The underwater world at Utila

(PADI certified divers at Utila)

Shiu-Jene and I are now the proud owners of official PADI diving titles. Shiu-Jene is a certified Open Water Diver and I'm an Advanced Open Water Diver. Yeah!

We have been diving here at Utila for the last 5 days and it has just been amazing! Shiu-Jene has been doing classes, passing the written test for the Open Water Diver course and doing her dives, which included navigation under water, taking of and putting back on equipment under water and other skills.

I have been doing 5 dives, all speciality dives part of the Advanced Open Water Diver course: Deep dive, diving down to 30 meters; under water navigation, where we practices to find our way under water; Wreck dive, diving down to the Haliburton Wreck, and old ship that has been sunk 9 years ago and now lying on the bottom; PPB course, where we practices moving through the water to be a better diver; and last, Night Dive, diving at night when it's completely dark outside. All of it was amazing!

Today we did two fun dives together. Fun dives are dives without any classes or training; you just dive for fun (hence the name fun dives :-) )
On the way there we saw dolphins from the boat! Cool! And for the first time Shiu-Jene and I was diving together!

Now classes are over and we are staying another day on the Island, just to enjoy. After that we are moving on to Belize.

I should actually say a bit about the days before Utila. As you might now, we traveled down from Guatemala only to find ourselves in the middle of the Hurricane Wilma, which at one point was the most powerful hurricane ever, or something like that! We were planning on going directly out to Utila, but Wilma kept us at the mainland for 5 days. In those 5 days the following happened: we met two very funny danish girls - Helene and Majbritt - who we were hanging out with both in La Ceiba on the mainland and on Utila; I continued my diarrea(not fun!); we went to a butterfly museum and saw 12000 different kinds of butterflies and moths and some big-ass bugs and tarantulas (big big spiders)!; we saw first hand what a hurricane can do while at the same time being happy that we weren't completely in the middle of the whole thing; and we ended up flying to Utila in a little tiny airplane because there was no ferry.

Anyways, check out all the pictures here:

Traveling from Guatemala to Honduras
Diving at Utila

Hurricane Wilma is gone, so we are diving

Hi everybody

The Hurricane Wilma has passed out of our area. It wasn't bad here at all, just a lot of rain one of the days. It's going to be much worse for the guys up in Mexico where the hurricane is headed now.

But we are fine.

Since the bad weather is over here, we are now at Utila Island, one of the Bay Islands of the coast of Honduras. This is where we wanted to go.

This morning we started our diving courses at Cross Creek diving. Shiu-Jene started Open Water Diver and I started Advanced Open Water Diver. And it's GREAT!

We will write much more later on. Just wanted to let you all know that everything is muy bueno! :-)

From Rio Dulce to La Ceiba, Honduras

After Tikal and Flores we turned around and headed for Honduras. Our destination here is Bay Islands were we want to go scuba diving.
We went from Flores to Rio Dulce one day, sleeping there a night and leaving early next morning. Then we went 12 hours with 4 different busses, going into Honduras and ending up in La Ceiba, the city from were ferries leave to the Bay Islands.

A long ride, but we were looking forward to go diving.

And what was the first thing we hear getting off the bus? There is a possible hurricane on the way! First thought: why the hell didn't we check the weather before???

Now we are in La Ceiba, staying for a day or two, just to see if the storm will move on. If not, then we will leave again.
And don't worry: if the storm/hurricane gets anywhere near to us, we will leave for sure.

We will put some pictures online from the trip later.

Tikal and Flores: Maya-world and sunshine

Tikal was the most northern point we will visit in Guatemala. We were there to see the Tikal National Park, home of the biggest and best preserved Maya-ruins in this old Maya area (southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and parts of Honduras).

The days when we visited Tikal we lived on a small islands called Flores. There is not much to say about Flores, just a small, small town, mostly filled with turists visiting Tikal, but the sun was shining so much! And we really needed this after many days of rain. Shiu-Jene loved the sun and my, being scandinavian and very white, managed to get a good sunburn!

We did a one day visit to Tikal. We went there 5 in the morning to get some of the cool morning air. When the sun starts to burn around noon it's too hot for walking around in the jungle.

And Tikal is one big jungle. It's a huge national park. One big piece of jungle with 54 types of mamals, 333 type of birds and 300 type of trees.
We got a guide, Miguel, and he showed us around, making sure we saw a lot of animals. Among them was deers, monkeys, small over-sized mouse-looking animals, tucans (a bird with a lot of colors), and a super big spider!

Most important, though, he showed us all the ruins. They are amazing! Here the word awesome can really be used! Huge stone temples build according to the sun. The Mayans were so good that they figured out the suns movement with the same precision as we know it now .. and they build there temples after it. We saw traces of human sacrifices and Miguel told us about the rituals and ceremonies that used to be held here.
Just awesome!

But you have to see the pictures!

The day was a bit bad for me, though. I had what you can only describe as extreme diarrea. On top of that I slept only 2 hours the night before we went and got fever later on the day. So I wasn't up to a lot of action, but I saw most of the things. Once we got home again, I slept most of the day.

Well, here are the pictures:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgrunnet/album?.dir=3a47&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgrunnet/my_photos

Semuc-Champey

We left Antigua Tuesday and headed north. The roads west are not possible to use so we thought we might as well go here now; we wanted to go later anyways.

There are two things we want to see up here. One is Semuc-Champey, an area with river, natural water pools, caves, rainforest, sun. The other is Tikal, huge Mayan ruins.

The day before yesterday we arrived in Lanquin, after a day of travel from Antigua. Lanquin is the city you stay in, if you are going to Semuc-Champey. We are travelling the next couple of days with Chen, Maayan and Itai from Israel. Nice people...

Yesterday we got a shuttle with a bunch of other people, almost only Israeli people; there are really many of them here.

We arrived 30 min later, after going up and down mountain roads. It was a wonder that our minibus could even make it. The driver told us to be back at no later than 4 in the afternoon. I think he was afraid of rain later in the day (with rain, the roads would be impossible).

We paid to get into the area - 25Quetzales, 2.5EURO - and found the road leading to the pools. It was a wonderful walk. It's a kind of rainforrest. Later you get to the river and follow it upstream. There is a waterfall on the way. Beautiful.
After following the river for a while we arrived at the pools. And all there is to say about that is: WOW! It was really beautiful! Green, green water. 5 pools, each at their own level. And great for swimming.

Later we followed the river further upstream at arrived the place where the river goes under the rock. This is the spectacular thing about this place. It's a river running under a huge rock, creating these water pools on top. Amazing!

We stayed a long time, swimming, eating lunch and enjoying the place.

In the afternoon we went to take a walk in some caves close by. That was really a bit scary. The caves where in a moutain and we could only go in with swimming clothes, because we had to swim several places. We got a candle (candle and water?!?) and the guide had an extra flashlight .. and then we went in. We had to swim, we had to climbed up, we had to climbed down .. everything on muddy and wet rocks. It was one of thoose things that you would never be allowed do in Europe. In the caves a river was running and there was actually an underground waterfall. It was a beautiful place, but also scary. What would happen if the water with increase becuase of rain; what if our candles went out and the flashlight didn't work anymore; if one of us fell and would break something (believe me, there was plenty of chances for that); what if...

But we made it out ok. It was a great day! And we were really tired in the evening. Rasmus fell a sleep at 7pm in a hammock, and that was more or less when the day ended, at least for him.

Today we have an off day. Not really doing much. One of our Israeli travel mates is not eating to day - for the 25 hours - it's a jewish holiday. (Jokim pum, or something??!?)

We did do a bit today. We rented some tire tupes (from old truck tires) and got a lift upstream of the local river here. There we got in the river, up on the tupe and off we were. Salling down the river for a 25 mins. ride. Cool! All you had to do was stay clear of the treebranches on both sides. And then of course get out of the river at the ride place. It was kind of like a waterslide in a amusement park, just a lot longer and then in natural surroundings.

Tomorrow we leave for Flores and Tikal. More about that later.

We are great and hope the same for you.

Check our new pictures here: http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgrunnet/album?.dir=91a9&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgrunnet/my_photos

Alles ist in Ordnung

Hallo Ihr Lieben,uns geht es gut und wir sind jetzt wieder in Antigua. Vielen Dank fuer Eure Emails. Wir haben Euch bestimmt unheimlich Sorgen bereitet...Entschuldigt! Alles weitere spaeter in der Email

Kuss Rasmus und Shiu-Jene

Hurricane Stan

Hello Everybody

I just wanted to let you all know that we are fine. Maybe you have heard about the Hurricane Stan, which is causing trouble in Central America these days.

We were in San Pedro, in the area that was worst hit. We had no power in San Pedro for 5-6 days, and therefore now phone, internet and news. There was massive amounts of rain for 3-4 days causing much damage in the area. San Pedro was the city that was least hit, so we where fine, but in the village next it has been bad with lots of landslides and many people lost their lives. But, again, nothing serious happend in San Pedro and we are fine.

We don't really know a lot, though, because we haven't really had any information for 5 days. Today we were more or less evacuated by Inguat, the tourism board in Guatemala, and we are now back in Antigua.

We will most likely have to change our plans a bit, because we have no idea where you can go. There is also info about a new storm coming tomorrow. Antigua is fine, though.

We will write you once of these days, when we know more.

But, again, we are fine.

Take care,

Shiu-Jene and Rasmus

Lago de Atitlán

(View of Lago de Atitlán from our hotel)

Some of the touristspots you visit when following a guide like Lonely Planet turns out to be overhyped. They are not really that fantastic. But Lago de Atitlán is a exception. Sure, there's a lot of tourist here, but it really doesn't matter. The lake here is amazing!

First a little history. The lake (lago means lake) was created in a vulcano eruption 85000 years ago. The eruption was so powerful that vulcanic ashes was shot as far as Florida in north and Panama in south. In this eruption the lake itself was created. The surrounding vulcanos was created from then one, one 70000 years ago, one 55000 years ago and the last 45000 and 35000 years ago.

Many of the Maya tribes have roots here. Mayan language is still spoken by most people here. When the Spanish invaded Guatemala they set up there first fort here. In the beginning they joined forces with one Mayan tribe to fight their rivals, but as all European conquers they wanted it all and eventually got it. Most cities around the lake are now have names with christians originality; San Pedro (where we live), San Marcos, Santa Clara, and so on.

In the 60's and 70's Lago de Atitlán was a mecca for hippies wanting to enjoy the beautiful surroundings here. When the civil war broke out in Guatemala this part of the country was hit especially hard, but now everything is back to normal and locals as well as foreign tourists enjoy the place once again.

And that brings us up to now.

We left Antigua yesterday, where we had spent the night (d. 1/10 .. chinese national day, by the way). We took a fast bus directly to the main city of Lago de Atitlán, Panajachel, but left it again to go to San Pedro. Here living - hotel, food, etc - is much cheaper and, well, it's the same lake and the same beautiful scenery.

In San Pedro we got a room at San Francisco hotel. The weather was perfect yesterday - sun, sun and sun! - so we spent the whole day just enjoying that. We went kayaking, which was really fun. Besides that we just walked around a bit, sat on our balcony and enjoyed the view, rested in the hammock on the roof of our hotel and ate a good rice dinner at a local Indian hippie place (we could not find a Chinese place to celebrate the day, but at least we got rice :-) ).

The unofficially major income in San Pedro is their Marihuana. They grow it in the mountains somewhere .. unofficially, of course! After being shown our room at the hotel and asked if we wanted to get a kayak-, house or bycicleride, the final question was: do you need some grass? Huh? First we thought we heard it wrong. It happend basically everywhere else: when we rented the kayaks and when we rented the bikes. Maybe that explains the large number of hippies here.

Today we wanted a bit more action, so we rented two bikes and where about to drive to San Marcos. That was until we saw all the notes from several previous customers in bike rental shop: "We got robbed on the way to San Marcos", "Don't go to San Marcos carring to much money; we got robbed going there", "Watch out on the road. Robbers with big Machetes robbed us". We got the point: the roads to San Marcos were not save. Then we wanted to go to Santa Clara, but that's 10% climbs going up! In the end we decided on taking the bus to Santa Clara and driving down. This was great. We first went back to the hotel and left anything of value, just in case. Then we got the bikes to the bus, up on the roof and then took the 30 min drive up the mountain. Up there we got on the bikes and started to go down. In the beginning it was great, but then we arrived at the real hill. For the next 20 min there wasn't really a lot of bycicling, only breaking: we had to press the break all the way down. Of course we hadn't checked the breaks on the bikes before we left and Shiu-Jene's bike almost didn't have any. Yikes!

But the drive was beautiful! We could see the lake and the lakeside city. It looked like something from a Greek tourist brochure!

It started to rain on the way down. That made it a bit more difficult to do the 160 degree turns, but it was nice to be cooled down a bit. We were so tired when we got back, though, that we had to just rest for a while. We ate a quick lunch - tacos and frijoles! - and went to rest a bit.

By now the rain stopped and we are enjoying the quiet evening. There aren't many sounds here. Only few cars and often you can hear birds. It's really nice. Once we are done uploading pictures, we will go and eat fresh pescado .. fish, that is!

Take a look at the pictures we got pictures from:

Parramos and Shiu-Jene making Tortillas,
Antigua and Rasmus' day trip to the San Francisco church and Hill de la Cruz,
And, of course, Lago de Atitlán.

Take care ya'all! :-)