Exploring Maya ruins on the Yucatan peninsula: the story of Woody and Pedro

“Almost every evening, on returning to the convent, the padrecito hurried into our room, with the greeting, “buenas noticias! otra ruinas!” “good news! more ruins!”

(John Lloyd Stephens – Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan)

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The Maya world – Yucatan and northern Central America – is strewn with ruins. Stones that once, more than a thousand years ago, belonged to temples that belonged to ancient cities that belonged to small and bigger empires. There are more historical Maya sites than qualified people to dig them up, more discoveries to be made than money to fund them.

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My Caribbean nightmare: a week in the Mexican Riviera Maya

Anete could probably live by the sea for the rest of her life, but I’ve never been much of a beach bum. Yet, when we booked a flight home from Cancún, I still wanted to see the Riviera Maya. If only for anthropological reasons. After a week spent in all those Mexican tourist hell-holes, I’m quickly reconsidering. Mass tourism is ugly.

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Hikes, flamingos and a town called Carrot: Volcano Love’s travel highlights of 2019

Rather than one of taking off, 2019 was a year of landing, of arriving rather than departing. We returned to Europe after nine months of tramping around Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, we visited our home countries and settled (temporarily, as ever) in Antwerp, Belgium. But just like we are writers even when we’re not writing, we are also travellers when we’re not travelling. And real wandering souls find wonders in their own backyard as well as on the other side of the world. In chronological order, these were our travel highlights of 2019:

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The ultimate guide to Workaway: house and board in exchange for a few hours of work

Ten years ago, at 23, I wanted to travel fast, cover lots of ground and tick boxes. Go and never stop until I got there. The older I become, the slower I want to travel. As a travelling couple, we like to linger in one place for a bit longer, soak up the local atmosphere, get to know the environment, the people. Embark on some hikes, get some writing done. But travelling is expensive, at least that’s the common idea. That’s where Workaway comes into the picture. Workaway is the perfect way for cheapskates to travel long-term.

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Five things we learned about the Maya in Central America

Who doesn’t know the game in which one person says a word and the other one completes with the first thing that pops into your head? I have no idea about the purpose of the game, except to prove that you have a dirty mind. Until a year ago, if you’d asked me to play and threw the word ‘Maya’ at me, I’d probably have replied ‘the bee’.

What about you? Be honest. Unless you’ve visited Central America or have a degree in history, you likely don’t know much about the Maya. Continue Reading →