Blissful Belize and Jalapeño Hot Honduras!

Hello all. It´s been a while since I´ve last posted anything here. I´ve had very limited Internet access over the past month. Believe it or not, I´m actually writing from Granada, Nicaragua! (Nicaragua was not on our itinerary, but a strange turn of events has brought us here.) If everything went as planned, we would have been volunteering in Comayagua, Honduras right now, but that opportunity has fallen through because of our lack of organization (typical university students). Although, Matt and I are now looking into volunteering there during Semana Santa (Holy Week). Having said that, the whole kerfuffle has left us with 3 free weeks. With no success in finding another very short-term volunteer project, we decided to come down here.
After Flores (I think that was the last time I wrote here), Matt started feeling much better, so we made our way to the ancient Mayan city of Tikal. It´s difficult to describe Tikal . . . I was completely blown away. The whole park is also a biosphere reserve, so as you walk from temple to temple around the city which is overrun by the jungle, you often here howler monkeys and see an awful lot of unique birds. The bus ride into Belize was a blast! As far as I know the Western border crossing is the only land entrance between Guatemala and Belize. The last 20 - 30 km or so of the Guatemalan part of the road into Belize is a messy, bumpy mud road. (Apparently, the British promised to build a nice road from Belize City to Guatemala City 200 or so years ago . . . they obviously haven´t kept up the promise . . . and it sounds like Guatemala won´t do anything about it soon either).
We had to change buses in the capital Belmopan, which is now my all time favourite capital city! . . . imagine a capital city of 8100 people, it´s 30 years old and is just as attractive as Cache Creek, British Columbia or Edson, Alberta. If you can picture that, you should be able to fathom Belmopan. In the same day we made our way to Placencia on the Caribbean coast. The thing that struck me the most about Belize was its diversity. It´s citizens are from all over. Within our first day in Placencia, I heard Belize Kriol English, Belizean, British, and American English, Mopan Mayan, Garifuna, Spanish, and Chinese from the residence . . . all in a town of 500. It was definitely a treat hearing Belize Kriol English. There seem to be different levels of the Creole, with some people speaking a more ´creolized´ (or ´less Anglicized´) form of the language than others, but for the most part, it was completely unintelligible for me. After a week in Placencia, we took a boat to Puerto Cortes, Honduras and made our way to Utila, Bay Islands via Tela and the Garifuna village of La Ensenada. La Ensenada was really something. We knew we wanted to see some Garifuna culture, but what we didn´t know is that the day we came they were having their annual fiesta! Perfect timing! The Garifuna, who are a mix of former West African slaves from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and indigenous Caribes, sure know how to dance and drum. It was amazing! And, or course, I had to find out as much as I could about their unique language. It has a real West African ring to it but apparently it´s more Arawakan (Caribbean) than Yoruba (West African). But for those who speak a little French, you might be happy to know that you already know a little Garifuna! All the numbers and most of the days of the week seem to be from French!
We did a week of scuba diving in Utila and then spent a week exploring the island. There´s lots of history on the island (shipwrecks, burried treasure, and all that jazz!). Apparently even Captain Henry Morgan hid out there for a couple of years! But I´m happy we left when we did because two weeks on that English-speaking island, a week in English-speaking Belize, and all the English that Jenny, Matt, and I speak together is hindering my Spanish. I´ve realized that if I want to learn this language I better plan to come back here alone for a couple of years (or decades) and volunteer or study at a language school because, when it comes to Spanish, I only get to practice with myself, shopkeepers, and pushy hustlers. ¡Así es la vida!
Sorry to have put you through all that, but this is what happens when I don´t update for a month. I´ll be in touch.

¡Chao!Ben