Written 2/2 - El Estor

We thoroughly enjoyed Livingston.  We stayed at a nice hotel in a nice town.  Yesterday, after talking to Paolo and reserving our dinner for later that evening, we walked down to the beach for a dip.  Its certainly not the prettiest or cleanest beach but the water was Caribbean warm.  Later, we wandered towards Marie's for dinner with plans to stop for a coco-frio (thats just a cold coconut with a straw).  We ran into a couple that we'd seen at the beach who seemed up for an adventure and invited them to come with us.  When we arrived at Maries, there was another couple already there and we were all excited for some true Garifuna, off-the-beaten-path food.  The excitement was well worth it because dinner was amazing.  We ordered a portion of Tapado and another dish called Flado which was fried green banana fritters with a huge red snapper.  Both were amazing and as we finished eating, I realized that I had forgotten to take a picture so please enjoy these pictures of our already devoured dinner (sorry, internet is slow so I will post pictures later when I have more time).  It was a lovely evening with interesting conversation and amazing food.

We woke this morning and packed up to head to El Estor, a town on the southern end of the lake and part of the way to our next destination (Lanquin and Semuc Champay).  Our plan was to head to El Estor and stay for 2 nights, visiting these super-hot waterfalls that everyone has been raving about.  Well, we got here and realized that there is very little to do in El Estor.  We found an ok and very cheap hotel room and decided to go ahead and move on tomorrow.  This town is not really a tourist destination and now we know why...its just a town...probably more of the "real" Guatemala that we havent really seen in Flores and Livingston.  Its a nice peaceful place but we are ready to move on so we will skip the waterfalls.  Its a shame but I know that Semuc Champey is supposed to be spectacular.

There are some 14 or 15 year old boys outside playing futbol (soccer) in the street.  They are having such a good time.  One of them has this great laugh...a totally uninhibited laugh of a kid that is not at all self conscious and that is truly enjoying himself.  Its making me smile listening to them.

Oh yeah, the toilet in our room doesnt have a toilet seat.  Its a real workout.  We decided a few days ago that we actually prefer hotels with a shared bathroom because sometimes its just better not to have a 3rd world bathroom in your room...for some reason, since we agreed on that, all of our hotels only have bathrooms in the room.