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Published: January 20th 2008
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December 17, 2007: Eliot and I arrive in to Guatemala City in the early afternoon. We stayed in Zona Viva. There are bars and nice cafes in this area. Even MacCafe was nice.
December 18, 2007: This day was dedicated to exploring the city. Zona 1 was a pure madness (
My 1st chicken bus ride). There were people everywhere. We were literally shoulder-to-shoulder on the side walk. We walked back to Zona Viva via the textile museum. It seemed that I was the only Asian person in the entire city. In fact, I heard people spotting me as china or chinita.
December 19, 2007: We moved to Panajachel. We survived 5hrs of rough bus ride (
Saga continues on public buses). Strolled around Panajachel and caught sunset by Lake Atitlan.
December 20, 2007: We were planning to go to the market in Chichicastenango but decided to stay aroundLake Atitlan. Panajachel already had enough crafts vendors for non-shoppers like us. After breakfast, we got a boat for Q150 for 2 of us to go to Santa Catarina Palopo and San Antonio Palopo. We had about 30min-1hr at each location. I loved visiting both villages. People seemed very happy and self-sustained. I thought people dressed really well too.
Images. From Panajachel, we picked up another boat to Santiago. This boat was fast but bumpy. In the evening, we strolled around Panajachel and picked up corn on a cob (w/ mayo, cheese and chili sauce) and tacos on the street. Taco was out of this world! Tortilla (handmade, always) was dipped in sauce and grilled slightly...yum!
December 21, 2007: We left Panajachel ~noon to reach Coban. We hit afternoon traffic near Guatemala City and we didn't get to Coban until 9pm. I didn't eat all day because I was getting motion sickness. But in Coban, nothing was open except for Pollo Campero (fried chicken) place. I barely had a few pieces of bread at the hostel. Pretty rough day....
December 22, 2007: We signed up for an all-day excursion to Sumec Champey. Champey is a rain forest ~2hr drive from Coban. Most of the way was on paved freeway that runs along banana/coffee farms. ~10miles from Sumec Champey, the road became gravel. The guide drove AWD pick up. We hiked to the limestone pool. Then we stopped by the cave on the way back. Sumec Champey was gorgeous.
Images. Coban seemed a bit run-down. We found
a moms 'n' pops comida. Horchata I had there eventually came back to haunt me the next day....
December 23, 2007: We left Coban on 6:30am bus. (
Shuttle but still public) We got to the Carribean Sea at ~3pm in Puerto Barrio. From there, we took a boat to Livingston. We stayed at a nice hostel by the sea that served great food. Their Tapado was delicioso!! Rooms were like bungalows so each bed came with mosquito net, which came in really handy. Weather was very pleasant in the north.
December 24, 2007: At 9:30am, we took a boat ride to Rio Dulce. Ride was >1hr but the boat stopped by hot spring on the way. The plan was to stay in Rio Dulce on the 24th and move to Tikal on the 25th. However, fellow travelers from New Zealand alerted to us that there will be no shuttles on Christmas day. After hustling and bustling, it was best that we left on the 24th. Although Rio Dulce was fun. We took the last bus to Santa Elena (near Flores).
Christmas Eve was restless. Fire crackers were going off all night, near and far.
December 25, 2007: From Santa
Elena, we walked over to Flores. Since it was Christmas, town was quiet with many shops closed. We hired a boat to visit El Mirador. It was a gorgeous day.
Images. December 26, 2007: We took 5am shuttle to Tikal. Ride was ~1hr. At ~6am, we passed the park entrance. Shuttle went on for another 30min until the parking lot. Additional 30min hike into the jungle took us to the main plaza where two large pyramids are faced each other. We went all over the park to visit most of the excavated ruins.
Images. Making reservation at Jaguar Inn at the park was a good call. It was right by the parking lot. Park was operating on generators so we had electricity and hot water during the limited time of a day. I didn't think of this but so many things on the menu were slashed out without electricity being available. For example, I had to give up my craving for licuado (requires blender). Sunset/sunrise was heavily advertised but it was impossible. At least when we were there (2 days), it was foggy until ~7am when sun has completely risen. We didn't find good sunset either.
The whole park is deep in jungle so there is no horizon in sight. Any pyramid would cast shadow before sunset.
December 27, 2007: Because we wanted to take pictures of the ruins facing the afternoon sun, we strolled around park entrance area in the morning, checking out sourvenirs etc. In the afternoon, we went for more jungle hiking.
Jungle was full of animals. We could always hear birds and monkeys were everywhere on the trees. We also encountered coatis. But they were the harmless ones. Mosquito! Most of the bites went away within an hour-ish but the last bite I got grew into 1x2 inch mound. It was hot for at least a day. Last but not least, the ants. It's the kind that bites. They were carrying big pieces of leaves. Looked cool. So I took a picture of them with a flash. Ouch! Before I knew it, bunch of ants were going into my shoes and pants. They bit into my skin tight that brushing them off wasn't enough force. I was pretty helpless there. I had to pull them off one by one, yikes.
We took the last bus back to Flores. This
was nice, although the shuttle was full of sweaty tired people. I had Bob Marley in the background, a bit of breeze from the window, and gorgeous bright red sunset behind small villages.
We took a red eye bus to Guatemala City. Here was a bit of debacle though. We purchased bus tickets already but the travel agency didn't actually reserve the seats. So we had to bite the bullet and buy new tickets! Eliot tried to contact the travel agency after we came back to the US but the phone number is not valid...sketchy. But they did get us a roundtrip shuttle between Flores and Tikal.
December 28, 2007: We got to Guatemala City bus stop at ~6am. We grabbed a cab to the station for Antigua bus. Antigua was a nice town where we could stroll around and run into rustic ancient churches with cracks in the building as we get a whif of bread-baking smell. Funny thing is that Antigua, housing the most toursits, was where we could get a really good cup of coffee.
There is a huge open market where we found varieties of fruits, ceviches, sourvenirs and everything else. There, I
found Loquats, which I've been longing for since I left Japan 18yrs ago. I also tried zapote. I had never seen this before. It looks like big brown dry avocado. But inside is thick orange fruit that tastes like dried dates. Really good!
Last note: I think this deserves a mention. We tried Pollo Campero. This fast food fried chicken place was everywhere throughout the country. I'd give my thums up. It's similar to Popeyes but I thought that the chicken was a bit more solid.
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