Belize!

We arrived in Punta Gorda, Belize this morning from Livingston, Guatemala. We are hanging out here for the day, but then moving on to the beach town of Placencia, about two hours north of here. We will probably be there a few days to do some snorkeling and possibly a dive for Matt.

Our last week in Guate was a whirlwind of the area of Peten, the most northern state. We visited Tikal, an ancient Mayan city. We saw spider and howler monkeys, as well as a coatamundi in the jungle and some pretty incredible ruins. We then went south a few hours and stayed near the village of Poptun at a really nice place called Finca Ixobel. We ate great food and went on a cave trek in the morning. However, the most memorable thing for me was the GIANT tarantula I found hanging out in my room. I had a minor melt down until the bartender, a very charming man named George, came and removed it for me. (Not before Matt got some pretty cool pictures, of course.) I bought George a beer later to thank him. I will try and put some pictures of the spider up soon-Everyone said it was a 'baby' tarantula, but it was the nastiest, biggest spider I have ever seen. Apparently, they are not even poisonous, but I don't care. I had bad dreams about spiders all night.

We spent last night in the town of Livingston, a small town where the Rio Dulce meets the Caribbean. The interesting thing about Livingston is it's mixture of two different cultures-Mayans and Garifuna. We met an interesting gentleman at a restaurant named Paulo, who took us on a tour of the 'real' Livingtston. He was a musician and has toured in the States, so he was quite knowledgable about American culture and spoke very good English. He showed us the Garifuna section of town, where they have an orphanage that we donated a bit of money to. There is obvious tension between the indigenous Mayans and the Garifuna people here, and it was strange to see the way the two cultures interact (or don't.) Livingston is definitely an anomaly in Guatemala and now I am hoping to learn more about Garifuna culture and people.