September - GUATEMALA

Heya....
Just Phil on today, Karen is doing a Guatemalan cooking class...
We've now crossed over into Guatemala. Following Copan we had probably the worlds easiest border crossing before heading to Quirigua... another well-known home of Mayan Ruins. Quirigua is home to the tallest stelae (carved likeness of Mayan rulers) in the Mayan world. Some of these are as tall as 8m above ground (with another 3m below) and weigh about 60 tonnes. The place was hot and humid as hell and has more mosquitoes than Mayans these days.



Livingston
Following Quirigua, we headed to Rio Dulce for a boat ride (which turned out to be in 2 hours of stinging monsoonal rain) on our way to Livingston. We were having deja vu thinking back to Tortuguero in Costa Rica (3hours of Kayak trip in similar conditions). Livingston is another Garifuna dominant town only reachable by boat. We met a Garifuna guy there called Philip also, who introduced us to some local musicians and burnt a CD of local music for Phil. After dinner we had to duck out of the continuing rain, and found ourselves in a Garifuna club, where I got into a heated game of dominoes (for money) with a few of the locals. I came back a few Quetzales short.