Colourful Guatemala - people, textiles and country

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Volcon Pâcaya, flowing lava.

Tikal main Plaza

FLORES & TIKAL (Northern Guatemala) - Fri 17/11 to Mon 20/11

So....last time we were taking a bus from Belize City to the Guatemalan border. Well we arrived & paid a ridiculous departure fee (something like $37.50 each), & stepped into Guatemala. Immediately, we were under pressure from bus owners & touts telling us all sorts of stories about broken down buses, hijacks, "bandidos" & the like, but........they could bring us there safely for $40, we bargained hard & in the end after walking away from them in the direction of where we hoped would be a bus-stop we agreed on $12. The road to Flores was rough enough & quickly told us that we were stepping down a bit in terms of infrastructure. 1 & 1/2 hours later we arrived in Flores, an island town surrounded by Lago de Peten Itza, our travel book "The Lonely Planet" had warned us not to expect much from Flores but immediately we liked what we saw. We have since rechristened the Lonely Planet "The Moaney Planet" following more similar experiences but to be fair it´s a great book & has helped us a lot. A 500m causeway leads out to Flores & it can only be said it makes for a spectacular sight. It has narrow winding streets all packed with hostels, hotels, restaurants, tour shops & internet cafes, made just for the traveller.

We checked into a hostel "Hospedaje Dona Goya" which was a grand place for $10 a night, our cheapest accomodation so far, we were beginning to like Guatemala already. Another big bonus of the hostel was that it had a good book exchange, basically swap 1 for 1, we unloaded our unwanted & stocked up on reading material for the coming weeks.

That evening, we wandered the town & had a few drinks on the lakeside discovering the great Gallo litro bottles which we met up with time & time again during our 3 weeks in Guatemala. We met a Canadian couple Kelly & Della who were travelling the world on motorbikes & they really impressed & educated us on the tricks of the road in terms of keeping thieves at bay, we have adopted many of their tactics in the meantime & spent a nice few hours chatting with them.

We took a day in Flores to relax and explore before we ventured to Tikal, the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilisation. The ruins are situated approx. 50 KMs from Flores in a national park & are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is in a jungle setting & was used as background scenery in the old Star Wars movie. It really is huge covering 500 sqKMs. We had heard many reports of robberies & muggings in Tikal & wanted to join a tour group for the trip. So we got organised on Saturday & hit Tikal early on Sunday. We arranged a trip to & from Tikal & contacted a guide that agreed to take us along with a group into the ruins at 7 AM. So with everything arranged, we explored Flores Saturday night & even took in a lecture (for free of course) on Mayan culture to get us into the mood for the following morning. The lecture given by a German archaelogist who is based in the region was very interesting & warned of the threat posed by grave robbers in the region who have looted significant quantities of Mayan artifacts including the clear out of a Mayan museum in southern Mexico.

We were up & about at 5am on Sunday morning & were collected at 5.30am arriving in Tikal before 7. Lo & behold no sign of our guide. We asked around & were told he had already gone into the ruins & so we were on our own again. The prevalence of guns at the entrance to Tikal told us that there was definitely something that folks feared around here so we set about organising another guide. So we found another guide but he wasn´t prepared to go without the full fee of $40 & we were only prepared to pay $20 so we had to find 2 or more others. We waited as he attempted to coerce others to join our little group but really he hadn't a clue how to deal with people & just ended up driving them away, all the time we watched & waited & waited. He tried this approach with a group of 6 Israelis (or at least that was his guess as to their nationality) & they told him to get lost & that they were going for breakfast. We waited and waited and waited.

In the meantime, we befriended another guide Arnaldo who had finished a sunrise tour & was about to head home, he told us to stick with it that he´d get some people to join us, in the end, 2 hours after we arrived, he agreed to take us for the $20 but it turns out he was smarter than that, he timed his offer just as he saw the Israelis getting up from breakfast & we just happened to intercept them as they reached the road, Arnaldo had a much gentler approach & won them over, we were now 8 & were splitting the $40 between us, a $10 saving for us albeit having taken us over 2 hours to set off but then we weren´t really in any rush & the jungle setting was fabulous, you don´t mind waiting in an environment like that.

So we were off and trying to be funny, I threw in a "lets be clear, the tour is in English & not in Hebrew" only to be informed that their 1st language was Arabic & that they were Palestinian, I kept quiet for a while after that. It turned out that our new friends were Palestinians living in Israel, their parents & their parents parents having lived there before the Israeli state was created in 1948. We would spend the next 7 or 8 days travelling with them down through Guatemala & using our bulk buying power to deliver savings on hotels, buses & anything else anybody was prepared to bargain on.

Anyway, back to Tikal, we spent a very enjoyable day in the Tikal complex, the weather was fantastic, we had brought lunch & enjoyed the jungle setting along with the historic narrative delivered by Arnaldo, the complex is huge & if one were really into Mayan ruins (a day did us), you could spend days there, only 30%!o(MISSING)f the ruins are visible with the remainder still under jungle cover, some as they have been for up to 2,000 years.

We had planned to head for Antigua the next day but had decided to break the journey with a stop in Coban, the Palestinians were going that way too & we negotiated a good deal on an early bus the following day.

COBAN (Middle Guatemala) - Mon 20/11 to Tue 21/11

Easily knowing why we got such a good deal on the bus, the driver was a lunatic, the bus was a bit of a tin can & we were all crammed into it, much relief for all on arrival in Coban after 6 hours on the road. Shortlived though as Coban was miserable, the weather was terrible, you wouldn´t get a day as bad as it in Limerick in February (unless they were filming Angela´s Ashes of course). It was wet, cold & miserable but luckily Siobhan & I in our search for a bargain hotel room discovered a place with a fine fire & we all went there for an afternoon drink to warm the bones.

We stayed in a basic enough hotel for the princely sum of $8 (another record low for us & only 4 days since the last low). Less said about Coban the better. The Palestinians following on from that days´ horror bus ride found a minibus driver who would take the 8 of us to Antigua for less than the normal bus fare. One of the Palestinians Maher showed us his bargaining skills with his limited Spanish by using smiley & sad faces :-) & :-( to close deals, I was thinking that these guys had learned a bit from their Jewish neighbours or maybe its the other way around.

ANTIGUA (Southern Guatemala) - Tue 21/11 to Fri 24/11

Travelling via Guatemala City, we arrived in Antigua around 2 PM after a much more comfortable journey. Antigua reminded us very much of Trinidad in Cuba but Antigua is almost immaculate with cute cobbled streets, well preserved colonial buildings & plenty of fine bars & restaurants aswell as its perfect natural setting being surrounded by 3 volcanos. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Antigua is quite high up & it was very cold even when we arrived that afternoon forcing us to walk on the sunnyside of the street. Later that evening, following on our success in finding a fireplace in Coban, we happened upon a restaurant run by an American couple (a lot of businesses in Antigua are run by Americans) with a roaring fire, we didn´t budge from it.

The following day, we joined a trip to Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano on the outskirts of Guatemala City, 2 hours from Antigua. We set off at 7 AM with an armed driver (muggings & attacks on the volcano were common enough up to recently). We had a 2 hour climb to near the summit or crater & reached the recent lava flow, recent being 7 months old, we walked across this which was shaky enough, to reach even more recent lava (3 months old), at this stage we could feel the increasing temperature & were getting worried about our shoes melting. Siobhan in particular was nearly having panic attacks that she would fall after watching our guide put his walking stick between the lava and it went up in flames. After a dodgy enough trek across this loose lava we reached a flowing lava (a few days old) & were only 2 - 3 metres from it, it was quite fantastic to see it so close & to feel the intense heat, we didn´t stay around long & hightailed it back to normal ground. We spent our remaining days in Antigua wandering, visiting the local market & enjoying the scenery and the layed back albeit touristy atmosphere of the town.

SANTA CRUZ & LAKE ATITILAN (near Antigua) - Fri 24/11 to Sun 26/11

Our Palestinian friends convinced us to join them in Lago Atitilan, a few hours from Antigua, I managed to get the best deal for the trip at 30 Quetzals a piece & at last felt I had contributed to our bulk buying efforts. We travelled to Panajachel by bus & our 1st view of Lago Atitilan on our descent into Panajachel was dramatic. The lake which is a collapsed volcano cone is surrounded by colourful hills. Again, as per everywhere in Guatemala, huge volcanos loom in the background. From Panajachel, we took a water taxi out to a small lakeside village Santa Cruz. We spent 2 nights in a lovely lakeside hotel/hostal, eating a 6 course meal the 1st night for all of $8 each, the 6 courses were topped off by coffee/tea bringing it to 7 & it was by far the best food we´d eaten in weeks. The place we stayed in was run by a German couple & their eco "no electricity" thinking saw us dine under candlelight at a long table with other travellers from all over the world. The 2nd night we ventured next door to another hostal for a BBQ (& their 5 to 7 Happy Hour). Santa Cruz & Lago Atitilan are beautiful spots and whilst we didn´t have time to see everything, there are many other beautiful spots on the lakeshores. On our 2nd day we ventured back to Panajachel to get to an ATM. Panajachel is full of textile & craft markets & on spotting a great shipping deal with a local courier service, we decided that we would buy big & ship it all home there & then. We put together a package of approx. 15 KGs & sent it off delighted with ourselves. At the time of writing (many weeks after despatch) said package is missing in action, will keep you posted on it´s recovery, it may involve a quick trip back to Panajachel to visit our local courier friend, it´s a lesson learned - anything that seems too good to be true probably is too good to be true!!

CHICHICASTENANGO (Guatemalan Highlands) - Sun 26/11

One of the stated highlights of any trip to Guatemala is a visit to the famous ChiChi Sunday market in the Guatemalan highlands. We all set off early from Santa Cruz by water taxi followed by a scenic 2 hour mini-bus through the Guatemalan highlands to the town of Chichicastenango (or Chichi). We had already done our buying the day before & so relaxed as we wandered the market taking in the fruit, meat & cookshop sections which are a little apart from the main craft areas. The colours everywhere were amazing, it seems that everything in Guatemala is bright & colourful - people, textiles, towns. We did a little price checking & had won on some things & lost on others the previous day. By 2 PM, the market was wrapping up & it was time to say goodbye to our Palestinian friends who were going back to the lake for another night or 2. Then there were 2. We were going to Xela, Guatemala´s 2nd largest city to organise a language course & homestay, hopefully to start the following day, but first we had to get there.

We asked around on prices for mini-buses going to Xela & the prices were crazy, between $8 & $10 each for a 2 to 3 hour journey (definitely a sellers market) so we decided that we´d go for our 1st real Guatemalan Chicken Bus experience. At $2 a head which we guess was still twice what locals were paying we thought we´d give it a go. Bags up on top (a little nervous about that, we weren´t sure we´d ever see them again) & into the bus we go. No seats so we are standing from the word go. Generally, the local buses in Guatemala & other Latin American countries are nicknamed "Chicken Buses" by travellers as they very often are full of chickens either inside or packed onto the roof. Most of them are old US yellow school buses that have been retired to these countries but they get a colourful facelift before they make it onto the road, it seems that every driver competes to have the most colourful paintjob. Most of them still have the "Max Allowed Capacity" displayed up on the front over the driver & this one stated 46 & I assume that meant kids. Once we were on & had a hold of something solid, I counted 62 on the bus, there were 3 to a 2 kid seat & about 15 of us standing but that was only the start of it. It seemed that every corner had a few more that wanted to get home after a day at the market with plenty of baskets, bags & boxes to be packed in somewhere. Matters got worse when the money collector had to get back the bus to collect his takings, it didn´t bother him, he just pushed his way through sending us flying one way or the other. It was a great experience, nobody was badly bothered by the crush, it´s just a part of normal life for them, all of us packed in together as the driver flung his bus around corners in his rush to Xela.

QUETALTENANGO or XELA (Western Highlands) - Sun 26/11 to Mon 04/12

We made it to Xela for about 6 PM & set out immediately to find a school & somewhere to stay. It was all very easy really, the 1st school we came to (Eureka) was open at 6 PM Sunday evening & within a half hour we had a homestay arranged & were signed on for 5 hrs, one on one tuition, starting the following day. 7 nights accomodation including breakfast, lunch & dinner with a local family with tuition & evening activities cost us $125 a head - really unbelievable value. The man of the family Carlos collected us & showed us to our home for the next 7 days. We met the family that evening, everybody including ourselves being a little shy at first but with our improving Spanish that would change during the week, we hoped.

Siobhan & I had done a 10 week spanish course the previous Spring in the Tech in Naas (with our Peruvian maestra Rosario) & had a VERY basic understanding of Spanish arriving in Venezuela in early October. Since then we had been forced to use all we knew to survive (survival spanish they call it) & had picked up plenty of vocabulary in our day to day interactions. These 5 days were going to give us a taste for Spanish grammar & to correct any self taught errors.

Monday morning came & we met our tutors, Siobhan´s maestra was straight down to work feeding Siobhan page after page of notes, my man (mi maestro) Billy was a different kettle of fish, he had spent a good bit of time in the US & we soon got chatting about life in Xela, Ireland & the US, not all in Spanish you might guess. Billy´s approach was a little unorthodox & during the week while Siobhan was filling page after page of notes with nouns & verbs, I was out walking with Billy, checking out the hot spots of Xela, he told me where to go & where not to go & what life in Guatemala & specifically Xela was like for him and all about the political killings of the 60s & 70s & the indigenous massacres of the early 80s, he was passionate about it all & keen to see these people brought to justice. I let Billy know that we would be 2 months married that Saturday & we set about organising a suprise night out. We checked out menus in about 10 different restaurants, Billy using the guise that we were organising a little party & were checking out venues, all this wheeling & dealing & reading of complex menus was great for my Spanish!! In the end we went for a Mexican place as we never did get to eat Mexican while in Playa del Carmen as Walmart dominated our life for those few days. So Saturady night was planned, a film at 6 PM followed by drinks & dinner at Les Cebollinas (the Mexican). It all went down well, luckily as Siobhan had been sick that week from some bug she had picked up. It hadn´t affected me so we guessed it was from popcorn she had taken in some in a bar we were at on Monday night, lesson learned. Tuesday for Siobhan meant a day off school & a day spent between the toilet and the bed, it had to happen one of us sooner or later. The dose was quite bad though & I had to get antibiotics (via a doctor friend of Billy´s). As the week progressed Siobhan came back to herself.

During the week, the school organised activities in the evening, Tuesday - a documentary on the Guatemalan Civil War, Wednesday a trip to a local town to celebrate the feast day of San Andres the local patron saint, Thursday, Salsa dancing (with a decent teacher this time, we really had been done in Cuba) & then on Friday a Guatemalan cooking night which turned into a eating & drinking night, we never did find out how they made those Guatemalan Enchilladas.

Our chats with our host family didn´t get much better, they really were a very shy family & while we´d start a few chats about Ireland & Guatemalan life they´d soon peter out & we´d all get on with eating. One night when Siobhan was recovering from her stomach bug, I went down "the local" for a drink, I know, I know.....not on a school night !. I arrived back to find the whole place locked up at the unGodly hour of 11pm. The family had seen the light on in our room & had taken that to mean everybody was in & accounted for & had bolted up rendering my key useless. I was calm & collected for awhile, asking a security guard on his way home if he´d kindly blow the lock to pieces with the gun he was carrying, he laughed at me & carried on. I had to raise the tempo as time passed & was soon rocking the door & hollering as loud as I could, in the end the door opened for me, I walked in to find the whole family up & facing me (including Mam, Dad, Granny, 2 sons and 3 daughters), all ready for retribution, quick apologies were made & I skidaddled off to bed.

While we were in Xela, Siobhan was going on about waking up one night & finding the room shaking, I smiled to myself & thought Jesus, she must of got a bad dose alright. On Sunday, mid afternoon, I got a taste of it, we were in an internet cafe & the place just shook for about a minute, everybody just looked at each other & then it passed, our 1st sorry 2nd real earth tremor, lucky I didn´t have a beer in my hand.

The food in the homestay was tough going & Siobhan had to skip a few days with the bug. Almost every meal consisted of beans in some way, usually boiled in the mornings & mixed with rice at lunch & then refried that evening. I quite liked the refried variety (basically mashed & fried up) but Siobhan was all beaned out by the end of the week & keen for a new country & new food. The family were lovely though & when we asked about staying another night, they said we could at no charge, we didn´t take them up on the offer & paid fairly but it was a typical gesture of a very friendly & colourful people whom we really liked everywhere we went in Guatemala. Monday morning, we grabbed a chicken bus & then another to bring us to the Frontera (El Salvadorian border) a 5 or 6 hour journey. We were a bit unsure about El Salvador & were really using it as an easy passage to Honduras, lets see how it goes........

I better wrap this up........ Guatemala was fantastic, it´s a beautiful country, the people are lovely & everything is so bright & colourful, we only skimmed the surface, there is so much more to do & see. We highly recommend it & it was a great to have such an experience after the mediocrity of our Venezuela & Cuba stays.

GUATEMALA SUMMARY

Currency: 2, Quetzal, 1 US$ = 7.5 Quetzals
Time Zone: Ireland -6 hours
People: Friendly & colourful but they move so slowly, don´t get caught behind a Guatemalan family on a Sunday if you are rushing for a bus or a beer. Anywhere we meet slow coaches now, we say "ah they must have spent some time in Guatemala"
Beer(s): Gallo the great litro bottles.
Interesting: Everything. We recommend taking a Spanish course.
Highlights: Flores, Tikal, Antigua, Lago Atitilan, Chichi, Xela, really everywhere we went & there is so much more there & it's so cheap.
Lowlights: Beans, Beans and Beans.

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Photos

Maurice´s head was on the block next
Mayan sacrifice table, Tikal

Comments

[Ena]

Most Entertaing so far
I enjoyed that story, FUNNY AND COLOURFUL. look forward to the next one.