​In the first leg of our road trip north, we arrived in Coban, Guatemala, which is the jumping off point for the charming backpacker town of Lanquin, the Lanquin caves, and the Semuc Chapmey waterfalls and pools and cave.  Thereafter, we headed to Flores for a visit to the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. Both places were total highlights, and well worth the trip. One of my favorite quotes from the few days occurred while we were deep inside the Semuc Champey cave, as Tyler turned to us and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done!”
 
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​Our time in Panajachel came to a pause now.  When we originally rented the house we have been living at, we only booked it for 1 month, hoping to give ourselves some flexibility to continue on to other parts of Central America for the rest of our 3-month sojourn. But we are enjoying our Pana groove so much that we decided to cancel our preliminary plan to drive down to Costa Rica and instead stay in Pana for as long as we can. Unfortunately, our house is already rented out for a few weeks in March to other travelers. So, after practicing some travel-planning yoga, bending our calendar of desired trips and destinations into multiple poses and contortions, we’ve settled comfortably into our Guatemala/El Salvador/Honduras/Belize Sun Salutation pose, and decided to travel during the weeks that the house is already rented and return on the weeks it’s available.

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The last week of February in Pana was spent wearing ourselves out in days of service, in various wonderful ways. We volunteered with Solomon’s Porch to build a cinder block house for a local family.  We toured the local “Days for Girls” office. We went to the Eagle’s Nest Orphanage in Sololá to play with the children and hold babies for a while.  All very worthwhile activities and fantastic charities doing great work.

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