Utila Island and the Sunjam Festival

6 August

+ We have been convinced by our friends we met in Semuc Champey to go to a festival on an insland in the Caribbean sea, in Honduras. We still had some stops in front of us before going to the Utila Island (like Flores, Tikal, Rio Dulce) and we had to arrive ideally one day before the festival on the island. It was managable, but we had a tight time schedule. Then, in Rio Dulce our schedule got out of control: we liked the place too much and decided to stay a day longer, a day we needed normally for travelling to Honduras... Then, the day we decided to leave, we found out that the way we wanted to take initially would mean to change bus or boat about 6 times until we get there... Luckily, there was an alternative way - not as spectacular as the one we wanted to take - one that would make us arrive on Utila on the 6th in the morning, the day of the festival, if nothing goes wrong. And we arrived in time!!! With Jenny and Michelle, with whom we did the unforgetable journey together from Semuc. :)

+ The special thing about this festival is that it is on a tiny island next to Utila where there is absolutely nothing except the festival.As one is not allowed to take cameras there, we have unfortunately only one picture of the island (from a poster). The island is really small, but all was wonderful, from the sunset there until the sunrise, with our friends from Semuc with music for 24 hours... The hassle to get there was worth it!

Sunjam festival island (Water Cay island)

+ Utila ilsland is pretty big; the good thing about it is that there is only one town and the rest of the island is all wild and green. The town is small, with many colorful houses with wonderful gardens, many women selling their baleadas (Baleada is a wheat flour tortilla, folded in half and filled with mashed fried beans & cheese & cream. A "light" snack...  Mmmh... frijoles todo el dia por favor!) and some docks from where you can swim.

 

+ Utila`s beaches are really nice, but have sooo many sandflies!

 

+ Arrived with the Jenny & Michelle, reunited with Ben & Ido, we just enjoyed the evenings and met many other awesome people. Utila is just perfect for partying!

 

Rio Dulce: Beautiful Paradise for Dani's birthday

4 August

+ After our cultural and hikking activities we needed some rest. And what better than Rio Dulce for that?? this place is awesome. It is located next to the largest lake of Guatemala. And from the lake there is a river which goes until the caribean cost in the North of the country.

+ Our hostel, as many others, is placed above the water, like in wooden platforms, kind of floating. Since it was Dani's birthday, we took the best bungalow!! yuhuu!! (you have to consider that the previous days we had slept in camping tents). So we just ate like kings (well, like porks :) ) and enjoy the atmosphere with the help of Mr. Tequila. 

 

 

 

 

+  We also took a boat and "navegated" around the lake. We did swim but it was really spuky. it looked like a crocodrile would appear suddenly from beneath the water!!

 

 

 
 

Tikal: The jaguar empire

3 August

+ Just for you to understand: we came all the way down to Guatemala just to visit Tikal. Of course, Guatemala surprised us so positively that we could have even left the country without visiting Tikal and still we would have like it so much. However, we did visited Tikal and and that added extra points to this wonderful country.

+ Tikal was an enormous Maya city which reached its apogee between 200 and 900 AD. It  was actually not located in the jungle as it looks like (see the pictures). The jungle however has grown fast over it and today the place is fascinating. What you can see today of the place is just around 10% of the original city. Most of the rest is still under the jungle and being excavated.

 + We were really lucky because we took a local guide who was a genius. He stayed with us for 5 hours and almost didn't charge us money. We loved it and he loved to teach us. We discussed with him so much about all the legends of the Maya civilization and how so much wrong information is out there. The point is that many guides like to tell fascinating stories about the Maya which are actually wrong and therefore the missconception keeps on growing. He also tought us about the aminals and birds in the forest, the different types of trees and their fruits and other stuff.  The only problem is that he pushed us to wake up at 3.30am so that we could see the sunrise... can you imagine??