Guatemala

From Lanquin we took a comfortable gringo shuttle straight to Flores, near Tikal. As we were ahead of schedule, we stayed in Flores one night to catch up with our reservation at the Jaguar Inn in Tikal itself - this hotel is one of three located inside of the Tikal National Park and it is pretty expensive! So we decided to stay back in Flores for one night to rest and be ready the next day to take full advantage of our posh night, arriving early and leaving late. We went with the flow and got taken to the current flavour of the month hostel in Flores, Los Amigos, where the rest of the people on the shuttle wanted to go. It was a good choice: the hostel is pleasant, offers all possible facilities that backpackers need including lockable charging units for mobiles and ipods, and all the usual tours and connections and cheap accomodation. We ended up cancelling our second night in the Jaguar Inn and sleeping in a dorm again in Los Amigos the last night, since it cost a fifth.

Tikal is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization. It is located in the El Petén department of Guatemala, in the north of the country, in the jungle.
History:
Tikal was one of the major cultural and population centers of the Maya civilization. Though monumental architecture at the site dates to the 4th century BC, Tikal reached its apogee during the Classic Period, ca. 200 AD to 850 AD, during which time the site dominated the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica, such as central Mexican center of Teotihuacan - which we are visiting as our very last spot of our journey, sigh sigh... Following the end of the Late Classic Period, no new major monuments were built at Tikal and there is evidence that elite palaces were burned. These events were coupled with a gradual population decline, culminating with the site’s abandonment by the end of the 10th century. It is not really known how it all ended, theories mention either some major social upheaval or maybe an earthquake.
The ruins lie on lowland rainforest. Conspicuous trees at the Tikal park include gigantic ceiba, the sacred tree of the Maya, tropical cedar and mahogany. Regarding the fauna, agouti, coatis, gray fox, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, Harpy Eagles, toucans and green parrots can be seen there regularly, and in fact we saw them all apart from the harpy eagle, which is a pretty rare bird these days. Lots of monkeys everywhere, really nice. I was here before and cannot recollect seeing or hearing a single monkey, which is pretty strange. Is it the memory or I just did not take any notice?

We went into the park in the afternoon and then again at 6 in the morning, when a coat of fog wrapped everything. So we went back to bed for a couple of hours and then into the park again - minus Gregory, who was not feeling too well and stayed back at the hotel playing chess...mmm...

Here are some pics:

Tomorrow we are off to Belize. We are going straight to Caye Caulker, the backpackers spot, from where we should be boarding a Raggamuffin snorkelling cruise of about three days.

We left Antigua on Saturday morning and travelled practically all day up north to Lanquin, in the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala, where the climate starts to become tropical. After many phone calls trying to trace the reservation lady at El Retiro, we finally managed to reserve two beds in this recommended place, just before hopping on the bus in Antigua.
The name El Retiro is not really the most suitable name for this backpackers spot, which certainly does not look like a retreat whatsoever. When we got there at 7:15 pm - the communal dinner had just started - the party was in full swing and there were hardly any seats to be found. Our arrival was quite traumatic, actually: we got there in heavy rain, got assigned the two top beds in a small cramped bunked dorm, got down to the packed restaurant only to find someone giving a nasty look to Gregory, who got upset and decided that he hated the place and refused to have dinner. We would have left if it wasn't that we had already paid for our dorm beds - payment is taken as soon as you step in there. The next day, however, things improved dramatically. First of all the couple that we were sharing the dorm with were very nice, which helped us accept the new accomodation style which we are not really used to and which we had to accept as the only way we could get ourselves into this popular place. Secondly, breakfast time in the restaurant was much less crowded and thirdly and more importantly, in the restaurant there was a chess board. All sorted! We even got a fantastic sunny day and managed to get ourselves onto the 10:30 trip to Semuc Champey and the caves and book the bus up to Tikal for the next day, all perfectly syncronised and a day ahead of schedule.

Semuc Champey is a truly fantastic place. It is basically a set of limestone pools positioned in staircase fashion with a river running below them underground: the pools are filled with mountain spring water and vary between emerald green and turquoise. A swimmers paradise! The wis hhole area is very beautiful and the journey to the pools alone is worth doing in itself. There are various caves around here and the typical trip, organised by the hostel, includes a visit to the water-filled K’ANBA caves, a quick tubing session down the river, an 8-meter jump from a bridge, and finally a walk up to the mirador for a panoramic view of the pools and then a splash inside them. This is exactly what we did, except that I skipped all the parts that involved jumping off from any sort of high point into the water. I had done a similar trip into water-filled caves here in Guatemala the last time, near Poptun. Very challenging and adrenaline-filled, the last trip still brings dark memories of when I had to jump into the water in the dark while trying to avoid underlying rocks. So this time I decided that there was absolutely no need to put myself under any kind of similar pressure and that I could enjoy the whole thing quite successfully without jumping anywhere. Gregory, to compensate, did all the jumps that he could possibly do.

This is the site official website, which provides some more pictures of the area:

http://www.semucchampey.com/index.html

El Retiro Hostel

Semuc Champey from above

Semuc Champey from below

Someone is having hesitations about jumping...

After spending a full week in expensive Antigua, we have finally made it to Lake Atitlan, where we are staying for a few days.
Antigua was good - I finally calmed down after the first two days of incessable walking around, revisiting the old places I knew and checking out the new ones. Antigua is like a Restobar-Disneyland, there are venues of all sorts and taste. Most businesses are unfortunately foreign, and in effect foregneirs are buying our the city leaving the locals with a very high cost of living and low salaries. But the place is vibrant and the city beautiful and still worth a few days, despite not being anything like the real Guatemala. So, while Gregory spent his entire week going swimming in the morning and taking Spanish lessons with Teresa in the afternoon, I spent my time looking around and planning our last month in Mexico. We now have a fairly detailed itinerary for Mexico, though we still dont know if we will be able to spend any time on the coast for New Years, since everything seems to be booked out.
In Antigua we indulged in some reall nice restaurants, the best experience being a jazz brunch at Panza Verde, the top restaurant for refined cuisine as well as a beautiful colonial hotel. We also managed to go dancing at the Villa Antigua with Teresa and Janet like in the old days - meeting at Janet's for drinks before getting to the venue, where drinks are expensive.

On Sunday we took the shuttle to Lake Atitlan. Prices for shuttles have come down from the time I was here, or the price of the public buses have gone up - one of the two - so it does not make a lot of economic sense to travel on Guatemala's famous chicken buses. Chicken buses are beautifully colourful, noisy, vibrant buses, and people transport all sort stuff on them, including small animals - from there their name. They are not as elaborate as the ones in Panama City, but they are still exceptionally beautiful. Once on the lake we took the lancha to S Pedro La Laguna, where Adi was waiting for us. We checked in at his hotel - Hotel Tepepul Kaan - a really nice little hostel incredibly quiet for the location in the very centre of S Pedro.

S Pedro is quite a peculiar place. It is the hippie capital of Guatemala - and maybe of the whole of Latin America - you see the weirdest people walking around, most with long, uncombed hair and very few teeth in their mouth. Not really pretty sights to be honest, and quite effective to put you off drugs forever... Nevertheless, the place is pleasant, there are lots of nice cosy venues where to have excellent cheap food and enjoy life.
We didnt really do much there apart from eating and drinking - food is about half price than back in Antigua. The town is full of places that will show movies for free, plus facilities to download music and films, so you can keep quite busy just doing that. The best places we found were D-Noz and their super nachos dish, by the jetty, Buddha, a moldy place that dishes out fantastic thai food and where on Mondays a really good blues band plays live, and Shanti Shanti, another little rudimentary restaurant with very good breakfasts and falafels.
Apart from pigging out, one day we managed to go hiking on a section of the lake, walking along the path that joins the villages from Santa Cruz to San Marcos. That took a few hours and was enjoyable and worthwhile.

Today we are back in Antigua for one night, in the morning we are off to Lanquin to see the famous Semuc Champeys limestone pools and caves, which is about 8 hours north of here, on the way to Tikal. Tikal will be our last stop in Guatemala.

Here it is, the most typical Atitlan pic..

The path and views from Santa Cruz to San Marco

Mural in S Juan

The journey from Granada to Antigua went really smoothly. In the queue at the Ticabus station we bumped into a couple of familiar faces again: Lone and Lars, who stayed at Elsas on Little Corn, and Ade, whom we crossed back in Granada after first meeting him in Ecuador. Lone and Lars were working on taking their friends car from Nicaragua to Canada and had offered us a lift, however things went wrong and they couldnt leave on time. So Lone went to take the bus all the way to Mexico while Lars remained in the country to see if he could succeed to get the car out eventually. So we had some nice company all the way to Guatemala. The first day it was about 11 hours to San Salvador, where we had to stop overnight. On Sunday we had another early start and by 11:30 am we were in Guatemala City. We shared a taxi directly to Antigua and got there a lot earlier than expected, urrah.

I couldnt wait to get to Antigua, this is where I have first learnt Spanish and have a lot of nice memories. I had lost contact with Teresa, my teacher, a good while back, so I was really full of hope to go and see if I could find her again. And I did!! She was there, exactly the same, and her mum and 4 sons. I was almost in tears from the joy! The funny thing that happened was that we reserved a hostel online before getting to Antigua, El Hostal. When we got there, I realised this hostel was in the same road as my old school. So we are walking down the road looking for the hostel, when I spot the school building from a few steps away: I am just there telling Gregory how that was my old school, when I realise that the school IS the hostel we have booked!!! The school relocated across the road and the building got adapted into a hostel. WOW, did not expect that. But actually an excellent choice, we have now been here for almost a week and have really enjoyed it. It is really quiet, super clean and we have, Wi-fi in our room, which means access to the Internet as we please, from our bed. This is a luxury we have not had for a long time.

Beautiful Antigua

Gregory having Spanish lessons with my old teacher in my old school... in our hostel!!!

El Hostal

The other day I managed to convince Gregory to go and see Volcan Pacaya, which I climbed the last time I was here. Things have changed quite a lot since then though... four years ago we went all the way to the smoking crater, it was really hard because the last 100 meters or so you climb the cone and the cone is made of soft dark sand. This time, things were completely different. Pacaya is one of Guatemalas three active volcanos and is pretty active, so active that it was like climbing a different volcano altogether! We walked uphill for about one hour until we got to a viewpoint from where we could see the lower crater spewing lava and a black dry lava field underneath us, very similar to the one we had seen on Santiago island in Galapagos - EXCEPT that things here were a lot more live than in Galapagos. We walked down to the lava field and crossed it to get at the very feet of the hot lava, walking on a lava bed that, while it looks dry and old, it is actually very recent and still hot and glowing just a meter or so below. We had to hop from one lava rock to the other for 300-400 meters to the point where the current lava river flows. In fact, we did not go all the way, we starting feeling rather uncomfortable with the heat coming to us from ahead and below and felt that we did not actually need to get all the way right up to the flowing lava. Most people did, but frankly it looked INSANE. We only had one guide for about 30 people and no guidelines were given as to how close you could get, people were all over the place and on top of it all you only had one hour to get there and back before it got pitch black. The lava rock is very sharp and uneven, all you need is to jump badly and there you are. You could even fall into a glowing crack and catch fire... It was an awesome experience but potentially quite hazardous, and we are obviously chickens.

Yesterday we went to Chichicastenango market, the most famous market in Guatemala, some 2.5 long hours from Antigua. It was a nice day and we manged to only spend a handful of dollars on a hammoc and a couple of other trinkets, which will cost an arm and a leg to send from here, as usual. This time it seemed that the indigenas were less bothered about being photographed and we could get quite a few shots, especially Gregory seems to have no problems at all.

Tortillas...yummm!