around guatemala

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Hola!
San pedro ended up being a great little town to be in. We went horse riding the next afternoon with a guide (and owner of the horse) named Pedro. He took us to an amazing look out piint on the nearby hillside, a 3 hour round trip. Unfortunately my saddle was pretty damn uncomfortbale and i ended up having bruised thighs and my shins got bruised too coz the stirrups were weird! loved my little horse though, she loved to run, so we did! We learnt a lot from Pedro about the local fauna, including the snakes, spiders and the local wildcats that apparently looks like a mini black and grey tiger!
The horses looked pretty well looked after, but one of my horses shoes fell off right before we started but they said it was fine and they´d re-shoe it when we got back.
We continued having all meals at the house with the family which was nice, but the deal doesnt include food on sundays, so on sunday we went and ate lots of food at different restaurants/comedors with tacos.
The rest of our time there was spent studying or lounging around a bit, except when we trekked to the top of the hill behind the town where the football field is with Tula dn Manuel. and had to wait for a game to finish before we played alittle game with another local boy... we all got very dirty coz the ground is all dust! The saturday night in san pedro was a special night at the pub across the road from our house as the owner was having a party for the 8th anniversary of owning the pub. He is a scotsman who was travelling through the area, fell in love with a local girl and started working at the pub, eventually buying it and settling down in the town. So to celebrate most drinks were only 8Q so around $1! upstairs at the pub is a giant screen and projector and every night they play a movie (one night we saw get him to the greek, another was the ther guys... kind of funny!) and a free pool table with a beautiful view of the lake.
On monday during class we were treated to a mayan ceromony at the school which had a lot of candles and a prayer by a local mayan man who was in charge of these rituals. The 20th of decemeber is apparently very important in the mayan calender. My teacher mario also told me what my birthdate meant in the mauyan calender, i have 13 as one of my mumbers they give me and its supposed to be the luckiest number of all! and my animal is the armadillo.
That night, elena made us a special dinner that they make for xmas, but because we were missing it she made it for us, tamalis filled with chicken and this yummy sauce!
we had to leave on tuesday morning early to head to Lanquin. First a 4 hour shuttle ride to antigua where we had a 2 hour wait for a second shuttle to take us the rest of the way. We had lunch and walked around town (leaving our bags at a hostel that the shuttle sstop at) and took in a abit of antigua... pretty with lots of colonial style buildings... its where the richest of guatemalans live, so its much cleaner and more organised than anywhere else here. and more expensive too!
finally our minibus came and we all hopped on, dario and i were lucky we had the back row to ourselves, but unfortunately the bus seemed to lack shick absorbers and any padding on the seats... i could see the metal through the thin covering, so i think everyone was getting sore bums! And to add to the bus troubles, our driver didnt bother or forgot to tie the bags on until another driver while we were going through antigua yelled at him that they were going to fall off! finally we were on our way through the cobble stoned streets of antigua.... bumping along anyway and onto the freeway which is pretty good really. We had to drive through the urban sprawl that is guatemala city which slowed us down due to lots of traffic, but we had a crazy driver who managed to weave us in and out at a sickening pace!
eventually we arrived in Lanquin at 9pm, just in time to have missed any opportunity to have dinner, so the 5 of us who were staying at the same hostel who had been on the bus together bought 2 minute noodles for dinner and finishe dit off with a nice Gallo beer.
At the bar at the hotel we shared some beer and ate our noodles while watching other travellers playing giant Jenga! they had started with the jenga on the table (blocks about 5 times the size of the normal packet made just from plywood stuff) and in the end it was so tall people had to use chairs to keep adding on top! eventually of course it fell with a massive crash. very amusing! but we were all so knackered we went to bed asap.
Next morning we woke to find that our dorm room faced out onto a lovely patch of grass and trees and beyond it was the river, very pretty scenery. The bathrooms were way up the hill so there was a procession of people all morning walking past. We had yummy pancakes for breakfast...those who know me should be proud! i didnt eat the nutella pancake for breakfast... Dario did! i had fruit on mine 😊 Then we booked our tour to semuke champey, an all day tour from 9am to 4pm and we bought a packed lunch from the bar. The transport that picked us up for the 20 min journey was not like we expected, it was a ute! about 13 tourists climbed onto the back and held on as we drove up and down the hilly dirt roads. beautiful views! and lots of funny looks from locals...
We eventually got to a bridge that crossed the river. We walked down to a little hut and got organised to go caving for an hour and a half! only in our swimmers coz you have to get wet! Dario and I only had thongs, so the guide (named Elvis!) tied them to our feet with pink string... very comfy actually! we went up to th cave mouth and he handed out candles to those of us without head torches (us included) so it was a magical experience heading into the caves. Most of the time it was more than high enough to stand upright, but on occassion you had to watch your head. We waded through sections where the water was up to your neck and you lost touch with the bottom for a few seconds before climbing out of the water completely and climbing ladders over rock formations. Eventually we got to the end of the section and there is a 3m deep pool. Most of us climbed up a 2 metre wall and jumped in... lots of fun! but you had to watch your head lol. On the way back a lot of candles were going out as they got splashed as people were jumping in and out of the water so it got pretty dark until finally we saw the mouth of the cave again... where all the little bats were hanging out 😊
After the cave we all grabbed an inner tube and walked up the river and hopped in just after some massive rapids to float down the river back to the hut. Elvis was putting us in, unfortunately i scraped my back on a rock and had to climb in again myself in a strong current, I still have a scratch and that was 5 days ago (at time of writing). After hauling ourselves out of the river we discovered a giant swing! and of course we had a go once elvis was back with us! the ropes connecting to the seat were at least maybe 10m long way u into a giant tree that overhung the river, we swung out into the middle and jumped off... most of us doing a very ungraceful face plant into the water or belly flop becuase you had to jump of from sitting down and you tend to lean way too far forward!
After all that we then went to Semuc Champey, a 10 minute walk across the bridge and up the hill. Once we were in the park, we walked to El Mirador... the lookout, 20 minute walk straight up the hill on massive stairs! but it was worth it, our first look at the limstone bridge that forms the pools of semuc champey... its beautiful! the limestone bridge is a natural formation over the river, so once we were down again, we looked at where the river flows underneath, apparently 5 years ago a man was looking too closely and fell in, 5 days later they found his body at the other side... scary! so now there are ropes and a man whisteling at you if you get too close to the edge. scary how fast the water flows underneath though, raging rapids! Ontop of the bridge are various pools, but they arent fed by the river, they´re fed by a local mountain spring, so the water is surpirisingly clear and warm, and full of little fish! you can see everything all the way to the bottom which is at times about 4-5 metres deep! Lots of swimming and jumping off the little waterfalls that separate each pool. Eventually it was time to leave and we all piled back onto the ute and went back to the hotel... pretty exhausted actually. We booked the transport for the next day, 8am bus to Flores up north and had an early dinner and hung out with dorm mates till we all got sleepy, they were all interested in my animals at home, so i had to get out the iphone and hand round photos of my snakes and yoda for all you who know who he is (he´s a flying fox for those who dont).
Paula and Cas were on our bus again the next morning, we had 15 in a minivan with all the luggage strapped to the roof! it was a very tight squeeze, we were in the front, so we shared the stupid little bumper seat in the middle. We stopped in Coban, 2 hours away (after 2 hours of the driver being on the phone complaining to his boss about the van) and we had to wait an hour at maccas as the driver had to go and get new front and back brakes fitted! Finally we arrived in Flores, a bit later than we had intended. The minibus was basically full of couples so we went to 3 different hostels to try and find one that had enough room for us all to have a private room. we stayed in a cheap hotel called El Mirador del Lago, 80Q a night (very cheap really) inckuding a private bathroom! so 3 couples stayed here, Cas and Paula, us and a british couple we met, kat and Mike.
Flores is a tiny island you can walk around in about 20 mins, but its crammed full of the richer people that live in the area, e.g. down the road from our hotel we found a very spiffy house and every morning men with guns in their holsters were cleaning 2 big black suv´s in the garage... turned out it wasnt the local drug dealer that we assumed, it was the local senators house. It meant that most things here are more expensive than in the town called Santa Elena, just across the bridge, its much safer than santa elena and for christmas its kind of what we wanted, a nice relaxed place. Next morning was christmas eve the 24th, and we woke at about 7am realising that in sydney it was exactly midnight on christmas eve, Dario rushed out on a tuktuk to santa elena to buy a sim card for our phone so we could text home and hopefully they could call us (his family anyway... mine would have been asleep as they celebrate on xmas day, not eve) and we could say merry xmas! We sent the texts twice to both families, as the first time we sent them we realised we didnt include internation codes. No replies... so later Iemailed with the phone number and low and behold the texts had not made it, luckily the emails did.
XMAS
So on xmas eve, we took a tuktuk to santa elena to a shop that sold so many lollies, toys and Piñatas that we went a but silly! we bought a Winnie the Pooh giant Piñata and about 3kg of lollies and chocolates. Paula and Cas bought fireworks and a few more lollies. We also hit up the local markets, we got very strange looks from people and one girl even took a photo of me! i guess its odd seeing someone so white in in the markets or something. Dario bought some shoes to play football in for 100Qand I bought mine for 50Q! so cheap! (around $12 and $6). Pooh was popular and we filled him up with lollies and in the afternoon the 4 of us (plus pooh) went to buy a few buckets of beer... 6 decent beers for 40Q (around $5) before heading to the only true hostel with a very cool vibe on the island called Los Amigos where they were having roast turkey for dinner.... it was soo good! it came with a strawberry daiquiri included, sooooo good! and then we had their famous choc brownies, with choc icecream and sauce to finish it all off! The piñata was a hit, eventually we got it open, it was reinforced with wire so took a while! there were too many lollies, so we headed out into the streets to share our bounty, all the local kids near the church and a lot of the adults too, some sharing their desserts with us too. We let off a whole bunch of fireworks near the church (as the locals do it too!) and had a lot of fun! But I had an early night, in bed at 11, but the locals have midnight mass then a party at about 1am, i was too exhausted, and so was everyone else as they all went to bed by 12. we were very happy though becuase both our families had recieved the emails and had called us that evening, it made our xmas!
Most people slept in on xmas day, but for whatever reason, we couldnt so got up, had pancakes again for brekky and had a wander around town. At 2 we met up with Paula and Cas and took a local boat to the lookput across the lake, and got some great views from up there! and then he took us to the local zoo and fun park, further down the lake. It was a bit sad, most of the cages are pretty big compared to what i had thought they would be, but mostly just concrete, the jaguar and puma had the best enclosures, but not by much, they at least had lots of trees and bushes etc. It was soo annoying at the spider monkey cage, big cage, but guatemalans just dont care about rubbish or reading signs, so a lot of people had thrown in packets of chips etc and some were purposely scaring or interacting with the monkeys who could reach through the bars and grabthings from us we were that close. there were also some water slides, but we didnt bother, the amount of speed you would get wasnt worth the trek back up to the top.
We got back to flores and booked a tour to Tikal for the next day and had a nice swim in the lake while watching a beautiful sunset!
The bus for Tikal left at 4.30am! we all crammed into a full minibus and with everyones head bobbing as they fell asleep and started awake again we headed off to Tikal. We were the first people there and saw some amazing birds and squirrels and a type of brown racoon thing with a very long tail. The guide was named Cesar and was great! He knew so much about everything and had studied in america, so his accent was a bit strange. the tour lasted until about 11 when we hadfree time till 12 when the bus left. The ruins are pretty impressive, something like 4000 buildings are here, but only a handful are excavated and most of them have had hige resoration projects, so its not like they find them looking how they look now, a lot of them are rubble amost when they are cleared and are then rebuilt. we saw spider monkeys in the trees and so many birds as we left. I slept the whole way back. While I napped in the arvo, Dario ran errands, including buying a cheap and mini laptop to end our constant frustrations with internet and bad computers!
Next day after saying goodbye to Paula and Cas the night before, we left at 5am to go to the Belize border. 2 hours in a bus with hardly any leg room and we arrived... we had to pay an ahem... official exit fee... to the pockets of the guatemalan officials...luckily only about $2 and then had to wait inline in belize customs for 40 mins. So far belize is expensive!!!!! but we will find out more today.

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Photos

san pedro
horse riding at lake Atitlan

Juan´s family
a photo of Elena and her youngest daughter Tuly, Elena is wearing a traditional mayan skirt, she wears them everyday.

cave trip
this was near semuc and it was so much fun caving! we had to swim a lot and climb a lot with candles to light the way.

tubing down the river
loads of fun but got a bit bruised doing this... many hidden rocks they didnt warn us about!

semuc champey
the pools were amazing and clear!

semuc champey
again, but this time you can see the waterfalls behind us! the water was really warm!

the transport in lanquin
tourists crammed into a ute!

christmas piñata!
he came to have a beer with us :)

island of flores in the lake
view from the lookout the boatman took us to.