Jess and Stacey’s Travels

We spent the last 1 1/2 months of our trip in Antigua with visits from Jess’s brother and sis-in-law and our friends Sara and Dan.  It was a nice way to finish out the 11 months of travel.  We enjoyed having visitors and hopefully they enjoyed Guatemala as much as we did.  Guatemala was one of our favorite countries, largely due to the great people we met. 

This is the last blog entry for this trip.  Hope to have another one sometime for another part of the world.   Thank you everyone who supported us throughout the year.  We could not have hit the road without you.  Muchas Gracias. 

Antigua Pix-click on photo for more pictures

We’ve been reminded by several readers that we have been remiss in keeping our blog up-to-date.  Lo siento. 

After spending five weeks longer than we planned in Antigua, we are going back to Nicaragua.  We spent the month+ living a normal, routine life-which explains our lack of content for the blog.  We survived the rainy season which is now winding down.  We had the chance to get to know the family of Francisca and Olga a little better.  We took Francisca’s son on his first horseback ride, around the Central Park in Antigua.  September 15 was Independence Day here so there were festivities in the park and fireworks throughout the night.  We visited an avocado finca (e.g. farm) about 20min outside of Antigua.  The big draw for Jess there was the treehouse, which we slept in for two nights.  There was a fantastic view from the inside the treehouse and from the finca, overlooking the valley and the three surrounding volcanos.  What we lacked in adventure, we made up for in normalcy this past month.     

Our next stop is in Granada, paying another visit to our host family there.  We are excited for the visit from Jeana and Mark in a month.              

Updated:  link to photos actually works now. 

Thanks for the concern regarding the 6.8 earthquake that hit parts of Guatemala and El Salvador.  We had left Guatemala for Honduras and were unaffected.  We read in the news that there were no casualities. 

After returning to Antigua from Tikal, we loafed around for about a week finding excuses why we needed to stay just one more day. We explored the city, watched a lot of movies that we hadn’t seen this last year, and tried more restaurants.
The number of tourists is noticably picking up as the college crowd flocks down here under the guise of learning Spanish. Katherine (the Australian woman we’ve mentioned before) delayed her departure back down-under for another month.  We met up with her again in Antigua.  She joined us as we continued on the gringo trail to the Copan Ruins in Honduras. 

Copan is just over the border from Guatemala, about 6 hours from Antigua.  The ruins are just outside of the town called Copan Ruinas which is a great little town.  They say that Tikal is the New York of the Mayan world and Copan is the Paris. 

[read on]

Yeah-Lava!-click on photo for more pictures

Housekeeping Note:  If you click on the pictures and they first appear blurry, wait a bit, and they should adjust to be clear.  Or else, just select slideshow option and captions will appear with the pictures.

After three weeks based in Xela, we have packed up and moved on to Antigua.  The three weeks were fun and event-filled.   We went to jail, warmed our toes by some lava, and enjoyed a swing from the tree tops….but more on that below.  More importantly, we improved our Spanish at ICA, our school which was a great school.  We met many really nice people – students, teachers, and homestay families.   The school arranged many activities for the students everyday after classes and also on weekends.   Some of the more notable activities were:

• We visited a woman’s jail the day after Mother’s Day to bring them Mother’s Day gifts, dance and have cake with   them.   The women in this jail are from towns outside of Xela and do not have people coming to visit them.  They are all being held while their cases are being investigated which sometimes takes up to two years. [read on]