Guatemala - American Adventures 2015 (Part 4 of 9)

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I set off with friends I'd met in Belize all the way to Flores in the north of Guatemala. I was running late leaving as I'd dropped my earphones on the floor by the bed and I couldn't find it ... half hour later I gave up, went outside and walked to the end of the street, and it was there on the floor ... freaky.

When we got to the water taxi station we left our luggage by the side and went off for breakfast. There's a lotta trust involved with just leaving luggage there ... one of the guys had left a £2'500 bike there all week. The bus to Guatemala was pretty small and crappy-ass, and our suitcases were thrown to the top and tied down with pieces of rope ... if it flew off it was gone, but these locals know what they're doing.

During the journey once again there was the Belizean border to cross where they charged an exit fee, and then the Guatemalan border where they randomly decided which people to charge an entrance fee for. I'd heard there should be no entrance fee so I was arguing with the official. In the end when she wasn't backing down I asked her if the money was to line her own pocket, then she let it go.

There was a change in atmosphere as soon as we got into Guatemala, more 3rd-worldly and dirt roads bringing dust into the vehicle with the AC blowing, choking and blinding everyone ... fun times.

Usually I book a hostel a day or 2 before I arrive at a destination. This time I didn't do so and the plan was to go to Los Amigos, a very famous hostel over there. When we landed into Flores, there was a local guy there telling us Los Amigos is booked up and no good, go with him for better deals. Of course this was nonsense but I believed him and just wanted to settle in somewhere. My friends went off to find Los Amigos and I followed the guy to stay in a sh!thole of a place. That night a woman from the UK was crying because a housemaid had stolen her money and the staff didn't care nor wanted to call the police. There were plenty of mosquitoes about but they didn't give you bedsheets in the price and you had to pay for sheets. They had a kitchen to cook in but no utensils/cutlery ... so very basic but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

That night I went out for a walk to eat some street food by the peaceful lake. I'd make sure before I eat anything I don't recognize I'd ask "no carne" meaning no meat. Another traveller told me "you do realize that chicken isn't classified as meat here right?" ... which I didn't ... so now I had to ask "no carne, no pollo" ... it was a good tip. On the way back I bumped into the friends who went to Los Amigos ... they told me they got in no problem and it was amazing and they were all skipping and smiling and happy ... I felt sad inside 😞

The next morning I made a banana omelette for other travellers (my signature dish during the trip) and set off to Los Amigos. For 15 cents more I got an outdoor loft room in a tree, with electrical sockets, strong wifi, hammocks, pool table, bar and restaurant ... this was an amazing place.

I booked a trip to the Tikal Mayan ruins from the tour operators next door and went off on the sunset tour. It was around 1.5 hours on bus to get there and on the way a local woman and her boy were picked up so she could sell some food at Tikal. I was hungry so I kept buying her munchies on the bus. I asked her boy what his name was but he thought I meant the name of the food so he told me that ... and from that point on I kept calling him the name of the food ... basically a Spinach Pasty.

Tikal was lovely ... a very big Mayan ruin. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and also extremely dramatic, pretending to do illegal things and we should make sure the park rangers don't find out ... all part of the act. He clearly practised in front of the mirror and watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies. I had a tarantula on my face, went into dark caves with large insects, saw the treetop ruins during sunset. Luckily many people had torches to help us get back at night, otherwise there's no way to make it back, it's a jungle. At one point we got to a ruin which used to be people's bedrooms. I'd drank a lot of water that day but there were no toilets around ... so I sneaked off and went into one of these bedrooms ... I kept thinking whether I'd be cursed if I took a p!ss in the corner of the bedroom .... is the ghost of this Mayan in here with me? Will it try to touch me if I pull my pants down? I went for it anyway, sprayed my scent all over the walls and ran out before another tourist found out I was marking my territory.

When we got back from Tikal, I once again went out for local street food as nothing else was open. The local women kept laughing because I'd order platefuls, go and stuff my face with them and come back for a topup, 4 times. I was generally not eating very well on my travels, it never is easy but high carb bakery/flour foods, low in protein and fat ... not the best diet.

The next morning was my final day here before departing to southern Guatemala. I was performing my morning stretches and then went down to perform 2-finger pushups ... one of the girls that came with us from Belize thought I was praying to God. I hope I was facing Mecca during this pushup routine 😊

ANTIGUA

After getting my hair cut in the neighbouring town of Santa Elena, it was time to hop onto the bus to Guatemala City. I'd booked the journey to Antigua through the same guys I'd booked the Tikal tour through. I was concerned about whether they'd actually phoned the bus people up so I went all the way to the station a few hours earlier to confirm. When I got back I bumped into the tour guide and he said "you went to the station to confirm your bus, the guy at the station called me" ... moral of the story, trust these guys, they do their best to make sure tourists are ok.

During the bus journey we went through villages and sometimes local kids would be waiting to hop onto the bus. This wasn't a local bus but a long-distance tour bus, yet whenever the driver saw anybody who wanted a lift, he'd stop and they'd give the driver some cash in pocket to get them to wherever they wanted to stop off at. It took 7 hours to get to Guatemala City and the toilet on the bus was broken so if anybody needed to go, it would be a bottle, basin or out the window job (or ask the driver to stop off at a Mayan ruin bedroom).

Once I arrived into Guatemala City, I waited around for another bus to Antigua which was another hour's journey. Antigua is an interesting town ... it has a grid system for the roads so you can't get lost, as long as you count the streets and don't read the signs. The roads are numbered incrementally on all maps, but the street signs are people's names and not the actual numbers of the streets, so it's very confusing if you use the signs ... just count 1,2,3,4 as you walk across intersections .. it's much easier. I asked many people why the street names on the maps and on signs don't match and they tell me "yes they do" ... ermmm no they don't.

The roads were cobbled and it had an old feel to it with local Guatemalan culture. However, it was rather dirty and smoggy ... the town is surrounded by volcanoes and one of them had erupted recently and the air was full of ash ... it was so hard to walk the streets without choking or having eyes filled with ash. In fact, whenever I used my macbook outside it would turn black in 2 minutes .. and locals were walking around like it's all good ... definitely not good for the lungs or eyes.

I arrived at my hostel way too early in the morning and the guy on reception wouldn't let me in. There was a communication issue too as he kept nodding his head no matter what I said. When I asked him what languages he spoke and he said only Spanish, I spoke in Spanish and he was still just nodding his head with a blank look. I just walked past him and went in anyway.

It was a decent hostel and very quiet. On the terrace there was a kitchen where I used to make stir fry with Guava jelly and peanut butter. After settling in, I got chatting to a roommate who started a job at this massage parlour and called in to get one of them to give me a massage ... something I needed after the long bus journey here. Off I went to get this massage, which was nice, however more like a Thai massage ... I was being bent in all sorts of directions and afterwards she wanted me to leave the room to pay but I couldn't move my body for 20 minutes ... I was broken ... yet very relaxed.

During the day I just explored the grid system and ate local food ... wasn't much else to do. There were salsa clubs and you see people dancing as you walk past, anybody can just hop in off the street and start wiggling it all about. To be honest, I wanted to get away from the streets as I was developing weasy breathe with all this ash I was inhaling in ... so off I went back to the hostel for dinner. What I didn't realize at the time ... this hostel was more like a prison camp with rules and regulations. I felt like I was in jail .. they had curfews, you couldn't be out on the streets after a certain time, you couldn't use the kitchen after 9pm or make any noise or the guards would come and get you. I was skyping a friend on the rooftop when the guard came and shut all the lights off and told me to shutup and leave, it's 9pm, no excuses, go to sleep.

LAKE ATITLAN

In the morning I was picked up at 8pm for a 2.5hr bus journey to the village of Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. This is a large lake with volcanoes and many villages surrounding it. The villages all have their own personality, such as the party village, the hippy village, the relaxing village and so on. I decided to go to the relaxing village of Santa Cruz. The local fishermen are always ripping off tourists so you must haggle if possible ... the locals pay peanuts right before your eyes so they are openly ripping you off. I got onto the boat to Santa Cruz and landed on the port ... luckily my hostel was right on the port, La Iguana Perdida.

This was it ... chilling on the sofa, views of the lake and mountains, colorful flowers with hummingbirds and bees, a sign saying "we have no wifi, socialize instead" ... with daily group dinners and pop quizzes to get people mingling. People going scuba diving, an outdoor bedroom .. such a relaxing life. You can book Spanish lessons, weaving, local cookery, play basketball with the kids, and even join random families for dinner ... as you walk up the mountain you see signs outside houses saying "come join our family for dinner" ... for a little money of course, they're not just lonely families in need of tourists to spice up their lives. I'd be walking by a house at dinner time with 5 Guatemalans and a blonde girl, next house 4 Guatemalans and a Japanese dude ... it was cool.

I booked a weaving class with a local woman one super hot afternoon and was joined by a number of other tourists from the same hostel. When we got to her house I saw how simple the villagers lives were ... a few chickens in the back garden, few basic belongings, doing some weaving to make ends meet and get food in the belly ... no concern about saving up for the next model of iPhone or when road tax is due or how that new Lacie 4TB hard drive would be uber cool. Weaving is really hard, I was struggling a lot and kept messing up so in the end I let her finish it off in her spare time .... and I got a nice colorful belt out of it. After realizing how much effort these women go through to make these things and that tourists still try to haggle to get them for next to nothing, I felt a little sad.

Relaxation done, it was time to check out another village around Lake Atitlan. No, not the party village, San Marcos the hippy village ... more up my street. Getting the boat there involved being ripped off again and this time the fishermen know they're in the driving seat, literally .... there's only 1 way off the village and that's on their boat. My trick used to be to not accept their ridiculous prices and sit on my suitcase until the boat was about to leave, then offer them a reduced price and say "you have empty seats man, reduced price is better than nothing, make money off that empty seat senor" and they'd accept. I wasn't sure how many stops there were to San Marcos as the boat stops off along the way to pick people up from their houses ... so I was like the annoying backseat kid ... "are we there yet? are we there yet? is this it? are we there yet?" ... eventually we were there and getting off the port, there were 3 narrow lines to walk down, left, straight, right. It was a very bizarre layout to this village, just very narrow lanes with buildings erected alongside them ... not much open space, everything compact and in your face.

San Marcos was a pure hippy town full of yoga, meditation, saunas, shamanism, spiritual sex retreats, homeopathic remedies, all vegetarian food and 0% meat ... you get the idea. The 1st struggle was to find accommodation, every place I went to was booked up because this weekend they had a chocolate meditation ritual going on. Finally I found a room. The guy working there was all mellow and most likely stoned on something ... he gave me a bed in a small apartment with 2 beds downstairs and 2 beds upstairs. It was supposed to be a female-only apartment which is why the 3 other girls in there had booked it ... but I was to join in on their shenanigans.

For dinner I went to this place called Shambalah, a popular meetup place serving Indian paneer curry (which was tasteless) and people sitting and eating on the floor, cushions, live music with drums and sitars ... Japanese chess and weed. I wasn't dressed right with my shorts and tshirt, others were wearing cloths like in Jesus times. I joined in on the Japanese chess and was shaking my head left and right Indian style to their sitars ... fun times.

When I got back to the female-only dorm, I walked in and the 2 girls downstairs were sitting on their beds doggie-style with candles in front of them and they were chanting something in unison ... they had toilet paper rolls lined up neatly from big to medium to small ... and said some spells and brought their faces to the ground ... I got scared and ran upstairs wondering if it would be safe to fall asleep .... I have seen the Wicker Man with Nicholas Cage. Every half hour outside I kept hearing what sounded like gunshots firing into the air ... BANG ...peaceful ... BANG ... chant ... BANG. I began to wonder if there was a hidden agenda to this island, but I think my mind was playing tricks on me ... surely the fact that there were more women to men on this island was a coincidence and nothing more.

I did manage to sleep eventually ... but my chest was still screwed up from the volcanic ash so I was weasing and coughing and clearing my throat all night and not letting the girl next to me sleep (next to me in a different bed). In the morning she was asking me why I'm staying in a girls-only dorm and wasn't happy with me ... but I'm not the one who gave myself the room in this toilet-paper-worshipping dorm. I had to pay for my stay here because it was time to leave Guatemala, however the owners weren't about so I gave this same girl the money and asked her to pay the owners ... hopefully she did instead of going out and buying more TP.

I walked up to the square where a minibus was supposed to pick me up to take me El Salvador. The bus was late by an hour and during this time I got chatting to a Russian dude who was also on his way to San Salvador ... this sparked a temporary friendship and the beginning of another interesting off-the-map adventure ...

... to be continued.

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