Moisés , Londin and I, Carin, just came back from an interesting trip through Guatemala and Belize. The reason for this trip was for the young instructors of our Maya project to see living Maya culture with their own eyes. An indeed they did! In Belize we were received by friends from the Julian Cho Society, an organization that helps indigenous people in land issues, among many other things. In Guatemala we saw different Maya people, all proudly wearing their own indigenous outfits, many speaking their own tongue. For Moises and Londin, both Maya Chortí but not used to anything so colourful, bright, brilliant, exotic and "Maya", it was an overwhelming experience.
In eight days we went from Copán Ruinas to the south of Belize, from there to the splendid site of Tikal, next to Lake Atitlan and then a pit stop in Antigua Guatemala before taking the early morning shuttle back home. It was quite an itinerary and it wasn't always easy traveling with two completely unexperienced adventurers with a tendency to ignore my well meant instructions. (" I told you to change all your Honduran money at the border because it is worthless in the rest of Central America!" - " Believe me Londin, I'm pretty sure you don NOT like a double espresso" etc. etc.) The boys had a tough time in Belize where they could not communicate well because of the English spoken there (they were so overwhelmed when entering the country that the migration officer asked me if they were mute!) and Londin's limited English vocabulary didn't help him an awful lot when he saw "fish fingers" on the menu. Moises' best sleeping experience was the one night we spent in the office of Caja Lúdica, a befriended artist organization in Guatemala: we slept on mattresses on the floor. We could have saved ourselves a lot of money we now spent on decent hotels. But anyway, it was a great trip, something the boys will never forget! (Look us up on Facebook,com for more pics!)