Belize- San Ignacio and Caye Caulker

So we LOVED BELIZE... it was so so so weird that we crossed the border from Guatemala and suddenly everything was in english after almost 3 months of spanish spanish and quechua!
It was even better because everyone has rasta accents... and the size of the dreadlocks are just ridiculous.. we stayed at a town called San Ignacio and went cave tubing (relaxing) then caving down the crystal caves (beautiful but incredibly dirty) and basically I got my rice and beans fix (delicious).

We then got a boat out from Belize city to Caye Caulker, which is in the middle of the Belize Barrier Reef, where we lazed around on the beach, hung out at the Split and went snorkelling.... definately a highlight of our whole trip! I would love to go back and see more of Belize... 

Tikal... a Mayan jungle ruin

I loved this place... I knew it was going to be a highlight when I was planning this holiday, and it didn't disappoint... the jungle was incredible, it had taken over the city and except for the excavation work you wouldn't have known it was even there.

We climbed to the top of Temple IV and looked out across the jungle to other temples which popped up through the tree, listening to the sounds of howler monkeys and watching the mist lift...

Sam's face when he realised that I had volunteered him for the human sacrifice... 

Antigua

We had a really relaxing time in Quito, we got to catch up with our friend Mark from Philly that we met in Patagonia, and said good bye to our Tucan buddies, because we were leaving South America and going to Guatemala woohoo :) After Sam had some minor dramas at the airport (being singled out for a bag check and having to go all the way back through customs and security check we made it safely onto the plane.... where a drunk guy in front of us (it was 6am in the morning by the way) managed to power spew all over the window, himself and the two people in front of him before the plane had even taken off!! EEEEEWWWW.....

Anyway we eventually made it to Guatemala, stopping through Panama on the way (looked pretty from the plane) and bused it down to Antigua, a gorgeous little place with cobble-stoned streets and innumerable ruins of churches and old buildings dating back centuries from when the Spanish first arrived surrounded by 3 volcanoes.  We pretty much did nothing except eat delicious delicious food, the restaurants were incredible, especially after our South American fare we'd been eating for the last 2 months...and play a lot of cribbage on the rooftop watching the sun set everyday...

The Amazon!

Ok, sorry for the laziness of not updating the blog! we're actually about to fly to New York right now, so only about 4 weeks late with this post!

Anyway, I will take you back to where I left off.... last you heard we were in Banos and the volcano was erupting, luckily we made it out and drove to Tena, on the edge of the Amazon Basin, where we got into motorised, dug-out canoes and were chauffeured to our "rustic jungle lodge" where we stayed for 3 nights, unfortunately we don't have many pictures because sam's waterproof camera is no longer waterproof... and a lot of the time we were on the river or it was raining!

Things we got up to were swinging off a rope swing, then we went tubing down the Rio Napa, face painting, then sam got his demons exorcised by a Quichua shaman, we went out to a few islands and saw how the locals make balsa wood carvings and pottery, sam teased a tarantula, we went on a 'jungle walk' where we saw a lot of trees, a couple of spiders and lots of birds..... so not much exciting wildlife but we had a fun and relaxing time.... then sam, myself and louise went for a swim, except it was crazy because there had been so much rain, the river had risen about a metre, and lightening was striking all around because there was a thunder storm, so not your average river swim that's for sure!

Banos- Volcano eruption!

So after we finally got to leave Peru (the border between Peru and Ecuador had been shut for a couple of days but we were fine- had no problems so luckier than some others!) we stayed in Cuenca, which was a beautiful little town, then made our way up to Banos, where we had so much fun we barely took any photos!
We went canyoning, which was AWESOME, I put photos up on facebook, because we had something even more exciting happen while we camped in Banos- a volcanic eruption!
We went and watched the lava spouting out into the night sky, which was incredible, but photos didn't really turn out because I didn't bring my zoom lens, and we don't own a tripod!!! Anyway, apparently the 'pyroclastic flow' (no idea how to spell it) which is basically super heated lava flow was like 2km long down the side of the volcano, and the pretty rocks that looked so nice in the air were apparently the size of a bus!!!!

Mancora

So we stayed at the Loki in Mancora- an infamous gringo haunt, but we loved it, hardly ever left the resort except to go dancing at night!! I took these on a romantic sunset walk with my friend Louise where we almost got knocked over by the massive waves!

Chan Chan and Sun Pyramids

We drove further up the Peruvian coast, and stayed in Huanchaco, a gorgeous beach that apparently has the longest left hand break (that means something to surfers... ) and there were a couple of really interesting ruins that I visited while Sam surfed, the first was the Chimu Kingdom of Chan Chan that dates back to the 10th century, and the next were the temples of the Sun and Moon which were more like 14th century (it was a while ago though, we are so bad about getting this blog up to date... so details are unfortunately a bit hazy!!)