“You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr. Panckhurst”

Regrettably, we made the call while we were in Panama City to book a flight to Guatemala and miss a large part of Central America. This was a hard decision to make, but necessary due to our impending flight from Mexico to Haiti on June 20^th.

Unbeknownst to us, we managed to book ourselves on a business class flight between Panama City and Guatemala City, so we understandably applied the term “all you can eat” to our time in the business class lounge, and on the plane, much to the amusement of the “true” business class passengers.

Guatemala was a wonderful place to visit – beautiful and very easy to get around. We spent a week visiting the immaculate Colonial city of Antigua, the out of the way natural pools of Semuc Champay, and the jungle clad Mayan temples of Tikal.

 

From there we travelled to Belize, and spent a (mostly) wonderful week on the quintessentially Caribbean island of Caye Caulker. We truly “chilled out” in Belizan time for two days, then spent three exhausting days getting our dive certificate. Despite some initial reservations on my part, we loved diving and it was a real achievement to get through the high speed course! Unfortunately, our last few days on the island, and also on Ambergris Caye, were spent getting over “Belize Belly”. Still, our time in Belize was much more interesting than we thought it might be – we opted to go there as it was en route to Mexico and we needed a bit of a beach break, but the Afro Caribbean culture was a wonderful new experience, very different from Cuba, and a lot of fun!

 

We are now working our way up the Yucutan Peninsula in Mexico. We stopped off in Tulum to see the beachside Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza to see the grand and famous Mayan ruins and we have just arrived in the Colonial city of Merida (in time for the Gay Pride parade) before finishing our time in Mexico in glitzy Cancun.

Next desination… Haiti!