay on the Caribbean) to a little town called Livingston. Imagine Jamaica, but in Spanish. Our hotel was right on the water:
We had a great fishy lunch at Happy Fish... I'm sure glad I got used to shrimp with heads (camarones con cabezas?) in Korea:
We then took a look at the beach:
Then... we were bored. There wasn't much to Livingston. So we sat on the pier and read/studied Spanish/worked on a crossword. Then later we decided to go back into town (read: the one street with restaurants and shops) for dinner. We found a quaint little hostel with a restaurant.... and the menu was THE EXACT SAME as Happy Fish!! It was hilarious - they even had the "Happy Fish Plate Special." It was explained to us that this is related to Guatemala's tourism policies, and is a way of keeping competition to a minimum so everyone can benefit from visitors.
The one thing this place had that Happy Fish didn't was this guy:
He seemed to be the owner. And was hilarious. And told us lots of silly jokes. And made my gin-tonics strong. And when a scary homeless man kept wanting to fist-bump us, he sat down and pretended to be my boyfriend. And then gave me a free gin-tonic. We all loved him. He was the highlight of Livingston for us.
After dinner, we all went to bed. And slept quite well, after waking up so ridiculously early :)
More on Day 2 tomorrow - But First! A bonus picture!
Jasper is quite tall. But this picture of him attempting to sleep in the bus makes him look like a GIANT (notice the space between head and knee). So I love it:
What do the Dutch feed their children?!?!
Love you all!
2 comments:
"Jasper is quite tall" is offically the under statement of the year. Holy crap! It's a good thing he didn't stand next to the giant tree in the picture.
I agree with Rick! Jasper is impressively tall.
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