After two years living abroad in Honduras (as co-workers, housemates and roommates), our adventure and time together did not stop there. During our first year together we dreamt about traveling north together through Mexico after our time with BECA at Amigos de Jesus Bilingual School came to an end. During our second year together we started planning to make that dream a reality. The summer after our second year, we planned to travel through Guatemala, up through the south of Mexico to the Yucatan peninsula, hop over to Cuba, and end in Mexico City. Two other BECA volunteers and friends decided to come with us. Other than some suggested locations and a general timeline, we had no plans for what our travels would look like. All we had purchased before we left were plane tickets from Cancun to Mexico City, and a ticket from Mexico City to Cuba and back.
Leaving Amigos de Jesus and all of the students, teachers and others that we loved and cared about was not easy. We had spent two years living on the beautiful campus of the children’s home that became our home and lived with a close community of children and adults who had become our family. After many heartfelt goodbyes and “see you soons,” we set off on our travels, strapping most of our two-year possessions to our backs. We started our adventures in Copan Ruinas, Honduras where we met up with Hannah, BECA’s In-Country Director, and spent our last weekend in Honduras relaxing and eating delicious Copaneca food.
After our trip to Copan, we hopped on a bus to Antigua, Guatemala where we spent a few days exploring the beautiful colonial city and hiking a volcano.
After spending a few days in Guatemala, we set out for San Cristobal, Mexico. San Cristobal was one of our favorite places that we traveled to. Instead of staying for 3-4 days as we had tentatively planned, we stayed for about a week so that we could explore the city, canyons that sat closeby (with alligators!!) and enjoy the cool weather (a glaring contrast to the heat we were used to in Honduras).
We then spent a couple of weeks making our way east through Southern Mexico and up to the Yucatan Peninsula. First we traveled to Palenque where we saw beautiful waterfalls, wildlife preserves and ruins, then to Merida to explore the Chichen Itza ruins and cenotes (watering holes), enjoy the city and visit museums, and Playa del Carmen and Cancun to relax by the beach before heading to Mexico City.
After Palenque we headed towards the coast, first stopping in Merida, the largest city in the Yucatan Peninsula. Merida has a fascinating colonial history, but is also one of the cities in Mexico with the largest indigenous population. We spent a few days exploring the city parks and museums, and also got a chance to see the Mayan Museum, a world famous museum of Mayan history and it is (supposedly) located in the crater where the asteroid that killed dinosaurs hit.
Chichen Itza is a short day trip from Merida, so we spent a day at the ruins there. We also were able to explore Cenotes, or underground caves that the Mayans believed were passages to another world.
After Merida, it was time to head to the beach! We stopped at both Playa Del Carmen and Cancun, and spent a weekend living the beach life on some of the world’s best beaches and danced in some of the world’s best nightclubs.
From Cancun, we flew to Mexico City. There we met up with Liz’s and Emma’s parents, who met when they came to visit ADJ in 2014 and have been friends ever since. Meeting up in Mexico was the perfect way for them to spend time together again. In Mexico City we explored amazing museums and had some delicious food.
We broke up our week in Mexico City with a quick 3 day trip to Cuba! Our time there was packed with things to see in Havana. There was so much history and delicious food. We were able to explore the capital city of a country that has not been touched by U.S. business interests in over 50 years. We learned a lot about Cuba’s rich post-revolution art and cultural and social development.
After Cuba, we all parted ways. Emma, Nick, her Dad, and her brother spent a few more days in Mexico City, spending one day at Teotihuacan, an ancient Mesoamerican City outside of Mexico City with a mysterious past. It isn’t clear who exactly lived there, and whoever it was abandoned the city completely intact.
And Liz and her parents traveled to visit a friend outside the beautiful, colonial city, Guanajuato and then Liz continued her travels sola to South America (Bolivia to be exact) to reunite with her friends from college and see one of her best friends get married!
All in all, our trip through Guatemala, Mexico, and Cuba was the perfect way to end our time together in BECA. Although it was heartbreaking to leave our home in Honduras, we were able to spend 4 weeks together reflecting on our two years and exploring new places. It was the ideal way to begin our transition back into the United States, since we weren’t in Honduras anymore, but we weren’t back in the United States yet. We were able to exist in a liminal phase for a while as we prepared for our new lives back home. It was a trip none of us will ever forget, and hopefully at one point in the future we can relive it somewhere on the beaches of Mexico and reminisce about our incredible times in Honduras and our travels afterwards. Now we are off on new adventures in Massachusetts!
You can check out photos from Liz and Emma’s trip here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskLikxCM
