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Published: September 4th 2008
Lake Peten
View from the start of the hike in Biotopo Cerro Cahui. The colours of Guatemala
It's the
colours that I remember best from Guatemala. The perfect blue of Lake Atitlan, once called the most beautiful lake in the world; the red rivers of lava on Volcan Pacaya, which flowed no more than 100 metres from us on the volcano's slopes; the reflections on the white stones of Tikal in the early morning light. And that's only the natural colours...even more striking are the small pueblos. Each village attempts to outdo the next in terms of the designs and colours of their local dress, especially during their festivals (and there's no shortage of these). In bigger cities, such as Antigua, it's the colours of the colonial buildings that stand out. All in all, Guatemala is a feast for the eyes.
Our adventures in Guatemala began on a cold Thursday morning at 5.30 am when we reached the border close to Copan Ruinas in Honduras. Once again we were charged a fee for crossing a Central American border. But, in this case there was no notice of fees on the immigration office window, while the receipt we were given was an illegible signature on a blank piece of paper. Not long after,
we saw a sign in Spanish saying
"Do not pay any fees to customs officials." It was only a couple of dollars each but it was a taste of things to come in what for us was by far the most corrupt country in Latin America.
Colonial Splendour
We breezed through Guatemala City, another of Central America's capitals that are allegedly best avoided, and moved on to
Antigua, the one time capital. It's ease to see why it's considered one of Latin America´s most impressive cities, with beautiful churches, colonial mansions and atmospheric ruins everywhere. There are also plenty of modern attractions such as western style cafes, nice restaurants and cinemas, making it a perfect place to stop if you've been away from civilisation too long.
Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, the most active of which is
Pacaya, where you can usually see smoke belching from the top and lava flowing down the sides. In any other country I'm sure health and safety (not to mention sanity) standards would not allow you to go anywhere near such an active volcano. But this being Guatemala, there are daily organised tours allowing you to get up close and personal
A river of lava on Volcan Pacaya
This was the closest we got to the lava on Volcan Pacaya. But it was more than close enough for me! with the red stuff. On some tours, where the lava doesn't flow too fast, you can even walk right by it and poke it with a stick!
Competition amongst agencies makes the tours fairly good value, though I think that by opting for the extra cheap price of 45 Quetzals ($1 = 7.5Q), it should have been no surprise when I didn't get a proper seat on the bus and ended up sitting on a spare tyre in the aisle. We drove to the trailhead, picked up our tourguide and set off up the slopes of the volcano. The lava on Pacaya was visible from the trailhead, and even here we were much closer to it than we had been allowed on a similar lava tour in Costa Rica. Our second guide doubled as a security man, and carried one of the biggest guns I've seen. Rivers of lava are not the only dangers on Pacaya, and there have been cases of armed robbery here in the past.
We hiked for about an hour until we were within about 300 metres of the lava river. Then the confusion started. There were 28 of us in all and some
of the group wanted to go no further while others wanted to get closer to the lava. The guides first said it was too dangerous to go higher, then when we pressed them on this they said it was safe but that they didn't want to split the group. Finally they agreed that one group would go higher while the other returned. So with all that time wasted by the time we did get to the top of the ridge, within about 100 metres of the lava river, it was already almost dark and nearly time to turn around. But what a sight the river of lava was - I've never seen anything quite like it. It did get a little scary when red hot rocks would break away from the river and hurtle down the slopes at full speed.
The descent down was even scarier. It was pitch dark by now, there were 28 of us spread out all over the place and not everyone had a torch. The volcanic rock was very tough to walk on so we had to go slowly and every time I looked back at the lava it seemed to be getting closer.
But all of us made it back safely, though I find it hard to believe there aren't more accidents on these sort of trips.
A beautiful lake
Aldous Huxley once called Lake Atitlan
"the most beautiful lake in the world", meaning the lucky residents of Panajachel, San Pedro and other lake towns have only had to sit back and watch visitors flood in ever since.
But there's no denying its beauty. Behind the lake, picture perfect volcanoes rise, while at its shores lie fascinating traditional villages, seemingly unchanged for decades.
Pana and
San Pedro de Laguna are the most popular spots for visitors, but if you fancy something less touristy there are plenty of quieter options in equally impressive locations.
Pana is the easiest place to reach on the lake and its main sight is the
Atitlan Nature Reserve which has trails, waterfalls and even monkeys. We spent an hour watching the spider monkeys high up in the trees and it was like watching a performing act so impressive was the swinging. There's not too much else to see in Pana though there's no shortage of restaurants or souvenir stores. I reckon about 13995 of Pana's
14000 residents work in tourism (doctor, postman and a few pharmacists excepted), but it's an easy place to like nonetheless.
In San Pedro we tried to book a tour to climb the San Pedro volcano but were persuaded to go to Cerro Cristalino (aka
Indian's Nose and aka Mayan Face - I'll call it Indian´s Nose to avoid confusion) instead due to security concerns on the San Pedro trail. Both tours cost the same amount and both included park entrance fees. However, the San Pedro entrance fees are higher so the cynic in me thinks the agency encourage people to do the Indian's Nose tour and hence take a bigger cut for themselves. But who knows, maybe I´m wrong and they're are armed bandits waiting for you on San Pedro.
In any case, the hike to the Indian's Nose was an excellent trek. We left at 6am with the sun just rising over the lake and made it to the summit two hours later from where we had good views of the lake. We could see all the way to Pacaya in the distance - even the columns of smoke rising from it were clear and visible. To
Spider Monkey
We saw spider monkeys for the first time in the Atitlan Nature Reserve. This particular monkey put on a great display of acrobatics. anyone thinking of doing the Indian's Nose hike, I´d advise you to do it alone, since the trail is easy to follow and there´s no safety risk.
After the summit we continued hiking to a nearby village,
Santa Clara, which was in the middle of it´s annual festival. Santa Clara had a big, busy market, full of locals in traditional and very impressive local dress. The highlight was seeing the
Voladores dance, an ancient Maya ritual/sport which involved masked locals, securely attached to ropes, spiralling downwards from the top of a tall pole. I didn't understand any of the symbolism behind the performance but it was a fantastic sight. It's not aimed at tourists, as aside from our group, there were no other gringos amongst the large crowd of locals.
There's something rotten in the heart of Guatemala
I've mentioned the impression that the colours of Guatemala made on us, but after a week in the country something else was becoming noticeable too.
Guatemala allegedly has one of the most corrupt political systems in the world and, sad to say, it seems this corruption has seeped down into everyday life, especially in the tourist industry, where
visitors are almost always charged more than they should be.
This goes on to a small extent everywhere in Latin America, but I've never seen it done so shamelessly or explicitly as in Guatemala. And it's not just in buying tours or checking into hotels. You quickly find out that everything, whether it's a ride in a chicken bus, a bottle of water in a shop, or visiting a sight has a different price for gringos. Our Spanish is pretty good at this stage and we were able to tell exactly what locals were paying on, say, for example, buses, but the conductors kept denying we were being charged more.
I understand the argument that Guatemala is one of the world's poorest countries and that foreigners should expect to pay more. But Nicaragua and Honduras are equally as poor, yet visitors aren't treated this way. In almost all Latin American countries people have seemed welcoming to visitors and proud to show them off their country, but in Guatemala tourists are seen only as cash cows, and all that many locals seem to care about is extracting their quota of money from them. In fairness, we did visit only
the most touristy areas of the country, so hopefully it's something that is confined to these areas.
Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela
We had big plans for hiking in Xela, a town in the western highlands close to some of Guatemala's highest peaks. But bad weather and security problems on Tajumulco (Central America's highest peak which we hoped to climb to round over our trip) forced us to change our plans. Xela seems to have even more language students than Antigua, but is nowhere near so touristy. It didn't seem too impressive a town at first, but after a few days it had grown on us. It reminded me a little bit of districts in East Berlin, what with the great little cafes, bars and restaurants that you almost don't realise are there. We spent most evenings in the
Blue Angel which shows movies every night, in small rooms in a local family home.
The weather was bad for all 3 days of our stay so our only excursion - an appropriate one in such conditions - was to the
Fuentes Georginas hot springs on the sloped of Volcan Santa Maria. This was a lovely spot, beautiful
Star Wars
To Star Wars fans it's the rebel base on Yavin 4; to everyone else it's Temples I and III at Tikal. pools in the middle of nowhere, very few people, and very hot water in the heavy rain. It was too wet to do much else in Xela so we spent our times in cafes reading about the Mayans or pondering why Quetzaltenango, the town's official name, is shortened to Xela (pronounced shay-lah)?
Mayan ruins in the jungle
We saved the best for last in Guatemala.
Tikal was miles away from Xela in the northern jungles but was well worth the long journey. We first had to backtrack to Guatemala City, a 5 hour journey, then take an overnight bus to Flores. This was one of the worst overnight buses I've been on, quite how they can call it luxury service is beyond me, unless they consider chicken bus normal. We got little sleep, and even worse, Ruth picked up food poisoning which put here on the sidelines for the next few days. I'm not sure of the exact cause, but it might well have been the sandwich on the said bus, which she ate and I luckily skipped.
Flores was immediately impressive. It's a small island on Lake Peten, and as the closest town to Tikal, it's
very well set up for tourists. While Ruth recovered I had to fend for myself over the next few days. Much to my surprise I didn't get robbed, lost on any hiking trails, or attacked by any snakes!
Tikal is one of only two places in the world to be both a cultural and natural UNESCO World Heritage site (the other is Machu Picchu). And when you see Tikal you understand why, as it's setting in the middle of dense and thick jungle, is perfect.
A short walkway led from the visitor centre to the ticket entrance, and from there the jungle paths began. Despite all the crowds, I didn't see another person until I reached the ruins. Instead, I was accompanied by the sounds and noises of the jungle. I finally arrived at the end of the trail and was greeted by the site of a huge stone temple rising high above the forests - this was Temple I, the tallest and best known of Tikal's many stone temples.
Some thoughts from my diary about Tikal:
1. I was surprised that visitors were allowed walk up steps and along the walls of some temples and
buildings. While it is nice to stand on top or walk on them, it can hardly be good for preserving the structures.
2. Tikal had very few impressive stelae (statues) in comparison to Copan, but the height and splendour of the temples more than made up for it.
3. The jungle hides the temples very well. Temple III, whose base remains unexcavated, is almost invisible at ground level,but the top of the temple is very prominent along the skyline.
4. There was very little labelling or general information about the site. Having spent $15 on a ticket it would be good to read a little bit about what you were seeing.
5. The jungle environment is fantastic. It's a strange and interesting experience walking between the temples, as you leave an area full of tourists and a minute later you're on your own in the jungle and usually don´t see anyone again until you reach another temple. During walks around the park I spotted spider monkeys, wild turkeys and some very colourful butterflies, while another guy I met had seen a snake wander across the path.
So Tikal was our last stop in a country
Summit of the Indian's Nose
Ruth and me on the summit of Indian's Nose, with Volcan San Pedro and San Juan de Laguna in the background. that I have mixed feelings about. With ruins like Tikal and cities like Antigua, Guatemala will never have any shortage of visitors. But in comparing our experiences in Guatemala with say, Nicaragua, it´s the latter that made a more favourable impression and it's the latter I'd pick to see first if I'm lucky enough to ever return to this part of the world.
We left Guatemala as we had entered it, on a 5am shuttle bus, meaning our last sight was a beautiful sunrise over Lake Peten, yet another shade in Central America's most colourful country.
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cricri
non-member comment
wonderful blog, antigua rocks, me off to Tena, EC. happy travels you really should write professionally