Guatemala - Antigua and Lanquin

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Antigua

Antigua is the former colonial capital of Guatemala, which was relocated to Guatemala City due to its position amongst three active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. What were the Spanish thinking building a city here? Maybe the locals could have told them that if they weren't being attacked and exploited.... The city itself is very beautiful and appears impossibly clean and well preserved, and ordered for a city in Central America. Somebody told me that "The Book" describes it something like what a latin american city would be like it had been taken over and run by Scandinavians. I can't remember the exact quote...

It is incredibly touristy and again there appears to be more tourists than locals. Tina really didn't like it here, both because of the touristy vibe and the high prices. I wasn't too keen either but it was a good opportunity to live it up a little and go to some fancy bars and restaurants. We celebrated one month of travelling together by some fine (ish) wine in a fancy bar (we were attracted to the bar by the Cuban band playing), and then had a superb, but expensive, meal in a really good restaurant serving traditional local food.

We passed out drunk fairly early and rose at 5am to take the 6am tour to Volcan Pacaya, one of the three surrounding Volcanoes. That was, so far, one of the highlights of my trip. A fairly easy three hour climb up a track and then accross jagged, black, recently formed volcanic rock to a crater spurting out glowing red lava in rivers down the side of the volcano. We got impossibly close: we could smell the soles of our shoes melting on the hot rock and the air temperature was intense. In typical tourist fashion we toasted marchmellows on the lava. Every few minutes there was a dramatic thunder crack as gas was released from the main summit to our right and rock was spat out into the air. It doesn't get more spectacular than that! The concept of health and safety is slighty different here....there's no way this would be allowed in Europe, but we were kept a safe distance from the main summit. I appreciate the opportunity to make your own choices regarding safety; although one girl was wearing shorts and slipped and cut her leg on the sharp rock.

Lanquin

and Semuc Champey

We weren't keen to spend another night in Antigua so that same day when we decended from Pacaya we took a bus to Lanquin, being a convenient stop off between Antigua and Flores in the North. Lanquin is a small village close to the natural pools and cascades of Semuc Champey - another area of spectacular natural beauty, highly recommended by other travellers. We stayed in a log cabana in an eco-lodge (El Retiro - highly recommended) on the bank of the river, again surrounded by forest covered mountains. The next morning we were a little late up to take the arranged tour to Semuc Champey so we made our own way there by collectivo (a pick up truck where you stand in the back). Again really spectacular... bit of a theme when describing Guatemala... the river forms cascading connected clear green pools deep within a rocky gorge. We climbed to the view point at the top of the gorge, walked through the surrounding woodland, and swam in the pools.

Together with some other travellers that we had met in the lodge, we took a trip into the nearby caves with the provided guide. Our passage through the pitch black water filled tunnels was lit by a small candle that we each held. Sometimes we had to swim holding the candle between our teeth. There were various slippy obstacles to surmount such as a small waterfall, ladders etc, climaxing in a jump from a rocky outcrop into a black pool below. All pretty cool stuff that would again never be allowed in Europe.

Very early the next morning we hitched a ride to Flores with Milos, a Czech guy now living in the Virgin Islands that had hired a car to travel around Guatemala. We met him at Semuc Champey and again later in the lodge. We took the scenic route up to Flores, attempting to navigate through various unsealed unsignposted tracks. We didn't really know if we were going the right way (although we pretty much were going the right way) and neither did most of the locals we asked. Eventually we were escorted by two policemen on a motorbike back on to the main highway. We did pass through some beautiful countryside, ate lunch in a village off the beaten track, and swam in a little river. The swim in the river was kind of funny as when we arrived there was no one around, but while we were swimming a water truck arrived and started pumping out water. Then loads of people passed in buses to see us effectively swimming in their drinking water.

Flores was quite a pretty little town but again expensive and touristy: we only stayed one night. Very early in the morning the three of us drove to Tikal, a complex of Mayan temples deep in the jungle. We paid the exhorbitant entrance fee and then took an exceedingly expensive guided tour. The tour was very good, however, and we learnt a lot. Without some kind of background knowledge it's difficult to really appreciate what you are seeing. The complex is also very large and it could be a little difficult to navigate the jungle paths without someone who knows what they're doing. The ruins were the most impressive I've seen so far. We climbed a couple of the temples providing wonderful views across the jungle with other ruined temples jutting out from the trees.

That same day (yes, we were travelling fast) we drove back down to Rio Dulce - an unattractive port on the river which forms a convenient place to stop on the way to Honduras. After the less than salubrious surroundingly, the next thing I noticed was the amount of police, security guards, and guns in the vicinity. There were national guard patrols in the town, four machine gun armed bodyguards in our hostel restaurant both nights we were there, and just generally local people openly carrying guns. Needless to say we didn't explore the town in the evenings...

You may be wondering why the hell we stayed two nights then! Well the morning after our arrival we hired a boat along with a french/canadian couple we met, Pascal and Marie, and Milos. We took a trip along the Rio Dulce (freshwater river) through a nice canyon, stopped to swim where a hot spring seeps into the river, and finished up in Livingston. Livingston is a Garifuna town on the Carribean. It has a black culture very different to the rest of Guatemala, more similar to Belize. It was interesting to see how different the culture is there but we didn't find the town itself to be particularly interesting. We had a delicious lunch of fresh seafood and plantains cooked in coconut milk and returned to Rio Dulce.

We wanted to try to reach the Bay Islands, Honduras in one day so we decided to leave very early the next morning for the seven hour drive to La Ceiba arriving hopefully in time to catch the last ferry to the islands....

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Comments

[Lesley Stableford]

Amazing Lukey! Sounds like Indiana Jones - Can't wait for the next episode. Hope you're gonna publish! Lotsalove, mum xxx