“Where are Stefan, Silke … and Fender?”

Having put Belize behind them, Stefan and Silke are now back in Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula.

Here are their email comments and photos: 

“We found a really good wildness camping site south of Tulum. That was not an easy task because they have built a lot of new buildings (e.g. a touristic park or hotel, resort & spa) and the access to the beach is not possible. At one restaurant they would only allow tents on the beach and we would have had to stay between a noisy generator and the stinky bathrooms. So we said to ourselves: it’s early in the afternoon, let’s find another place. And we got lucky. On the way to Punta Allen (south of Tulum) you pass the Biosfera Sian Ka’an, and after 3 Kilometers we found a nice beach. So we camped there between the palms for a week. Silke was working for three days on updating the trip diary. We went swimming, barbecued and relaxed a lot.”

“Then we went to Punta Allen and met Oscar and Paola from Mexico. They have a yellow labrador retriever dog like your Lucky, but this one is only a 4 month old puppy named Pancha. So cute looking and she likes to play all the time which is why she reminds us a lot of Lucky. Oscar is our age and an arts grafic designer like Silke, but now he is making awesome masks of palms. The couple invited us to their home in Playa del Carmen. On the way we watched for free Dolphins in Puerto Aventura and went snorkeling. We learned a few more words and sentences in Spanish, but most of the time we speak Spanglish with the use of our dictionary. We had such a fun time. Oscar cooked fish and prepared Ceviche for a picnic on the beach the next day.”

“As we were about to leave they decided to join us and we all went to Puerto Moreles for two days together. They also told us about Isla Mujeres where we are still enjoying the Caribbean Sea. On this island we met Kyle from California again. He’s the guy we know from the campground in Oaxaca. He is helping Lori, the owner of the Mango Cafe, and her Mexican boyfriend Polo. So each day we enjoy a great breakfast. We are having such a great time here with the following people: Oscar, Paola, Kyle, Lori, Polo and Zoe (Lori’s daughter). Zoe is a cute-looking girl with funny hair and from the time when Lori was living in Africa. We went with them to the movies in Cancun and watched “Slumdog Millionaire”, we visited a turtle farm, went more snorkeling and ate a lot of good food. So we are getting “fat” again. We should take Francis’ advice and go on an all Ceviche and vegetarian food diet. But tomorrow we have to leave, otherwise we will want to settle down on this nice little island.”

Email comments from Stefan and Silke:

“Belize wasn’t as pretty as expected and we were not lucky with the weather. First we drove to the mayan temple “Caracol” and visited the caves next to it. Then we stopped at the garage of Graham who is a Land Rover Defender specialist. So we did maintenance and service on our Fender. Because we needed to relax a bit at the beach we traveled to Placencia. We found a campground right on the sea in the sand and in-between palm trees. But it was raining from time to time and it is not the cheapest place. Therefore we said to ourselves: ”Let’s just go to the Belize Zoo and then leave the country after a stop-over in Belize City”.

“The last night we camped at a restaurant in Altun Ha. They have a butterfly farm with a Tucan called “Tuci”. It can be frightening if you look too close to his big beak.”

“So, after only eight days in Belize we headed towards Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Stefan and Silke’s narrative as for the second batch of photos from Guatemala:

“In Semuc Champey we decided to drive to Poptun because Erik has another contact there. But there was road work going on and we had to wait almost three hours to continue. Fortunately there was only one and a half hours to the next city because we don’t like to drive at night. We were lucky that Erik is pretty good at speaking Spanish and he found out that we could camp on the guarded parking lot of a hotel/restaurant.”

“The next day we reached Poptun where we stayed the whole afternoon in a cafe where we did work on the movies for YouTube (see videos under Guatemala Part 1) and selected photos. The following day we drove to Flores to get gas and go to the supermarket. Thereafter the plan was to discover the jungle of Peten, north of Tikal.”

“From Carmelita we were hoping to find a way to the “El Mirador”, a mayan temple which is near the border to Mexico. But they told us that the road is only passable on horses – i.e. too small and low for a Defender. So instead we did wilderness camping right next to a path in the jungle. The guys in Carmelita narrated something about a way to the Biotopo El Zott and from there to Uaxactun with a conection to Tikal. In the village “Cruces de Dos Aguas” (which you can’t find on the map) we arranged to get a guide for the trip. His name is Umbelino and he drove with Erik. So we found ourselves on the first muddy road to El Zott. The temple there is not yet excavated and has small, narrow caves. Now we could imaging how much work it is to dig this temples out for the tourists.”

“The way from El Zott to Uaxactun was a really hard part for the Defenders and us: three trees in the way, several lianas, rough road and one time the road was inaccessible because of brushwood and undergrowth. Umbelino cut a new crunchy way through the jungle with a machete and an axe. At the end of this adventure day we were glad to reach Uaxactun where Umbelino has a cousin. We parked in front of her house.”

“The next day there was so much mud on the road that we decided to abolish the idea of driving to “Rio Azul” and returned south to Tikal. A check of the Fender showed that there was no damage to the car. We visited the maya tempel of Tikal and met up with Erik later in Flores. The next day we said good-bye: Erik is on the way to Costa Rica to meet his parents and girlfriend, we are crossing the border to Belize.”

Back in Mexico Stefan and Silke had hooked up with Erik from Belgium who is driving a Defender 110 HT (see previous post from Mainland Mexico). They decided to travel together with him to northern Guatemala.

Here is a description of the first part of their Guatemala travel:

“Right after crossing the border into Guatemala we drove north in Huehuetenango. We made it up to 2800 meters / 9200 feet and had great views over the mountains. We stopped in Barilles for the night. The next day we made it to P.N. de Laguna Lachua. It is a lake shaped like a circle surrounded by jungle and it was our first jungle experience!!! Erik had a contact in Coban, so we drove there and met Leti and her daughter Gimbly. Together with Gimbly we went to the adventure park and the orchid farm you saw in the videos (see the videos below the photos). We camped in their backyard. The next day we all visited a coffee factory in Coban. In the afternoon we explored the caves in Lanquin. You can see tousands bats leaving the cave at sunset. Not far from there is Semuc Champey. The river goes underground for 300 meters / 980 feet but above there are a lot of clear water pools and small cascades. This was definitely one of our peak experiences on our North Guatemala tour. Very lovely for swimming. We quickly caught the attention of the children there. They sell chocolate and were fascinated by Erik’s DVD of ”The Simpsons”. They speak Ketchi and here Bart was talking in English - but that really doesn’t matter much when you are a kid!”

Please enjoy these wonderful videos - courtesy of Erik, Stefan and Silke:

Guatemala driving Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N17V26iXnnw

Guatemala driving Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3mPrpc1A9o&feature=channel

Guatemala Highlands Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SGne2N57fA&feature=related

Guatemala Highlands Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU05O5C_-sw&feature=related

Guatemala jungle driving - really muddy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8S7UJHRAV4
     (Stefan’s comment at the end: “Really really tough and shitty work we had to do there - we even had to cut down some trees  - but it was really fun!”)