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Published: November 13th 2007
Lake Atitlan
Water, volcanoes, blue skies and relaxation - what more could you ask for?Hello from Guatemala (again!). Only a few more hours and I will be leaving Guatemala, so this is my last blog entry from here.......but it is yet again an exciting episode in my travels.
After the exertions of hiking I spent a few days hanging out an Lake Atitlan, a beautiful lake that is surrounded by volcanoes. It is an amazingly picturesque place, so much so that half the hippies from the western world have moved there to find themselves. It was a tough couple of days spent reading books, swimming and strolling around the lake. I highly recommend the area for getting married, retiring, or recovering from a nervous breakdown.
From there I made the move north to Flores to the centre of Mayan ruins. Perhaps somewhat foolishly I immediately signed up for a 5 day hike into the jungle to see the ancient city of El Mirador, which can only be reached by foot or mule (or helicopter if you are rich enough, which I am not).
So how to describe the hike?? The first word that springs to mind is mud....mud mud mud as far as the eye can see. Sticky, dense mud that takes
Want to have some fun?
Try walking through mud like this for 4 days in a pair of gumboots. Good times. a lot of effort to walk through. The second word that comes to mind is blisters. Because of all the mud we had to wear gumboots the whole time we were hiking. Now I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time I walked 130km in a pair of gumboots and my tender feet felt every single metre. Luckily I was not the worst afflicted, as another girl practically had 11 toes because one of her blisters was that big. And the third word is mosquitos, great big swarms of them that followed us wherever we went. I have never been so grateful to put hardcore chemicals all over my skin just to keep the damn things away!!
That said, the jungle was pretty awesome. El Mirador was really interesting, it is a huge ancient city that has hardly been excavated so you walk up to stone pyramids covered in trees and half the time don't realise they are there until you are right on top of them. We got some awesome views from the tops of the pyramids and we had the place to ourselves, which makes a lovely change from many tourist spots. We
The views made it all worthwhile
Me at the top of one of the pyramids at El Mirador saw heaps of different types of trees (obviously) as well as monkeys, birds, a toucan, a tartantula and some other crazy looking insects. We even saw some jaguar poo!
But after 5 days in the middle of nowhere it was good to get back to civilisation. I spent a day at Tikal, which is another ancient Mayan city that you can reach by bus (thank goodness!). It was awesome, the ruins were really interesting and you could climb up the pyramids to get great views of all the huge stone structures sticking up out of the jungle. It was very lost world-esque.
Next stop Nicuaragua, will be in touch from there!
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Sarah K
non-member comment
We've got mozzie's too !
Hi Pen ! Man, the travels sound fabulous. What a dull public servant life I am leading by contrast. I did have a brush with wildlife on the weekend when Tim hosted a BBQ at which I was eaten alive by mosquito's. But they don't compare to those Guatemalan mozzies...That is really all my news ! Oh, nettie team doing well.