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Flores and Tikal
Heading into Guatemala via a little used border crossing was just a taste of what the real Central America is like and an excellent introduction to Guatemalan time which is, well, not on time. Despite a very exciting morning (my travelling companions slept through their alarm, woke up 5 mins before the bus, and whilst speedily trying to pack, came across a scorpian hiding in their clothes - needless to say they were very awake despite it being only 6am) the trip quickly disintergrated. What should have been a four or five hour trip was slightly extended after spending three hours sitting in no mans land on the river bank that separates Mexico from Guatemala waiting for a connecting bus. All in all I caught two mini buses, one river boat, one school bus and another mini bus to travel a mere 200-300 km...
Arriving in Flores, a little island near Santa Elena, with its big inviting lake and hot hot temperatures made the decision of what to do for the afternoon easy. SWIMMING! For a built up area, the water was pretty good, if slightly warm and tropical. Note to other travellers though, don´t try
jumping off the pontoon just sitting 100m into the lake... The senora who owns it angrily yells at backpackers using her floating restaurant as a jumping or diving platform. Yes, that is why there is one plastic chair on it.
The next day was just a little too hot to go exploring the ruins in nearby Tikal, so unfortuantely another day swimming in the lake was called for. But the trip to Tikal is definately worth it. I saw real live spider monkeys swinging through the trees and some other racoon type animal which is pretty tame until you go to pat it. (Note to self, stop trying to pat wild animals.) Tikal is an awesome Mayan city, which towers above the jungle and has a real sense of adventure about it. The signs that point up jungle paths are a little misleading, so wandering aimlessly through the jungle is definately the way to go. And makes for exciting moments when you feel like you´ve just discovered a new temple, only to walk around it and find all the tourists who clearly somehow found the right path. Climbing up the ruins was way more fun than other places, because
rather than damage the ruins, you have to climb staircases which are clearly a lot safer than just scrambling up the rocks. These big wobbly steep wooden staircases made the trip all the more fun.
Coban and Semuc Champey
The following day I moved on to Coban which I don´t recommend to anyone as it is boring and built on the top of a hill meaning everything was uphill from where I was staying. I should have taken a leap of faith and gone straight into the depths of the jungle to Lanquin or Semuc Champey...
Heading out there was awesome and so far the best thing I´ve done in the last few weeks. Semuc Champey is a series of 23 limestone rockpools above an underground river. You need a guide to experience it in all its glory, and I spent hours following my guide through the pools, into caves, and off rock jumps into white water. Who, at the scariest jump, assured me he had training on how to rescue people who ended up unconscious. I´ve got no photos of all the cool stuff as you need both hands for scaling the somewhat slippering rock faces
but it was very very cool. You can stay in the jungle and spend more days relaxing in the cascadas. One traveller I met out there woke up with a live chicken in his bed in the middle of the night, and another had at least 100 painful looking bites from some beastie that decided she tasted nice. Definately jungly!
Antigua
Antigua the old capital of Guatemala was my next stop, and although super touristy, it could be easy to stay there too long. Its a jumping off point for surrounding areas and I made a quick visit out to the markets at Chichicastenango. Suprisingly, it turned out not to be as quick as anticipated. The alleged 1.5 hour journey there took more like four. Love the travel tour agents here.
Antigua itself is famous for all its church ruins. Which I think have something to do with the three surrounding volcanoes and the San Andrea fault line!! But could I see the volcanoes...? No. Clouds like volcanoes so I just had to believe people when they told me they were there. So when I booked a tour to Pacaya, the live volcano of the three I
was a little sceptical. You can only scale the volcano in a tour for two reasons, one the bandits (nothing like hiking with a guide carrying a massive machine gun) and two the foggy moonscape. Getting there involved walking uphill (duh) aided by the 3 quetzals stick I bought from the mob of village children. (Whilst the stick is a good idea the kids aren´t stupid and wait for your return where they refuse to pay for the stick and just wait until you get bored of carrying it before stealing it away to sell to the next tourist.)
The walk seemed pretty normal at first, just the group, a guide and a horse (which the guide told me in no uncertain terms was for fat people). But after an hour or so, the landscape got suddenly very eerie... The volcanic rock meant it was difficult to see any recognisable path. and with the fog, no visibility of where exactly the volcano was hiding. After an awesome couple of hundred metres sliding down the volcano at high speed (it was like running down a sand dune) and weaving my way through rocks outcrops, we came upon the lava.
Words are inadequate to describe how it slowly flowed down the mountain side, hissing and moving rocks, cooling and then popping. And watching that with the rumbles from deep within the volcano was awesome. My guide assured me it was safe to be there while there was lava. It is when the lava stops flowing, and the volcano starts building up pressure that its a mucho grande problemo. He spent hours telling me stories of eruptions (he lives in the village at the bottom of the volcano - smart hey) and the joys of living in the region. The last big eruption caused over 600 earthquakes in three days, and hours of rocks raining down on his corrugated iron roof. And I thought rain was loud. These stories were all told in spanish with big hand signals, but I got the picture pretty well.
I´m looking forward to seeing more volcanoes as I move south but don´t think I will be able to get as close to the lava at any of the others as I did at this one. Oh and yes it is hot... I am less a little bit of arm hair after getting close to
toast my marshmallows. Just awesome!!
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Krista
non-member comment
Looks like fun!
I would love to be down there roasting marshmallows over the molten hot lava with you, Kylie! Thanks so much for keeping your readers abreast of your trip. It looks like a once in a lifetime trip! Keep us posted. :-) Miss you! -k