JB Journeys

02/09/2024

Check this out - are you traveling to Mexico anytime soon?

Travelers bringing electronic devices to Mexico are getting hit with hefty fines at Cancun airport. Here's what to know about visiting Mexico with laptops and iPads.

01/09/2024

How much should you tip at hotels? I get this question ALL THE TIME. This is a good suggestion.

Even the smallest tip can leave a big impression among hoteliers and their dedicated staff. But are you up to speed on common tipping etiquette? To take the guesswork out of your next stay, we've compiled the ultimate guide to tipping at hotels.

26/08/2024

Audubon Member Discount on Expedition Cruises -

12/05/2024

09/05/2024

Special Prices for 2024 Antarctica Cruises -

All outside cabins. Upgrade to a suite and save even more. Was $26,176 per person, now $13,680 per person. Begins in Santiago and ends in Buenos Aires.

04/05/2024

Due to rain, it’s been a quiet day on the River. fresh fish for dinner. Beryl had been piloting, giving captain a break.

02/05/2024

One of the great birding days of my life. Today, May 2, 2024. In the Amazon.
I’ve been neglectful in reporting our trip on the Dorinha out of Manaus, Brazil. We arrived on Friday and boarded our ship on Saturday afternoon. We decided to take an 8 hour fast boat ride and meet the Dorinha near the small village of Beruri in Amazonas. She left the day prior and took 24 hours to get there. Why? So that we could explore the Rio Purus, an area rarely seen by scientists, much less travelers.
This morning it was pouring rain and our wake-up song was ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’, so we took our time getting ready. Finally, the rain let up and we jumped on the canoes to head out into these seasonally flooded rivers. Our mission was to find a rookery of the Agami Heron. If you don’t know, the Agami is one of the most beautiful of the heron family, large, shades of blues and deep red with a ‘silvery spray of lacy neck plumes.’ It fishes with its long dagger-like bill. The bird is quiet, often seen singly or maybe in pairs along the river’s edge, from Central America and south.
I’ve seen rookeries around Texas, most famous on High Island in the spring, where a few hundred herons roost, a mixed species group like Snowy, Great, Louisiana, and Reddish egrets all have their nests, and are busy chattering away. I didn’t expect anything like that, so I was surprised by the numbers of Agami we saw this morning.
Only about 15 minutes from where the Dorinha was parked for the night, we went around a bend and started to see the beautiful and elegant birds. Dozens, no, hundreds of Agami Herons flying around. They build simple stick nests just feet above the water line, hardly look like they could take their weight much less their eggs or young. Our arrival stirred things up and they were squawking and circling, doing take offs and landings. We could hear them chattering, bill snapping or clacking, breathing hard, squawking. They were all around us. They just kept coming and going. We paddled the canoes around for 30 minutes or more. They seemed to get used to us being there and settled down.
When I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. We looked behind us and saw several Giant River Otters swimming towards us. They dive and come up, barking as they go, probably looking to see if they might get heron eggs for lunch.

02/05/2024

We are on some seasonal rivers off the Rio Purus and this is where we stopped. The propeller got caught up full of floating grasses. A couple of the crew went under the water to remove the grass. But the captain decided to stay put!
It’s a beautiful place to sleep!

01/05/2024

Today is Global Travel Advisor Day!
The team at JB Journeys is ready, willing, and able to offer our expertise in planning your next journey!!

30/04/2024

We visited the village of one of our guides, we may have been their first foreign visitors. The little boys handed us flowers and ferns and herbs. Very sweet.

22/04/2024

Happy Earth Day and Happy Birth Day to JB Journeys' Laurie Foss!!

21/04/2024

Here is an amazing story in the 21st Century.

An all-women Indigenous softball team from Yucatán has rebelled against local stereotypes to become a regional beacon in the sport.

17/04/2024

Did you follow our trip to Guatemala for Holy Week last month? Look at this excellent video that sums it up.
The celebration goes on throughout Lent. So very well organized.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/dAdPDYAa1rP1go5X/?mibextid=oKfgLb

05/04/2024

SO TRUE!!!

31/03/2024

Carpets – alfombras – the beautiful coverings of the streets of Antigua for processions during lent, Cuaresma.

Just this year I heard a possible origin. When Jesus was on a donkey riding through the streets, his followers threw pine needles and flowers in front of the animal to make the passage smooth. Nowadays carpets are made for every procession, large or small. And the carpets are large or small.

Throughout Lent there are dozens of processions. Every Sunday, some Saturdays, and once Palm Sunday hits, (Domingo de Ramos), daily. On Good Friday, there are at least 4 processions in Antigua, the first beginning around 3 am. Good Friday is considered to be the biggest day and the color is spectacular.

Carpets are placed directly on the cobble-stoned streets, some with a 1-2 inch base of natural sand. Upon that stencils are used to create designs with colored sand that make it appear to be an oriental carpet. Others are made of organics, pine needles, flowers, fruits and vegetables. Or a combination of all of these. Here and there we saw some with the name of the business, which is considered gauche.

Who makes these carpets? Super guide and historian Elizabeth Bell of Antigua Tours tells you to follow the hose! The carpets are made by and paid for by local residents who may begin at midnight and work all night to be ready for the float to pass over it. Some neighbors join in to make a carpet that goes the whole street. Others are tiny. The hose is necessary to keep the carpet from flying away. If there is a top and bottom to the design of the carpet, it must be placed so that Jesus Christ can see it! We have made a carpet for the last several years, with the help of the hotel, who get the hose ready and help with some ideas. While some street carpets are 10 ft wide and 30-50 ft long, ours was about 6 ft X 6 ft.
Are the carpets destroyed? Well, the first float is carried by 104 men, followed by the marching band, then the Virgin Mary float carried by 60 women and another marching band. So yes, they are pretty much a pile of color at that point. However, it is not considered ‘destroyed’ as much as ‘passed over’. The carpets lead the way to heaven.

After all those people walk over it, the city of Antigua sanitation crew are on it, sweeping and shoveling the remains into a big truck.
And just like that, it’s over, leaving just a little color in between the cobble stones.

26/03/2024

The last supper on our Holy Week trip in Guatemala. As we walked back to the hotel, we came across another procession, this one a mini. Each procession follows the same pattern, but each is different with costume theme and of course the number of participants. We particularly liked the Roman soldiers with their red brush helmets.

25/03/2024

24/03/2024

Today is Palm Sunday, Domingo de Ramos, one of the largest processions in Antigua. We witnessed the beginning this morning. It will continue all day long through the streets of Antigua. Around 8 pm, they will past our hotel and we are ready. We built a small alfombra or carpet.

24/03/2024

We returned to Antigua today and to our hotel Los Pasos. The street is so called because there are several little chapels along the road signifying the stations of the cross. We are on the south side of Antigua, still within the historic area but not in the dead center. A beautiful place with 29 rooms, gardens and common space are gorgeous.

Just around the corner from our hotel is Escuela de Cristo, one of the neighborhood parish churches. Today was their Lenten procession. I got to the little square across from the front door as things were just beginning. A small alfombra or carpet was at the start and several young boys and girls were dressed in black robes with red pointed hoods, carrying shields. A few people carry incense, swinging it to and fro. A procession will always start with the sound of the flute, then a clacker of some kind. The red hoods begin walking, followed by a few priests in their finery, then the anda or float departs the church. Music is playing, a small marching band with trumpets, tubas, flutes, clarinets and several drums. The float is about 20 feet long, heavy probably mahogany, and carried by 40 people, 20 each side, mostly men in black suit, white shirt, and purple tie; purple for the passion of Christ. The float is decorated with a scene of a Christ figure and others.

The concept is carrying the weight of our burdens on our shoulder, but the burden is shared. And the float is literally carried by 40 people. The route is probably 30-40 blocks long and it would be impossible for anyone to carry it the whole way, so at each corner – EACH CORNER – the weight is transferred onto the sholders of 40 others. It’s impossible to explain this, but it happens, and apparently without accidents. As the float approaches the next turn, there are 20 new carriers lined up and ready on each side; they sit down, make the sign of the cross, then stand and slide into their place and another slides out.

The procession began around 4 pm and continues through the city of Antigua and will return back to where it began at 10-10:30 pm. As I write this, I can hear the band nearby, so they are bringing it home.

23/03/2024

Louise Talley - where are you when I need you!!??

23/03/2024

This is always one of my favorite days on our Holy Week tour. We traveled by Tuk-tuk and boat across the lake to San Juan La Laguna to see a demo of traditional weaving techniques. Cristina and the others of Textiles Quetzali showed spinning yarns, dyes using organic matter, the warp board, the backstrap loom, how to tie ikat, known here as jaspe. I learn so much each time I see it. We continued to her mother’s house for a delicious lunch of talapia and tortillas.

22/03/2024

On Wednesday we continued on to Lake Atitlan and at at Jenna’s River B& B. Yesterday went to Chichicastenango for the famous Thursday market. Saw the food market which is always colorful and fragrant. Then the Catholic Church with Mayan altars and the cemetery. Oh and shopping!

22/03/2024

Room with a view.

21/03/2024

This morning we drove to San Miguel Escobar and met Ingrid, the only woman in the De La Gente coffee co-op. We visited her patch. She described the growing of coffee from seed to mature plant. Then we returned to her home where she demonstrated how they separate the seeds by quality then how to toast them and roast them followed by a delicious cup of coffee. Once we learned everything we need to know about small scale, coffee production, we had a delicious lunch at her house prepared by her mother, sister, and sister-in-law. Ingrid is a very confident woman and very knowledgeable in her field. She is a third generation, coffee grower, and we asked if her daughter would follow in her footsteps. She said her daughter would be educated learn about the industry, but make her own choices.

20/03/2024

Dinner tonight wad fabulous-of course-we cooked it!! We made Pepian, the national dish, rice, atol, radish salad, tortillas, and rellanitos for desert. A fun, interactive, hands on class with Chef Sylvia and her ayudante Mauricio.
La Tortilla Cooking School.
Antigua Guatemala