Big Changes at Chez Chris and Kelly

Ok, apologies....its been a while since our last post. We have been a little busy around here....let me catch you up.

This time of year is lacrosse season, my super busy, 6 days a week, run around like a chicken without its head crazy time...4 months of coaching 4-5 teams....

above, My "office"

Oh...and me and the Mrs bought a house!

We moved in...painted many of the rooms.

The cool "Secret Passage Gray of my office"...ahhhh soothing.

We put together a bazillion boxes of IKEA cabinets, tables, chairs, lamps, lighting etc.

Started hanging stuff on the walls

....Did I mention we did all of this in the middle of lacrosse season when I am busiest?

the Mustangs stretch before a game

Did I also mention that my brother and his 4 kids moved in with us 3 weeks later?

Easter Egg coloring with Brian and the kids.

 Alright boys...suit up, you have a lot of work to do if you want to be All-Americans!

Having the kids around is great. I always have a sidekick when I need one, and they help carry stuff when visiting Aunt Kelly at work.

Puzzle night

Brian and the girls make stuffed shells

A full house indeed.....but wait! We're not busy enough! Lets have 10 yards of dirt delivered and make raised garden beds out back!

Grow veggies, grow!

Blackberries, tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, string beans, cucumbers....yum yum

I'd say thats a pretty good month.

Stay tuned, we got our old pics out of storage. Ima gonna get da scanner out!

1998? Look at my cute wife....awwwwww

You better Belize it!

After 10 days and 6 countries, The Warthog and I had only one stop left on the agenda....Belize.

We took a 5 hour bus ride...which turned to 6.5 hours. Our driver made some unscheduled stops to pick up some more passengers...after which the bus was packed. A family of 5 Australians got on board, and a 5 year old plopped down next to me. After listening to him, justifiably, complaining...I said "Have you ever played Angry Birds"...to which his eyes lit up and he said "yes?"...I broke out the old iPhone and let him have at it.

Mike leaned over to me and said "You're a good man Chris"....an hour later, once I had to take the iPhone back to conserve battery power, Mike leaned over and said "You bastard...giving that kid hope, then crushing his dreams!"

It was a relatively pleasant trip even though I had a 5 year old tugging on my sleeve and asking (in an Australian accent) "Can I use you phone now?"...No, maybe in 30 minutes ..."Can I use your phone now?"..After we cross the border into Belize...1 minute into Belize: "Can I use your phone now?"

In the end, I was able to conserve battery power and let him use the phone off and on to keep him busy...perfect.

Eventually, we arrived in Belize City and were dropped at the port where we hopped on a ferry to take us to Caye Caulker, and island 20 miles up the coast.

Goodbye Jungle, Hello Beach!

 Besides the Australians, we met some Americans on the bus so we all took the boat together. None of us had reservations, as most places were full online, so we made a plan...as soon as the boat pulled up to the dock, new pal Diego and I would jump ship and run to find accommodations.

The plan worked. We beat the crowds getting off the boats, and found two separate places.....one of for Mike and I and one for the other group. We parted ways, promising to catch up later, and Mike and I went to find some grub.

Bucket of beer...$5

 Mission accomplished. Famished from the trip, we destroyed some unlucky lobsters and washed it all down with the local beer.

Barbecued Lobster Tails and a giant bowl of beans? Delish...$8

 Caye Caulker is very small. There are no roads and you can walk the whole thing top to bottom in about 20 minutes. Tourism didn't start here until the late 60's-early 70's once speedboats became more popular. It was one of several stops on the famous "Gringo Trail" followed by hippies looking for adventure...

After dinner, we visited a few local bars...and hey! stumbled into our new American friends!

Jamie, Diego, Natalia and Brandon....on bar swings!

We had a great night hanging out and meeting all sorts of people...locals and tourists alike.

The next day Captain Mike was ready for action.

Caye Caulker is an impressivly beautiful place. This was the view from our hostel.

You could hit a golf ball across the long, narrow island.

The locals often remind you to "Go slow"...island life is kicked back.

First order of business was finding a hostel for the second night, as the place we were at only had beds for the first night...turns out, we found a cool place up the beach...Da Real Macaw. We got our own lil bungalow!

Later, we went to meet up with Greg (a Canadian we met the night before who owns a little pizza place on the island) and The Swede (another guy we had hung out with the night before). The Swede was on a 7 week vacation...by himself...this was day 3! The Swede was one of the most interesting characters we met on our entire journey. We could barely understand him...or pronounce his name...so we just called him The Swede. 

The Swede, Pizza Greg and Mike.

Whenever we met someone and introduced ourselves, we would say "Hi I'm Chris, this is Mike...and thats The Swede" almost on cue, The Swede would give a crazy look or do something so odd that we would all laugh our faces off...we also took to chanting "SWEDE! SWEDE! SWEDE" alot...like in this clip from Heartbreak Ridge. (Swede chant starts at around 48 seconds in...as an added bonus...this is in Italian which makes it fun to watch!)



We hung out at the Pizza place all night, until closing time...we met loads more people, including a Canadian couple (L) and an English couple (R)...a great evening...hanging out, making friends, beer, laughter...and VERY, VERY, VERY good pizza. 

The pizza is unBelizeable!

It was a great ending, to a great trip.

Stay tuned for more from the Warthog and the Peacock.

Up the river without a paddle

Day 9 of our trip found us up early and walking on the beach back to the docks in Livingston. The rain had stopped and the sun was coming up...back on the road...errrr beach

Mike taking in the morning air

Team Hare, still in the lead.

 Currently, in our contest to visit every country in the world, I am in the lead, so Mike has been referencing the Tortoise and the Hare. He even had shirts made...very clever Kennedy. As I pointed out, thats just a fable...in real life the hare always wins, turtles are fucking slow.

We got into town and sat down for a quick breakfast of coffee, eggs and poop.

Ok, its actually coffee, eggs and beans...not poop...and it was surprisingly delicious.

Then we hustled down to the dock to catch a 930am boat up the Rio Dulce (Sweet River).

 We took the boat about 20 miles up the river to the town of Fronteras. Along the way we passed locals paddling their cayucos, many bringing goods to market, as well as some pretty impressive scenery.

6 miles of the trip was in a gorge with 300ft high sides covered with exotic trees like mahogany and teak.

Our boat had some other tourists on it as well...like the German guy in the background who was apparently chilly....lol.

We had been looking forward to this part of the trip as a highlight....and it was.

...a boat ride up a river into Guatemala...derrrrrrr ok!

Eventually, the river opened up into El Golfete, a long narrow lake.

It was a nice trip. You can take other slower touristy boats up the river, but 2 hours was plenty. Besides we had places to go!

The plan was to get to Fronteras catch a local bus, a chicken bus as tourists call them, to Flores in the North of Guatemala. Buses usually stop in Fronteras every hour or so. Unfortunately, they were always full, so we ended up waiting around for ever. We opted to buy tickets on the more expensive ($10) express bus that runs from Guatemala City throu Fronteras at 2:30pm, on its way to Flores. Of course the bus didn't arrive until 430pm, but our long ordeal was over...and we were on our way to Flores.

I slept for 1 hour of the 5 hour ride, and then the guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation...in Spanish. It was difficult at first, as he had no English at all, but after a while, we both got really into it. I broke out my books and we were able to communicate quiet well. We talked/signed/gestured for the better part of 2 hours, which ate up a good portion of the trip. This trip was getting more interesting by the day!

Flores, Guatemala

Situated on an island in Lake Peten Itza, Flores was the home of last independent Mayan holdouts against the Spanish. It wasn't conquered until 1697!

Today Flores is small (population 13,000) and is mainly a tourist gateway to Tikal National Park further north.

We had the name of a local hostel, and had emailed them from Livingston, but had no confirmation of rooms. Luckily enough when we got there, our lovely host Maria had saved us two beds in one of the dorms.

Los Amigos Hostel in Flores....one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in....seriously.

Hostels these days are not just dorms full of beds. This one had a huge open courtyard common area.

It was a great place to hang out and meet people.

Its always great when the place your staying is a place you can hang out. In fact, lots of people from other hostels were coming to our hostel to hang out.

...and who better to hang out with than the Irish....they are everywhere!

We met Connor (above) and Kerryanne (below)....turns out Kerryanne is good friends with one of our good  friends in Ireland, Rebecca! What are the chances of meeting up in Guatemala!

We of course had a good laugh, and immediately posted this picture to Rebeccas facebook page..."hey, hangin out in Guatemala with Kerryanne...see ya"

In addition to the great atmosphere and coincidental bumping into friends of friends....the hostel had amazing food!

Fruit, scrambled eggs with veggies, plantans and beans...and some strong coffee...yum yum

One night the dinner special was a Burrito...it should have said Burrito Gigante!

Ok hostel, its been great, but we didn't come all the way to Northern Guatemala for burritos..

We came for Tikal.

Tikal. One of the largest urban centers of pre-Columbian Mayan civilization.

A huge complex of thousands of structures, only a fraction of which have been excavated.

Mike and I walked around all morning, criss crossing the jungle and hitting all 6 of the major pyramids.

Very impressive Mayans, you industrious builders you.

The Grand Plaza is incredible...you cant help but picture what life must have been like here during the height of Mayan civilization 1500 years ago.

You could easily spend several days at Tikal...hell, you could spend a lifetime studying Tikal. It's amazing.

At its peak, a population of 75,000 to 90,000! Wow!

The big deal, literally, at Tikal is Temple 4...the tallest pyramid in the Americas. You can climb to the top via a wooden staircase built up the side. Its worth the climb. You can see the other pyramids poking out of the jungle canopy. Beautiful.

It was also one of the sets from the first Star Wars movie in 1977.

I found the Rebel Base on Yavin 4...its in Guatemala!

It was definitely a highlight of our trip. We were glad we made the extra effort to get to Tikal.

Just hiking through the jungle was great. I can't imagine hacking my way through it as a conquistador...no way Jose.

Sadly, we had to leaveTikal and get back to Flores....the next morning we had to hit the road again.

Stay tuned...next up, Belize!