Adventures With K-Dogg

K-Dogg, freshly into Guatemala
(and probably scared out of his mind)

Well, it has been a while since our last post- I assure you, we have been busy. So busy, in fact, that I think it is ``blog-worthy`` to tell you all about it...

We had a lovely visitor, our good friend K-Dogg. K-Dogg lives in Los Angeles (which is way more glamorous than me admitting he grew up on the west side of Beloit, Wisconsin), and decided to take twelve days to hang out with us in Guatemala and Belize and then Guatemala again. Here`s some of the many highlights:

1. We stayed in a cabana hotel on the Rio Dulce (which means ``Sweet River,`` which only makes sense if by ``sweet`` you mean the Sweet Crude puring out of the motorboats). We may or may not have played Settlers of Catan: Travel Edition. 

We couldn`t actually bring our
cameras kayaking with us (the
whole rain thing), so this is going to
have to do.

2. We kayaked through the rainforest to our next town. In true rainforest fashion, it was raining. A lot. At the conclusion of our two-hour trip, we realized that had it not been raining, it wouldn´t have been nearly as memorable or utterly fantastic.

Drinks of, and in, coconut. Never gets old.

  3. We stayed for a couple days in Livingston, Guatemala, which is right on the Caribbean coast. It`s unique in that the community is almost entirely Garifuna folks- former Caribbean slaves who either lived, moved to, or escaped to the town. Needless to say, the music and vibe was lively and fun.

Eating the local Garifuna stew called ``Tapado.``
A mixture of tons of sea life
and coconut milk. Little did I know,
 but at the bottom of my bowl
would be a whole, gigantic (and I`m pretty sure still alive) fish.

The waters of the Caribean. Unfortunately,
the color is from a freak accident at the
PowerAde Factory downstream.

4. Then we bummed for a few days in Belize, right on the Caribbean Sea. More coconuts. One day, we went snorkling, which was probably quite amazing, but I was way too scared to enjoy/remember any of it.

Finally, I`m not the tallest object in the room.

5. We ended the trip in the ancient Mayan metropolis of Tikal. Totally excellent. I could`ve stayed there a week. Tikal is special because not only is it huge and full of huge things, it is also in the thick of the jungle, so you`ll walk for 10 minutes down a path full of monkeys, wild pigs, and these weird rodent things with long snouts and monkey tails, and suddenly you`ll literally stumble across a giant pyramid.