Where Have You Been?

Carrie &Jonathon,

I’m confused looking at your site… you guys have traveld a lot looks like… where all have u been?

james

Hey James!

Well, we have done a lot of travel in the past, but since October, we’ve been Read the rest of this entry »

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Podcast #5: The Northern Part of Central America

In this podcast, we cover about 7 weeks of travel, from the time we left Granada, Nicaragua, early in December, through today, January 18.

Download the travel podcast MP3 here
We cover our travels through places and experiences like:

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Video: Monkeys At The Mayan Ruins of Tikal

This short video of spider monkeys (monkeying around) was taken on Dec. 15 when we visited the Mayan Ruins at Tikal, Guatemala.
Watch as the adult monkey leaps out and grabs a branch so that the baby spider monkey can crawl across it’s back to the other tree.

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Tourism Map of Central America: Our Map from 3 months of Travel

In three months, we visited 6 countries, covered over 2,500 land miles (mostly by bus) and saw some really amazing places.
We also met some truly fantastic people – both people who are involved in tourism as tourists and tourist guides, and people who are living their lives in the countries we visited.
This map is not yet 100% complete, but gives you an idea of the places we’ve been and what we’ve been up to.
If you’re looking to ride Ticabus or Tracopa and want to know exact locations, this map should be rather helpful for you.
Also, we’ve tried to put in all our hotel stays (Think we got them all on here) and will be linking from this map to the reviews on our site so that you can easily get to everything in one place.
This should help you know where to stay if you visit these countries.
If you’re going to Central America, we hope that this helps you to both find things you’d like to see and do, as well as to know where exactly those things to see and do are located.
If this map does prove helpful for you, please comment below and let us know!

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Carrie’s Current countries visited

visited 15 states (6.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World
On our trip through Central America, I got to add 6 countries to my map of visited countries. It’s too bad not all of them have a stamp representation in my passport.
I’ve actually been to more countries that this, but I didn’t spend the night, so they don’t count. I’ve been to France numerous times when I lived in Germany, and I also drove through Austria. They’ll be added to the list sometime soon through.

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Tikal Mayan Ruins at Tikal, Guatemala (Lots of Photos)

We will be posting our thoughts on Tikal park and the Tikal Mayan ruins very soon…

For now, we’re just posting some of our favorite pictures.
In 2 days, we took over 130 photos of the amazing ruins at Tikal.
Suffice it to say that we loved our visit to the Mayan Ruins in Tikal, Guatemala and will have more to say (in this post) soon.
For now, we hope you enjoy the visuals from a place that is being restored… a city that is over 1,000 years old and is being dug out of the jungle so that it will be preserved in it’s best state for future generations.

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Wanted: Great Travel Agent

I feel bad for the Germans whom we met today, Thomas and Kristin, who got to listen to us complain about the confusion caused by…
I have no idea what it’s been caused by actually. Perhaps different expectations and/or understandings about the travels we booked through plus Travel in Antigua, Guatemala.
Thomas and Kristin met and saw us at the height of our frustration.
Three times in our travels in the last few years, Carrie and I have used travel agents. Three times it has turned out creating frustrating results.
In my mind, in 2009, in an era when anyone can do their own research and make their own reservations online, (or via phone) directly with providers of services, the role of a travel agent is to make things easier and less expensive (since they should be able to pass along discounted prices and connections they have worked to build).
Perhaps the travel agents we have used don’t view their role this way, but at this point, I don’t envision us ever hiring a travel agent again.
In short, here is the gist.

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Chichicastenango on Market Day (AKA: We ARE The Giants from the North)

Did you grow up hearing tales about Giants from the North? I know I did. I’ve even heard them referenced in numerous movies and children’s fairy tales.
I was never too concerned about giants though (it was vampires that terrified – terrify – me).
Today I learned something about myself.
The reason that I was never afraid of giants is because I am one.
I am a Giant from the North.

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The Most Terrifying Ride Of My Life…(So Far)

Today, Jonathan and I had booked a trip to Lake Atitlan. We used Plus Travel (please see this post for more information on Plus Travel in Antigua, Guatemala).

Our trip included: shuttle ride from Antigua to Panajachel, a boat tour of 3 cities on Lake Atitlan, a hotel in Panajachel, shuttle to Chichicastenago, and a shuttle back to Antigua.
I’ll talk about the rest later, but I want to take just a minute and tell you about the shuttle ride from Antigua to Panajachel. Why? Because I’m still alive to tell the tale.

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3 city boat tour around Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Jonathan keeps calling the cities around the lake “islands”. I think that’s cute.

We’re finally off to the first city on our tour: San Marcos.

We get off the boat, and we’re told we have an hour to see the town. That doesn’t sound like much time to explore a whole town.

It’s too much. Really.

But we did find a little amphitheater where Jonathan put on a show for me.

We get back on the boat, exactly on time, and are driven to San Pedro a little bit further around the lake.

Again, we’re only given an hour to see this town. So, we grab a Tuk-Tuk, and ask for a tour.

The driver is great. He’s really friendly and fun. He’s more than willing to talk about what we’re seeing, so that we actually know what’s going on.

We also learned that he’s only 15 years old!

15 and spending his Christmas vacation DRIVING a little tuk tuk to make money.

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