Taking a trip to Belize and Guatemala may seem exotic for Wisconsinites, but for junior Elina Spule, an exchange student from Latvia, her excursion was the most beautiful and simultaneously crazy experience she has ever had.

“It is an adventure I can tell my grandkids about,” she said.

During Winterim, Spule, sophomores Nam Van Dong, Kin-Yan “Ashley” Wong, and seniors David Espanol, Mara Zalite and Amanda Wolfe experienced everything from stray dogs running freely throughout poverty-stricken Belize City, Belize, to diving with sharks in the Caribbean.

“None of us (except for Van Dong) had ever been to Central America,” Spule said. “We had all seen in films the beautiful Caribbean beaches and jungles, and we were one step from it.”

The group decided they wanted to travel together because they had similar interests and headed off for a month long trip on Dec. 25.

When they arrived, they experienced a bit of a culture shock, Spule said.

“Belize City has a low quality of life so there is a high crime rate,” she said.

Wong, who is from Hong Kong, said the group never traveled at night because of safety issues.

“The first night we arrived in Belize, we took a walk around Belize City,” she said. “(Some of the) people were rude, yelling ‘Hey baby.’ ”

Spule said that on the plane from Houston to Belize City, a man from Texas told her about “near-slavery” conditions in Belize.

She said he described Belize as a place where “you will see huge nice houses, artificial seafood-growing pools, fruit plantations, nice restaurants on the beaches (and) hotels with best Belizean food – the only problem is that nearly nothing belongs to the locals anymore.”

The man said Canadians, Americans and Western Europeans own a lot of the property, Spule said.

“Even though there is no official slavery there,” she said, “sometimes it feels as if is still exists.”

The group got used to the culture of Belize and eventually made their way to Guatemala.

Wong said her primary reason for going on the trip was because she is fascinated by Mayan culture and she wanted to experience volcanoes.

“Mayan people still wear traditional clothes and have their own way of living,” she said.

Van Dong, one of three Americans who went on the trip, visited Panama and Costa Rica last year and wanted to invite some friends along for his trip this time around.

“I am trying to see how many years in a row I can be in a foreign country for New Year’s,” he said.

The group spent New Year’s in the Belizean Keys, a Caribbean island off Belize.

Van Dong saw Mayan ruins, spelunked in Mayan caves that had rivers running through them and dove with sharks, he said.

Spule remembers swimming with the sharks quite well.

“You see them swimming around your boat,” she said. “Then the guide says ‘jump in.’ It is so hard to do that first step.”

Van Dong said the group’s life-changing experience in Central America was much different than the “cultureless trash trips” his collegiate contemporaries tend to take.

He singled out the Mexican city of Cancun as a place where students waste their money.

“The place is in Mexico, yet you will find nothing out about real Mexican culture,” he said, adding that knowledge of Spanish isn’t even required in those places.

“Water Street is a much better investment (than Cancun and Mazatlan),” he said.

Wong agreed. She said that instead of focusing on traveling to different states, student should try out different countries.

A person can learn a lot from international travel, Spule said.

“I learned not only about all the others (in the group),” she said, “but also a lot about myself.”