Week 3 - Guatamala Highlands

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Week 3 has been a bit of a strange week; both weather, locations and the culture of the Guatemalan people. One of the things that I have noticed is how spiritual people are in Central America. So far I have had my palm read (apparently my palm shows that I am a genius who is suppose to get pregnant in the next 6 months), discussed my "white" energy on more than one occasion and bizarrely I was told that my redeeming feature of my body is my "exotic knees", apparently it is part of their horoscope readings. These beliefs are so strong that it is really difficult to respond to these conversations without offending people.

Week 3 began in Antigua, this is a beautiful colonial town just outside Guatamala City. Luckily at the same time I arrived one of the girls from Belize was planning on travelling up into the Highlands so we have spent the last 5 days backpacking together. My first day in Antigua was pretty quiet, to be honest my clothes smelt of jungle. So I refused to leave the hostel until I had something clean to wear (I know its a really tough life).

My second day in Antigua was also my last one and so I set off to explore. Within 10mins I had started chatting to local who volunteered to show me around the city. It was a great afternoon, mainly as I was taken to loads of markets, ruins and churches that were not in my Lonely Planet but Erik was also able to tell me a lot of the history of the area, which was really interesting.

The next stop on the whirlwind tour of Guatamala was Lago de Atitlan. This is a beautiful lake around 1600m about sea water, that is surrounded by 3 volcanoes (these were actually the first conical volcanoes that I ave ever seen). There are several towns around the lake but we decided to base ourselves in a place called Panajachel on the North of the lake. As it is rainy season the entire area was virtually deserted of backpackers, having seen the torrential down pour on our first evening I can't blame people for staying away. There were rivers running down the street and the Guatemalans seem to enjoy speeding up and soaking the two of us as we walked down the street.

With this area being focused entirely on the lake the weather could have been disastrous for us, luckily in the morning it had stopped. Instead of doing the normal tourist tour around the lake we decided we wanted to jump on the local boats that went to every village (and there are a lot of them), this option was cheaper and also it gave us more flexibility on where we went. In the end we went to 3 villages; Jaibalito, San Pedro and Santiago. The village was Jaibalatio, it was a really local town and I don't think that many people visited it. The local school children ran up to us and held our hands and when we sat in a shop for a coffee they sat outside and stared. It was a really strange experience, we didn't really know where to look. I don't think I have ever downed a coffee as quickly as that before. The second town was called San Pedro, it was a tourist town with a beautiful old market with little to do but shop and drink. We wandered around the market and the old square then had lunch. To be honest it was a bit of a waste of time.

The final village we went to was called Santiago, and this was a bizarre experience. This is one of the few villages that continue to worship the "evil" saint Maximon and they have a statue that they continue to worship to this day. The statue is moved every year and it considered an honour to be selected to house it. The lucky villager has to guard the statue all day and ensure that the correct ceremonies are performed for offerings, so it is considered a huge responsibility. Well this was something we wanted to see. On arriving in the port we met a small child who agreed to take us to the statue. We all jumped into a Tuk tuk and off we drove. After about 5 minutes we were dropped off outside this house and told the statue was in there. Having knocked on the door we were pointed down this tiny dirty alley and told to keep following it. It was ridiculous, there was water pouring down the alley and we just kept asking directions and getting pointed further and further down the alley. Just as we were starting to get worried we saw these flashing lights ahead of us, we were there. When I walked into the room, initially I thought it was a joke. There was a huge statue in front of us that was guarded by the 2 "keepers" of Maximon. There was one on each side of the statue. The statue was smoking a cigarette that the keepers had to keep on re-lightening with money tucked into the clothes. To the right there was a giant coffin that had been draped with Christmas lights, that even repeated "Jingle Bells" again and again. It was surreal! We paid our money, took some photos and then practically ran away. No one spoke for the entire 10mins we were there. I am glad to have seen it, but I don't think I would rush back. As we jumped back on the boat to our hostel it once again started raining, so it was another evening of torrential downpour making it virtually impossible to leave the hostel.

The final stop before we started heading back to Guatamala City was called Quetzaltenango. We had both had it recommended to us as a great place to visit, mainly for some Natural Thermal Hot springs high in the mountains behind the town. We jumped on a local chicken bus and arrived there about 11am the following morning. By 2pm we were bored, apparently if you are not trekking (and the visibility was appalling) there isn't anything to do. In complete desperation we decided to visit the Natural History Museum. The first couple of rooms were a bit strange (one had a glass cabinet of crayon drawings), there was the room showing the 1940's Photocopiers and typewriters and another of what looked like all the local university sporting medals possible to win, it wasn't your typical natural history museum. Finally we reached the Natural History segment of the museum, it was awful. They had two headed cows, a family of stuffed lions with wooden tongues and what is worse the foetus's of various animals (including a human). It actually made us both feel physically sick so we had to leave the museum. Unsurprisingly we wanted to leave the town but unfortunately we had booked the thermal baths for the following morning. So with an empty hostel and with everywhere closed in the town the evening was pretty quiet, mainly spent planning our escape from the town.

The following morning we made it to the Thermal springs and they were beautiful, it was misty and a bit rainy and really atmospheric. The baths themselves are heated from volcanic thermal vents and initially I didn't realise that each pool was a different temperature. Luckily just before I jumped into the pool of literally boiling water some locals managed to stop me before I scaled myself. One of the bizarre things was that it seemed to be where the locals went to cleanse themselves and they were throwing scalding water all over their children. It was pretty cruel to watch actually. After 2 hours of soaking in the pools we were ready to leave to catch our bus for Guatamala City.

We arrived in Guatamala about 7pm and checked into a local hotel. Guatamala City is unbelievably dangerous for foreigners so we went out for dinner with the hostel owners and then went back to our hostel for a couple of beers on the roof. It was a great way to spend our final evening in Guatamala.

This morning we had to get up at 04.30 to catch the bus to El Salvador and I am currently sitting in hostel in San Salvador preparing to go to the beach tomorrow.......I can't wait!

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Comments

[Tara]

Shakespear
U write so well another clo beau talent cant believe iv just found this site .....wat experiences keep living the dream... love ya miss ya xx