Wow! This part of Guatemala is just gorgeous! We drove about 100 km today, south through the Peten to a backpacker resort near the town of Poptun. The drive was incredible, it was like driving through a well kept park. The road was excellent, there was no trash to be seen anywhere, even the poorest houses had flowering bushes and trees planted around them and everything is in bloom. I was very impressed. This is my first time farther into Guatemala than Tikal and so far I am loving it. We've had excellent weather, cool and dry. It is what my friend Henning calls "good sleeping weather" as it gets quite cool at night but warms up into the mid 70's in the daytime.

The place we are staying, Finca Ixabel, is on a large tract of land covered in pine forest and grass with natural springs and ponds. There are horses to ride and a couple of scarlet macaws and lots of tours offered. The place has a dining room, several shady spots to hang out, lots of hammocks under the trees and a bar down by the swimming pond. It is on a kind of honor system, you write down what you eat or drink and settle up when you leave. They serve a buffet every night and have cooks available during the day. we are in the camping section, well away from the main buildings. It's a large grassy area under tall pines with a few cabins on stilts scattered around. If it weren't for the philodendron climbing the pine trees and the small parrots flying around I would think we were somewhere near Lake Tahoe in California.

Bobby and Patti and I drove into the nearby town to look around. Went to the market which had really beautiful produce and stopped at a woodworking shop to drool over the carved furniture. If we only had a way to get some of these gorgeous doors and cabinets made of Rosewood, Caoba and Ceder back to Akumal... sigh. They are very hard woods with beautiful grain but extremely heavy. We saw a round table, about 4 feet diameter, that was made from a single slab of Caoba highly polished. The base was carved into a wolf and cub, there were 4 chairs that matched and the whole set was a little over $300 US. A huge door had been carved, cut out and stained in subtle colors into a branching tree. The openings could be filled with glass for an interior door or wood for an exterior. Beautiful work and all made from Rosewood. Probably weighed a ton, cost around $165 US.

Tonight we went to the buffet for dinner, it was very good and it was interesting to talk to some of the other guests. Came home and started catching up on email, Mimi got the sat easily here and we are online for the several days we plan to stay here.