The 3 A's... Africa, Asia & the Americas

20oct06

Hi all !!

well last time I wrote was the day before we were heading off to Tikal, the ancient mayan ruins in the north of Guatemala. Well we set off at 6am and had a good look round. It was quite an amazing sight really. These pyramids, some as high as 70 metres, date back to 400 AD, and some even earlier. What struck me the hardest though was the way that they excavate these ruins. Here we have a world heritage sight right.

Now I thought, given this, that the worlds top resources would be on the job of excavating these ruins, top archaeologists, the best tools etc - silly me! We stumbled across one of the temples which was in the process of being excavated/restored. They had a very makeshift pulley system hauling all of the materials up the edge of the pyramid ' very makeshift indeed! It was a motorised by ...... a motorbike. Yup at the bottom of the pyramid, sat a guy on a jacked up motorbike revving the engine, which in turn powered the pulley system! Can you believe it? I couldn't. There he was sat on the seat of the motorbike just revving the engine. In fact that's all I've taken away from my trip to Tikal, as well as the amazing sights. Amazing!

Anyway, our original plan was to go across to Belize from Guatemala at this point. Instead we came a bit more south so as we could hit an official border crossing. We found this fantastic place to stay called Denny's beach which was on the edge of Lake Izabal in the South east corner of Guat, near to the border with Honduras. We stayed in what is effectively a treehouse in the jungle. Don't worry, the mosquito net did wonders. It was being run by a couple of south africans who have been sailing round the world for the past 5 years. Basically all the yachties who travel round the world come to shelter in this bay for the hurricane season.

So Mary and George entertained us with their travel tales and more - they were good fun and Mary was an excellent cook. So we ate very well indeed! We spent 3 days there.... Now I don´t want you guys to think we have been overdoing it so i´ll give you a taster of our routines for the last few days.... 7.30 am...wake up to the sounds of the waves on the beach from our treehouse 7.40 am...go for a swim....the water even at this time in the morning is about 25 degrees...it´s amazing. We set a little course for ourselves....swim out from the beach to the anchor buoy of the catamaran (not sure if this is correct spelling) and swim back 8.30 am...stroll up for breakfast and have Mexican Huevos...scrambled eggs, onions, peppers, tomatoes... 9.30am to 2pm lie in hammock with occasional dips in the lake 2pm...have some lunch 3pm to 5pm lie in hammock with occasional dips in the lake 5pm to 6pm go and shower ready for dinner 6.30pm to 9pm Dinner, drinks and then off to bed.....god it´s tough.

It was very quiet with tourists, just a whole load of yachties dropping in now and again for a cuba libre ar 6! Very chilled scene. So today, Tuesday, we're venturing on to Tela in Honduras. I'm not sure how much email will cost from there as it is not very developed. So will email as soon as we can. Lots of love to you all.

Wendy and Simon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx