Guatemala

I joined Diana & John on a trip to Guatemala from Mar 6th to Mar 15th.

Friday the 6th I flew in through Panama, which is the KLM hub for Central and South America. I had noticed my connecting flight from Panama to Guatemala would take very long. Turns out, it didn't just go to Guatemala, it was supposed to first go to Nicaragua and then to Guatemala. Problem was, once we arrived in Nicaragua, the plane developed a technical problem, so it couldn't take off again. They said something in Spanish over the speakers, and everyone got out of their seats and left. I'm sure I was the only person on the plane not speaking Spanish. When we got out of the plane, some guy collected our passports and ran off. Next we were herded into the terminal building, and we sat around for an hour. No one explained what was going on. I figured they were probably putting us on a different plane, and that they needed the passports in order to update the passenger lists. Turns out I was right, but it would have been nice if someone had explained as much. Finally, after 22 hours of travel, I arrived in Guatemala.

Saturday I spent the day walking around in Zone 10 in Guatemala City. This is the rich part of the city and also considered to be the safest part. I visited the Museo Popol Vuh, a small museum dedicated to Maya ceramics and a copy of the original manuscript for the so-called Maya bible, the Popol Vuh. It was strange to see guys with shotguns everywhere. Even the people guarding regular car parks had shotguns. People pass you in the street on motorcycles wearing bulletproof vests and carrying shotguns. Also, I was struck by the amount of razor-wire on the buildings. I also visited some shopping malls trying to get hold of a pay-as-you-go sim-card for my cellphone. It was not that easy since I didn't speak Spanish. My friend Diana arrived late, around 11.

John showed up at the hotel room the morning after. He had had a long flight and United had lost his baggage. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant(a nice one, they had an indoor waterfall...) and got in a taxi to Antigua, after having managed to haggle our way down to 35$ for the hour of driving to Antigua. We walked around Antigua for a couple of hours before getting on a shuttle to go hike up the active volcano Pacaya. We got put in an overcrowded minibus. There were really crappy cobbled streets in Antigua, and the minibus had bad shock-absorbers, so we had a bone-jarring ride through the town picking up tourists from other hostels.



One thing about Guatemala, they seem to really like their processions. I think I saw four processions during the week I was there, and on the way out of Antigua we hit one. We were stuck in a very hot minibus for probably half an hour waiting for what was apparently the regular Sunday procession to finish. Ten minutes after finally getting out of town, the minibus overheated and broke down. The guy had forgotten to put fluid on his cooling tank. We were stuck on the side of the road for an hour and a half before another minibus came to pick us up. This minibus was, if possible, in worse condition than the previous one. Among other things, the seats in the back were not properly bolted to the floor, so every time the driver braked hard or went over a speed bump, we would tilt back, although we didn't go that far back, because the minibus was so crowded we didn't have space to fall over. It was such a relief when we finally got to the base of the volcano and were able to escape the minibus. At the start of the hiking trails there were a lot of kids selling walking sticks for 5 quetzales each (around 50 eurocents). The trick was to buy one right away, otherwise these kids would run after you and hassle you for the first kilometer. The hiking path was not very exciting, very dusty and it doubled up as a mule/cow path, so you needed to watch where you were going to avoid stepping in dung. After about an hour we got out of the forest and got our first glimpse of lava in the distance. Because of all the delays, we were there quite late, so the sun was setting when we walked the last bit up to the lava (or the "hot liquid MAG-MA" as John would say in his Dr. Evil-voice...). We were walking on volcanic rocks the last couple hundred of meters, and it was pretty difficult. The footing was treacherous, and the rocks were sharp, so we got small scrapes on hands and legs from the last bit of walking. The lava radiated a fantastic amount of heat, so it was intensely uncomfortable to be anywhere close to the stream. I had brought some cans of beer, so John and I drank beer by the lava stream and watched the sunset while Diana barbecued marshmallows over the lava. We walked down again in the dark. John and I had brought headlamps, so finding our way down was not a problem.



During the night we had a minor earthquake. I didn't realize at first, since I had never experienced one. Fun, as long as the building you're in is still standing...

Being tired from the volcano-trip the day before, we decided to sleep in Monday morning. We walked around downtown Antigua, and found a friendly travel agent that booked shuttles for us for the next days. He also booked a hotel for us in Coban and booked a minibus to take us to lake Atitlan. This minibus was in much better condition than the ones we used the night before, and the driver seemed more experienced. It was also a big difference to have a private shuttle just for the tree of us. It was a two-hour drive to go from Antigua to Panajachel, and the road over there was very interesting. Lots of twists and turns and the road ran right along the edges of cliffs with no guard rails in between.



Panajachel was dusty, pretty ugly and touristy. We had lunch before going on a overpriced boat ride to see the lake. We haggled for a while, but in the end we realized we needed to get on a boat in order to see something other than Panajachel before we had to return. We went to a small village called Santiago Atitlan, which is supposedly the most typical Maya village around the lake. It also looks like they have a lot of tourists go through there. There were shops selling Maya stuff everywhere. There was a kid at the docks who offered to take us to see the local deity Maximon. I talked Diana and John into going, because I find the legend of Maximon interesting. Maximon is a local deity worshiped around lake Atitlan. The story goes: He was some sort of holy man, the male villagers went off to fight a war. Maximon was supposed to take care of the women while the men were away, so he "took care of" the women, which enraged the men when they returned from battle. Furiously, they cut off his arms and legs, and somehow he was turned into a deity. In some stories, his hands were only tied up, to prevent him from grabbing women. The villagers worship a wooden effigy of Maximon in private houses, lighting candles and burning incense. Maximon likes to drink and smoke, and he also likes money, so villagers bring him gifts, hoping he will grant their wishes for fortune, favor with women or death to their enemies. This was a lot more interesting than regular catholic saints. I found the whole spectacle fascinating, and a nice tourist trap.




After leaving Santiago Atitlan, we bumped around in the boat for another hour or so, before going back to Panajachel where our driver was waiting for us.

Tuesday morning we got up really early to catch the minibus shuttle to Coban in the east. Luckily this shuttle was better than the ones we used the first day, but it was still very uncomfortable during the five and a half hours we spent getting to Coban. It was funny to see the difference in scenery between the western part and the eastern. At first it was very dusty and you could see cacti along the sides of the road, and condors flying overhead. After four hours the terrain turned into a very hilly, green jungle. We finally arrived in Coban, and I think every single passenger was in pain from the uncomfortable ride. We walked around for a bit and booked our shuttles for the next days. Coban looked very different from Antigua. We were definitely off the main tourist trail, very few people spoke any English, and we were struggling just to find basic tourist information.



The next day we got up early and got on the shuttle to Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey is a natural limestone bridge on a river in the jungle which has pools of very clear green water where you can swim. On the way, we stopped at the natural caves at Lanquin to look at stalactites and cave formations. It wasn't that interesting, as we didn't go that far into the cave. I must say I enjoyed the Skocjan caves in Slovenia more, not to mention the silver mines in Kongsberg. The last patch of road to Semuc Champey was very steep, so I was happy we were not driving on our own. It was funny to see how they had cultivated the land there, growing corn in very steep hills. Very different from the flat cornfields you see in the US. Also, it was fun to see cacao- and banana-trees in the wild. Our guide walked us down to the pools at Semuc Champey, and we jumped in for some jungle swimming. The water was very green and clear, but it was not cold. We swam around for a while before our guide took us over to a ledge were we were supposed to climb down using a rope ladder. I'm not too good with heights, so I decided to run back and get my camera instead to get some swimming-pictures. Diana and John climbed down and I think they both scraped their knuckles on the way up or down the rope ladder. On my way back, I fell and bashed my hand hard into some rocks. My hand was bleeding so I washed it with bottled water and rinsed it with alcohol, since I wasn't too keen on getting an infection from the stagnant water in the pools. Afterwards we hiked up to the viewpoint above the pools for a proper look at the entire natural bridge. It was very warm, and the path was quite steep, so we were very sweaty when we came down again. This of course was the perfect excuse to jump back into the water. Overall, I think this was perhaps the best day of our vacation. I had a suntanning accident at Semuc Champey, and managed to burn my shoulders pretty bad. This became a problem for the rest of the trip, since I was traveling with a backpack. Wearing my backpack after this hurt like hell. At least I'll remember to apply proper sunblock the next time.




Thursday was another travel day. We took a shuttle up north to the jungle province of Peten. Again the landscape changed a lot, turning into flat jungle and cleared farmland. We saw lots of palm trees and small farming villages, and also areas were they were cutting down and burning the rain forest. Interesting parts of the journey included crossing a river on a barge and being pulled over at a checkpoint by soldiers with automatic weapons, searching our backpacks for contraband fruit. We reached Flores around 14:00, went swimming in Lake Peten Itza and enjoyed the hot weather and the beautiful sunset from the terrace of our hotel.

We got up at 3 am Friday morning to catch a "sunrise tour" to Tikal - one of the more famous Maya pyramid sites in Guatemala. The shuttle was about half an hour late in coming to our hotel, so we felt we had been cheated out of half an hour of shut-eye, not to mention the sunrise at the park. We also had a pretty scary ride over there, as there were so many animals along the side of the road. We had three almost-roadkills on the way, almost hitting a dog, a pig and a cow on the way. The cow would have been bad because we were riding in a small minibus, and almost no-one had seat belts. The park wasn't open yet when we arrived, so we had to wait for 15 minutes or so at the gate. There was morning fog in the air, so it was quite moody driving inside the park. Lots of animals out as well. We went on an organized tour with an English-speaking guide inside the park. He walked us in a big loop around the compound, showing us plants and wildlife along the way. The first stop was the Templo IV where we had the famous view used for the rebel base in Star Wars episode IV. We then went on to walk up almost every other pyramid on the site, except for the two that were closed for safety reasons. I didn't find it that interesting, but the view from the pyramids was good.




Saturday morning Diana and I got up at 06.00 to go to the eco-tourism park Ixpanpajul outside of Flores, just to do something other than just travel on our last day. We had breakfast in the park, and went on to the skywalk, to walk in the jungle canopy. We were the only tourists in the park at that hour, so we had the trail to ourselves (except for a guy walking behind us sweeping leaves). The walk itself was just boring. We didn't see any animals at all, and the closest thing to wildlife we noticed were some howler monkeys shouting in the distance. Essentially it was just an overpriced hiking path. It wasn't very interesting, but at least we did something on our final day, rather than just sleeping in. We met up with John back at the hotel, and flew down to Guatemala City, where we had a nice meal at an Argentinian restaurant to celebrate the end of a nice vacation.



Sunday we flew back home, me to Panama then Amsterdam, and Diana & John back to the US.

I was having some difficulty sleeping properly on this trip, like I had in my trip last year to Utah. I'm not sure if it's jet lag or what it is, but I averaged maybe four hours of sleep in the nights I was there. Luckily I can function quite OK without sleep or food for extended periods, but my cognitive abilities and language skills suffer. I always find I have great trouble expressing myself properly after extended periods of sleep deprivation. Also, not speaking my native language at all over extended periods in combination with sleep loss seems to do something to me. Sometimes, at the end of extended exercises, I find it hard to find the words for a day or two when I speak to my Norwegian friends. I probably get crossed wires or something, and it usually goes away after a weekend of rest, but it's still strange to me...Luckily my colleagues and friends realize I get this way by now, so they tell me when I'm not making any sense.

This was my first trip to a third-world country. I didn't think about it until Diana made me aware of this. It was strange and kind of sad to see people living in really shitty tin-roofed huts and people bumping around in truck beds because they can't afford to go by bus.

We found very few people that spoke English in Guatemala, especially in the more remote areas. I think we would have been struggling a lot to get accommodation and to get around if we hadn't had Diana speaking Spanish for us. She called around and inquired about hotel rooms for us using my cell phone with the Guatemalan sim card. Guide books with hostel phone numbers were very useful.

In general, Guatemala was a really cheap country. Except for the flight ticket, this was one of my cheaper vacations.

My pictures

Diana's pictures