Guatemala…what can I say about you? Except for the fact that I had a stomach bug thing the whole time that I was here and I am pretty sure that your food made from corn did not help one little bit. I also spent the whole time putting After Sun Gel/Moisturiser on Laurence’s back every day/night. As a whole, I think the country is very beautiful – lush green grasses, hills, mountains, and volcanoes. It was easy to travel through, however, very slow at times. The roads were full of pot holes and there were numerous blocks (either for protests or road works).
Our first stop after crossing the border with Belize (which seemed to take forever) was to Tikal National Park. We dropped off our bags to our camp site, very sparse – but what else was I thinking for a developing country, before meeting our guide into the park. We spent approximately 4 hours going through the park. We were focused on both animals and the Mayan temples. Of the animals, we only missed out on seeing the howler monkeys and the tarantulas. The temples were very impressive – a bit like the Palenque ones that I liked. I think that we climbed 5 or 6 of them, which of course is very tiring.
In the morning everyone was talking about the howler monkeys during the night. Now I didn’t think that I slept that much, as I looked at my watch in fairly small increments, but I did not hear a thing. I listened to a recording that one of the people on the tour made and I cannot believe that both Laurence and I slept through it. Out of 17 people, 14 people were awoken by them and described them as being right next to the tents. Maybe I will hear them in Costa Rica – but maybe I will sleep through again!
After a fairly long drive and a short water taxi ride we made it to Rio Dulce. The hotel we were staying at was across the river from the main town, but not an island. As this was the day that I started to feel ill, we did not plan much for our two-night stay. We had a bit of a sleep in, read our books, and played cards. It was very relaxing and apart for the mosquitos (being at the edge of the river and in the jungle they were expected). We kept a look out for Manatees, but no luck on this visit. When we were getting back to the other side some of the locals saw some, but by the time we managed to get out of the boat to leave they were gone.
It was a long drive to Antigua, where we were staying for one night prior to heading to our home stay, and we were glad to get out of the bus to have a walk around the town. I must say that it is very much like Mexico – or maybe Mexico is like Guatemala. It has the main square, cobbled streets, and markets like little off shoots. The main difference is the proximity of a volcano (which I believe is still active – there are 3 active ones around Antigua) and an arch which makes a pretty good picture to frame the volcano. As this was merely a convenient stop, and that we would be back in 2 days, not much was achieved on our first visit to Antigua.
Chichicastenango, our next stop, was a mission to get to. We were about 30 minutes out when we got stuck in a road block. We had thought that we would be allowed to pass in 45 minutes, but after some investigation they were not going to let us past until 3:00 pm (some 4 hours after our arrival). Our guide arranged for us to walk a couple of kilometres past the protest and to hop into a normal size van (which in the end had 19 people in it) to take us to the markets. The markets were quite cool, but Laurence and I cannot carry many more items in our packs. We bought a couple of small cloth items which were easy to roll up.
After we finished at the market, we bought our host family a cake and headed to the village of San Jorge La Laguna. We were told that there were 3000 people living in this village, which was perched on the side of a hill near the lake. Laurence and I were assigned to a very large family – there were three families living together (all linked to the grandmother who seemed to prepare all the meals), about 10 adults and 5 children. We were given our own room and toilet to use during our stay. One we had dropped of our bags we were promptly set up with coffee (which was extremely sweet and was handed to me before I could explain that I did not drink it) and bread. Our host family went to a great effort to ensure that we were happy and well fed. At times it was difficult as they only spoke Spanish and their Mayan language. I tried to communicate in Spanish (as much as my limited knowledge allowed me to) but we also used google translate and a dictionary that the hosts had. Overall I am pretty proud of what we managed to talk about and that there were not too many unpleasant silences between arriving and a respectable time to go to bed (approximately 4 hours). All members of the family introduced themselves and (tried) to explain what they did for a living. We had one person which we spent 5 to 10 minutes with the dictionary and translator so that we could discover that he was an iron worker/welder type person, which we think was related to being a mechanic. Each time we tried to understand along the way he said “more or less, yes” whether it was correct or not. We also talked to the host about her son who had an accident as a young boy and was now stuck in a wheelchair. Her husband lives with him in Panajachel so that he can go to school and swim (which, if I understood correctly, he was quite good at). She explained that he had touched a live wire in their house which caused the injuries. I am not sure if it has been mentioned previously, but we have been very careful about the wiring in Central America as it looked home done and dangerous. I was also dressed in the traditional clothes of their community for the evening.
The next day, after breakfast, we headed to Panajachel – a short drive away. Laurence and I spent a quiet day looking around the town, shopping, and generally relaxing. We did manage to find a place to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, however, it was only in Spanish so we had to guess what each stage was supposed to represent.
Our final stop was Antigua. We spent a couple of days here, once again just wondering around and getting a good feel for the place. Overall Guatemala was a wonderful place to visit, but I feel as though we have not seen it all – a country to be placed at the bottom of the list again.
