Guatemala and Belize

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Well I managed to survive my week of Spanish lessons though I'm sure my Spanish is just as bad as it always was! At times I thought my teacher was going to despair. Ah well, no doubt I've learnt something useful from them.

I spent my first two nights with the school at Chiqui's house where I was joined by a young French couple. This made the mealtimes slightly less embarassing but they didn't speak much English or Spanish so there wasn't much conversation going on there! For the other five nights I was staying in a guesthouse where I was the only guest for the majority of my stay. It was pretty decent having a whole house to myself but it was a shame that I didn't get the opportunity to meet more people studying at the school.

I did take part in some of the activities put on by the school so I got to meet some people. I went to meet up with a girl from Hawaii for a drink and loads more people from the school turned up so I actually had a really sociable evening for once!

Overall the Spanish lessons were definitely worth it. Having said that, there wasn't half some monkey business going on when I tried to pay. First they decided I'd be paying extra for part of a service that I wasn't even getting and then because I didn't have US dollars they quoted me some ridiculous exchange rate to pay in quetzales so in the end I decided to go and change my money at the bank instead!

Antigua is lovely but, if I'm honest, I actually ended up getting bored with it. Nice as it is with its old churches and ruins and pretty little streets, it felt a bit too organised. There was none of the chaos that's typical of most towns in Latin America which I pretend to hate but actually love. Still, I went to all the touristy sites like the cathedral, crafts market etc. and managed to occupy my time!

Also whilst in Antigua I went on a day trip to Volcan Pacaya which was wonderful. There were about ten of us in the group and I spent most of the time talking to a woman from Italy who works for a reality TV program based in Honduras and a woman from Tennessee. There was also a Spanish guy who asked if I spoke Catalan because of the way I said "hola". I'm sure he soon realised how mistaken he was when he heard me trying to respond. At the start of the trek up the volcano we had to decide whether we wanted to see the lava or the magma. Apparently the path to the magma was much easier and I think most people wanted to go on the easier path but there were a few of us in the group who'd heard that it was definitely more worthwhile to go the lava and somehow we ended up persuading the others. It turned out that walking on the volcano was almost impossible because the rocks were so loose that we were just sliding back down every time we tried to take a step up! We were fortunate though because the lava turned out to be further down the volcano than it usually is which meant we didn't have to climb as high. It was an incredible sight because we were really close and could watch it flowing down the side of the volcano!

On Wednesday I left Antigua and headed to Panajachel which is a town by Lake Atitlan. I got up really early to get there, thinking I could do a boat tour that day, but by the time I arrived at 11am all the public tours had already set off. One guy tried to sell me a tour of the lake and at first I thought he said it cost $8 (which is the standard price for a tour) but then later I realised he'd said $80! I didn't take him up on his offer. So I was left wondering what to do with myself in Panajachel. In the end I ended up wandering around the shops which all sold the same tourist tack and spending ages in a bookshop. In the evening I went for a nice meal in a restaurant overlooking the lake.

On Thursday I'd planned to have a lie-in but ended up waking up really early so I decided to go down to the docks and negotiate a deal to go on half a boat tour so I could get off at one of the other villages and get a bus to Guatemala City from there. On the tour we first visited San Pedro La Laguna which was full of indigenous people and I saw a parade of children from the local school. I then went for a drink with a Mexican guy who was also on the tour. The next stop was Santiago Atitlan where me and the Mexican negotiated with a tuk tuk driver to get a tour of the village. That turned out to be well worth it because he took us to a lookout so we had a good view of Santiago (and the Mayan women doing their laundry in the lake). We also went to a civil war memorial park, the cathedral, and to visit Maximon. Maximon is an effigy of a Guatemalan deity who is moved from house to house every year at Easter. He was actually pretty amusing because he's supposed to like smoking and drinking and he had a big cigar sticking out of his mouth and empty liquor bottles/cigarette packets in front of him. The guy whose house he's in gets to "manage" these sorts of donations. But funny as it was, I wasn't paying 10 quetzals (75p) for a photo.

I caught a bus from Santiago to Guatemala City which took four hours. In Guatemala City I got a taxi to the other bus station and the driver was teaching me rude words in Spanish. I didn't realise this until after he'd made me shout them out to another taxi driver who, fortunately, took it quite well as he clearly thought it was hilarious that this gringa had been taught those words. At the bus station I bought a ticket to go to Santa Elena/Flores at 9pm so I then had a bit of time to explore Guatemala City. It was as dirty and horrible as when I was there the first time. While I was waiting for my bus I met Joseph from Belize who was very friendly and a proper Garifuna!

The bus journey was horrible and I ended up getting just a couple of hours sleep. I'd paid extra for the "gold" service thinking it would be more bearable but it was really uncomfortable and the air-con made it absolutely freezing. Also, the breakfast we were supposed to get turned out to be non-existent. I arrived in Flores at about 4.30am where I was ushered into a taxi to go to the bus stop for a bus to Tikal.

I got to Tikal at about 7.30am and I can honestly say I've never felt so unwelcome anywhere in Latin America before. This wasn't just because I was getting bad vibes by the way, I was actually expressly told by the guy in the ticket office that I wasn't welcome at Tikal! What I'd planned on doing was spending the night at one of the lodges near Tikal and then going into the ruins the next morning so I could see it at dawn (and also go in after I'd had some sleep). But the guy in the ticket office told me that I'd have to pay the park admission fee even if I was just going to stay in the lodge and that's also when he told me I wasn't welcome. (I later found out that it was perfectly acceptable to do what I´d planned so it was just that guy talking rubbish.) I wasn't even making a fuss or anything, all I'd done was ask whether it was possible. If it had been anywhere else I might have just left but because I'd gone all that way to see Tikal I didn't really have an option! It was $22 to get into the park (unless you're Guatemalan, in which case it's $3!) so I wasn't going to pay for two days which left me with no option but to go straight into the ruins. They also wanted $4 for a map which was basically a leaflet, the sort of thing you'd get for free anywhere else so they've clearly cottoned on to the fact that they can make a good profit from overcharging tourists!

Fortunately I managed to bribe someone to look after my backpack, though I wasn't entirely convinced I'd see it again! So I went into Tikal feeling utterly exhausted, wearing the wrong shoes and wrong clothes so that my feet weren't protected from the ants/flies and I was far too warm. Then to top it all off I realised my mosquito repellent had run out and in one of my less intelligent moments I'd decided to take the emergency stash of mosquito repellant wipes (which had been bought with Tikal in mind) out of my daypack. So all in all I didn't get off to a great start with Tikal!

Despite everything, I did enjoy walking around the ruins and the temples really are spectacular. I climbed up some of them and the views, especially from Temple IV, were amazing. There was also a lot of wildlife to see there, including monkeys, lizards, a coatis and two of the biggest spiders I've ever seen outside of captivity (and they were right above my head!). I spent a few hours at the ruins and then went back to the visitors' centre to get a bus back to Santa Elena.

I found a nice enough hostel in Santa Elena and for once didn't mind that there was no hot water as I was so desperate for a shower after all those hours on boats/buses/traipsing through the jungle! In the evening I walked into Flores which is the town on the island in the middle of the lake by Santa Elena. I had a meal there overlooking the lake which was very pleasant.

On Saturday I took a bus from Santa Elena to Belize City. At the border I ended up having to pay the extra "taxes" to leave Guatemala for the people in front of me who had no US dollars. Why it should be necessary for people to have US dollars on the border between Guatemala and Belize I have no idea.

If I'm completely honest, I was actually glad to be out of Guatemala. I was getting tired of being treated like a "wealthy" tourist with people trying to scam me one way or the other all the time. I've learnt now that Guatemala may be cheap but not if you're a tourist because you have to pay a different price for most things!

I arrived in Belize City at about 12.30pm. One of the first things that struck me was that I could actually understand what people were saying to me! Including all the lewd comments of the taxi drivers - great! I was also comforted to find that they sell Tetley tea and Cadbury's chocolate in the supermarket and the queen is on the bank notes! It feels very Caribbean hear - because of the people, the laidback culture, the blue skies and the palm trees. People are really friendly here but unfortunately I can no longer pretend not to understand when they´re trying to chat me up.

From Belize City I caught a water taxi to Caye Caulker, an island near the reef, which took about an hour. I found a hostel there where my room was basically a box with a bed in it. I then walked up to "the split" where there's supposed to be a swimming beach but there isn't actually a beach at all so I had to do my sunbathing lying on a pier instead.

Yesterday I went on a snorkeling tour which was absolutely brilliant. It cost $40 for the whole day and we went to three different sites. We ended up seeing manatees (sea cows), nurse sharks, sting rays, barracudas, moray eels, hawksbill turtles and loads more. Apparently it´s the only place in the world where you can snorkel with manatees, or that´s what we were told anyway. Our guide kept picking up the sting rays so we could stroke them and try not to end up like Steve Irwin. On the way back to Caye Caulker we were given shrimp ceviche and rum punch. Sitting on the boat on the way back felt a bit like being in a James Bond film.

In the evening I went for a drink with Stefan who had been trying to sell me a different snorkeling tour the day before. Stefan wanted to "wake up with me" and because I couldn't do the "I don't understand" thing I used the only other thing that came to my head - "I can't, I'm English".

This morning I was up early so I went for a walk around the island and then caught the 8.30am boat back to Belize City. I've found a hostel here (with a fan, thankfully). I spent a bit of time wandering around the city, which is actually pretty small, but it's unbearably hot outside so I've given up on that! I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing in true Caribbean style.

I'll upload more photos soon.

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