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Published: September 4th 2012
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Hello friends and family,
This blog details our adventures through Guatamala. If you get the chance to visit this country then we highly recomend it! Guatamala is ALL TIME, probably one of the sickest countries that we have been to.
Nicaragua left a great taste in our mouths and it was sad to leave her behind but there were many more adventures waiting for us in Guatamala. We decided to skip Honduras and El Salvador but the bus companies do not travel at night (due to armed hold ups) so we spent an interesting night in Honduras and then finally ended up in Guatamala city. Tired, cramped and sweaty, we piled fifteen people into a nine seater shuttle bus and made the one hour trip up to the mountain-volcano town of Antigua.
Antigua sits at the base of two volcanoes at an elevation of 1500m. It has a strong spanish colonial feel with cobbel stone streets, verandahs with hanging flower pots, large wooden doors and houses painted in an array of pastel colours. The fresh crisp mountain air was a delightful and long forgotten feeling on our coastal skin and made exploring the town enjoyable. The girls ran
a riot through the many artesian markets but our new found english friends were not to far behind with Ollie buying three or more colourful knitted jackets. Our hostel had a fire pit out the back and over the course of two days we had a range of laughs and drinks. Our last night out together ended at 3am in a 20 person redition of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody in the street.
The next day, Paul, Alana, Jess and Chris made the long journey across Guatamala to the famous Rio Dulce (A river that opens at the Carribean and plays host as the most safest docking area during hurricane season). We did not know much about this region but we were soon to find out more as Alanas long lost uncle Gary has hand built a Hotel on the river here. He picked us up from the wharf in his little dingy and motored down the river and into canal lined with mangroves and wetlands. Water birds swooped down from the trees that hung over head and a variety of different coloured orchids grew from the lush vegetation that sprouted from the water wonderland. We winded our way deeper into
this canal and finally pulled upto the dock at
www.hotelkangaroo.com Gary and his wife Graciela have hand built this hotel on the water backing into the mangroves. It sits on stilts with elevated walkways joining the different areas, so you can see fish and turtles underneath you while you eat lunch or while you just walk to your room. The hotel is three stories high and built without power tools. It's a pretty amazing place, like a modern day waterworld. Gary was an amazing host and he organised our activities for the next couple of days. We took a boat trip down the Rio Dulce, through villages on the water, stopping at hot springs, cruising through massive gorges and ending up at the Caribbean port town of Livingston. We went on a spontaneous tour of the local 'African' community, visited their schools and saw their way of life. Our tour guide was the local teacher and we were happy to donate to their school fund. Walking through these shanty villages, while listening to reggae beats, we could not help but feel that we had stumbled apon the Guatamalan equivalent of Kingston.
Garys next adventure for us was well
off the beaten path. He is the only person in the Rio Dulce who sents tourists on this next trip. We loaded up into a van and drove out of town whilst trying to remember Gary's instructions
"Catch the van out of town for 30 minutes and jump out at the bridge, walk through the jungle for 15 minutes following the river and you will find a waterfall, when your done playing, come back to the road and hail a local van and go another 15 mintues down the road. Jump out at the next river. Find the kids with the wooden canoes and pay them $1 to paddel you up stream. When your done, catch a local van back to town"
We made it to the river and walked through the jungle. We found the waterfall and it was the most unusual waterfall that we had ever seen. The water in the waterfall was boiling hot and it tumbled off the cliff and into the cold water of the river below. AMAZING!! A HOT WATERFALL. It also a had a little cave behind the hot water that you had to swim into and it acted like a natural
sauna. Of course a range of rock jumping took place, which resulted in Lloydy dislocating his shoulder. Paul and Chris also spent ages looking for bat man inside the bat caves.
After a couple hours of swimming and exploring it was time to go back to the road and jump on a local bus and jump on it is exactly what we did! The bus was full but in true local style we loaded onto the roof racks and away we went. With the wind in our hair and an extremely firm grip, we finally made it to the next river. We paid the canoe kids, loaded into the slowly sinking rafts and set off from a little gravel bank. Howler monkeys were screaming from the trees as we made our way into a very narrow gorge. This was right out of Jurrasic Park!
It was beautiful and spiritual. It blew us away. The stream winded its way between five hundred meter high cliffs that were dotted with caves, vegetation and waterfalls. The local Maya people still use these caves for century old rituals. Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps. One of the best experiences of this
whole trip.
After we said our goodbyes, we took a 7 hour shuttle trip through a remote area of the Guatamalan Highlands and into the tiny village of Lanquin, where we stayed for a couple of days. From here we took a tour to Semuc Chempey. With no torches, only candles our group spent 2 hours going deep into a cave system where you must swim through sections, slide down rocks and climb up waterfalls, all the whilst trying not to let your candle extinguish. AMAZING. After this we did a 12 meter bridge jump off a bridge and into a river. The journey continued as we hiked through the dense jungle and up to the limestone pools of Semuc Chempey. See pictures!!!!!!!! So beautiful.
We were running low on time so we boosted it up to the Northern Guatamalan town of Flores, which is the stepping stone to the famous Mayan ruin of TIKAL. Ancient ruins pop out through the top of the jungle canopy as monkeys swing and howl from the trees. Tikal was once the greatest and strongest of all the Mayan empires. A whole range of buildings and temples can be found within this
jungle site. We spent the day exploring and climbing up these amazing structures. We rested on the grass, in the main square between two of the larger temples. Jess and Chris walked off and came back engaged............ What a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A couple of bugs flew into our eyes!!
What an amazing trip through an amazing country!!!!!! Guatamala was ALL TIME!!!!!!!!
Until next time folks..........................
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Judy Huntress
non-member comment
What a wonderland!
Dear Paul, What an amazing journey- to such a pristine area- you are so lucky to have been able to access these places- Love you lots Mum