May 08

What an amazing trip. I need to quote Yuko, one of my students.

"Mary Ann, this is not a vacation anymore, it's about SURVIVAL!" And we all did.

Nice way to end the day with cake and presents for Jason.

Our final day in Caye Caulker is tomorrow before we head off to Mexico. The group is splitting with some going diving, some renting kayaks, some just doing the beach and a few of us are taking the Water Taxi and going over to check out Ambergris Caye and San Pedro and the boys are having a boys day and going deep sea fishing.

OK this is an island paradise. We are in view of the second longest barrier reef in the world. Our excursion today was a half day excursion courtesy of Trek Holidays and Tucan and it was fabulous. We were able to swim along the coral and see the fish, pat the sting ray and just swim in the gorgeous gorgeous blue water.

Our hotel is cute and small right on the beach. We are able to jump off the dock and cool off. Caye Caulker is a long strip of island that has a main Front street with all the restaurants, shops and water activity tour operators. It kind of reminds me of Key West but probably 50 years ago. As soon as the locals see that you are walking to fast they tell you to Slow Down - this is Belize.....

We are a 45 minute boat ride from Belize City and are here for 3 days. Tomorrow some of the students are going deep sea fishing, others are going diving and a few of us are taking a water taxi over to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye.

This is definitely a paradise on earth.

From Flores it is an easy 2 hour drive to Tikal National Park. We left the hotel at 0600 and were in Tikal around 0800. Our 4 hour tour around the ruins was so full of fabulous information. We saw howler monkeys, tucans and even ant eaters. The best part was watching the survival of the fittest and seeing the students running and climbing up the ruins.

It was a great day which ended in San Ignacio Belize. A pool at the hotel and a good supper with cold drinks ended our day.

Our bus' air conditioning broke on the way to San Ignacio from Tikal and our driver has taken the bus all the way to Cancun to get it fixed. Its a 30 hour return journey. We have opted to help him out with the drive by taking local bus transportation to our next stop and he can meet is there once the bus is fixed.

Today was market day in San Ignacio so a group of us walked to town to see the market while the other part of our group went on an optional caving tour.

Our last 2 days have been in Livingston, Guatemala on the Caribbean side. We stayed on a small island in little cabins. The pool was the hit in this heat.

Our second day we were able to visit the school and drop of our gifts. It was very moving for the students and after at least 45 minutes there I saw some tears in the eyes of our students.

We continued along the Rio Dulce and saw some fabulous sites along the way. It was a great day, very memorable.

We are back in Guatemala and in the island town of Flores. Pretty painted buildings, a town square with its signature church. We all have a free afternoon to wander around the town before our 0600 departure tomorrow for Tikal. Its laundry day as well for alot of the students. Tonight we plan to have dinner in a restaurant overlooking Lago Petan Itza.

Did not have chance to post anything the last few days as the internet can be slow or non existant in some places. One activity that most of the students did in Copan Honduras was a zipline excursion. It was a great rate of 35 USD for 15 traverses with 2 of them being 1 km. long. They all had a hoot. Some complained how sore they were the next day from their superman antics but I think the pictures and videos they took are going to be memories to last a life time.

So far, no accidents or thefts, a few people starting to get upset stomachs and diarrhea but nothing a little Imodium won´t cure.

After our 4 hour tolur of Tikal tomorrow we will then board our buses to Belize. The plan for Belize is to have 2 nights in San Ignacio and then 3 nights in Caye Caulker for beach and snorkeling.

My tip of the day is............. some ATMs only allow you to withdrawl from one of your accounts so a good idea would be to have money in both your chequing and savings account.