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After Flores we rode on a bus to Rio Dulce. Best busride of my life. It was just really comfortable and fun and there was a lot to look at. The bus stopped for lunch in this random town, and we were starving and ate at a restaurant that we probably never would have, we payed less than two dollars for big plates of rice, beans, cheese guacamole and tortillas. yum.

Rio Dulce was a nice enough town, but the kind of weather where you go to bed and wake up sweaty and feel clean for about 10 minutes after a shower and then you´re ready for another one. we went in a little lancha on the river to Livingston. The boat ride was about an hour and a half, and was really pretty scenery, basically really tall walls of jungle-like trees on either side. WE stopped at a hot springs area, really nice. Livingston is like no place i had ever been, we got off the boat and walked into a saturday afternoon in this tiny caribbean town. THey are Garifuna, which is basically a tiny population of black guatemalans. They speak their own language. Right off the bat we met one of the towns musicians, his instrument the turtle shell. We got to our hotel, casa de la iguana, and were really happy with our big cabin that had a private bathroom and a big bed and a hammock and a FAN. Oh and we had an electrical outlet in the room which i was really excited about and thought i would blowdry my hair for the first time in a month. Bad idea. I must have blown a fuse or something because electricity in the ENTIRE HOTEL was out, and it was right before they served their family style dinner in the common area. Oh my goodness i was so embarrassed but the staff just told us that the power just goes out all the time so i kept my mouth shut. pretty hilarious though, the whole place had to eat dinner by candlelight just because i wanted dry hair. it finally got fixed, and everyone in the place (maybe 25 people) got together and played this wolf game and kings cup, it was a fun night, only one other american there but everyone speaks english so no problem.

That night when we went back to our room their was a GIANT spider in the bathroom on the wall and a scorpion in the sink. and the scorpion was especially disgusting because it had like fifty little tiny baby scorpions on its back. I am trying hard to not be a scaredy cat, but the huge insects really creep me out. We also found out the next day that our cabin was built on top of a crab farm area so there were tons of these creepy holes around the cabin with huge crabs coming in and out which actually wasn´t so bad, especially because i thought they were the giant tarantula holes that i kept hearing about.

So the next morning we went to get lunch at this little comedor that our musician friend told us was the best place in town, where all the locals eat. We got the livingston specialty, tapado, a soup that has a like spicy coconut milk base and lots of herbs and seafood in it. Crab, calamari, shrimp, etc. and really healthy portions of it. soooo good. The restaurant was also a good choice because we met this texan couple who had just started their own marina just a few coves over, and they were coming into town to get beer for their restaurant and supplies. They were also with a few of the yachties who were docking their boats at the marina. THey seemed like a fun bunch and the texans told us they had a cabana and we could stay there. THey said they made the best cheeseburgers in guatemala which sounded really good to us too so they gave us some time to pack up and then come with them on their boat to the marina. It was really really pretty, on a big hill of green grass and they had a really nice common area and restaurant. THey themselves were also really entertaining, telling us all these crazy stories. the burgers were really really good too. the yachties came up too and we all sat around until late. our cabana was kind of dicey... scorpion on the wall right off the bat and no electricity, plus it was really really hot. we got through it though, and the next day we went kayaking through all these little caribbean lagoons and saw some really cool animals.... like giant butterflies and howler monkeys. that night we heard about hurricane dean coming in and i kindof started to get scared... didn´t help when we got back to our room and there was some sort of creepy mangled tarantula looking spider on the wall and the derelict ceiling was made of metal so the rain coming down from the storm was really really loud and there was the loudest thunder i had ever heard and lots of lightening. and i of course had thoughts of scorpions and that mangled spider. joel was pretty calm about the whole thing but he was pretty miserable too. we barely slept that night, and we were ready to leave that next morning, early. It should be mentioned joel ate cheeseburgers four out of the four meals that we ate there.

We were finally back in rio dulce, and spent one night there. it was heaven to have a clean room that was bug free. we wanted to go to the bay islands in honduras next to do the scuba diving course, but everyone said it was a bad idea because of the hurricane, so we decided to just come back to antigua. We found this really nice hotel, Yellow House, and we have a really really nice room and a TV which was really nice. Really good price too. So we have been here just relaxing and reading for about two weeks. antigua is a really nice town, lots of fun restaurants and bars and really pretty churches, etc. there is a supermarket here and we have access to a kitchen so we have been making some of our own meals.

Oh, we also never go stamped on our way in the country, so we had to go to guatemala city to immigration to take care of it. we were a little worried about the whole situation, but it turned out to be just fine, we got our stamps without a hitch (just a fee) and got a chance to see more of the city as well.

we are going to managua, nicaragua tomorrow on shuttle. long entry, but i realized that we should use this blog as a kind of journal since it´ll be around forever. hope everyone is doing well, we miss and love you guys!