Chicken Buses awaiting chicken gringos
Kat Says: Our next stop was to be Panajachel which sits on the bank of Lake Atitlan, in the south western section of the country. We had of course heard a number of stories and read about numerous incidents where armed men had pulled over buses and robbed the passengers (and in some cases done a lot worse), along the particular stretch of highway we needed to travel along. We were naturally a bit concerned but the guide who took us up the volcano the previous day said he hadn't heard of an incident in a long time. That helped, a bit.
So off we went and all seemed fine until our bus driver cut off a taxi and the taxi driver went nuts. He was swerving in front of the bus, trying to stop us and making all sorts of threatening signals. We were sitting up the front so had prime viewing spot. The behaviour of the taxi driver was so bad that the bus conducter reached up into the overhead compartment and retrieved a huge machete and an empty Sprite bottle (quite what he intended to do with the Sprite bottle that the machete couldn't achieve, I do not know). We became a little concerned at this point but calmed ourselves with the thought that at least the taxi driver wasn't after us (he clearly wanted the bus driver) and we were behind the man wielding a big machete. After a while the taxi disappeared so we relaxed, however, throughout the journey the taxi kept reappearing. He knew where the bus was headed and he was at Panajachel when we got there. He disappeared again and we got off the bus without incident. I hope the bus driver got home safely that day!!
Lake Atitlan is a large lake in the middle of 3 volcanos. The lake itself is apparently a collapsed volcano crater (must have been one huge volcano). It's a really pretty area. We went for a walk in the Reserva Natural Atitlan. There are a large number of tame coatis and spider monkeys living in the reserve. The animals have come from families that had them as pets but couldn't deal with them once they reached sexual maturity. The monkeys were great - swinging all over the place by their tails or arms - we watched them for ages. We got there just before feeding time so they were really active. They are free to live all over the reserve so it must be nice for them after being in someone's backyard!
The next day we took a boat trip on the lake and visited a few other towns on the lake's shore (San Pedro, Santiago de Atitlan and San Antonio). In Santiago de Atitlan we visited Maximon. Maximon is a dummy dressed up like a man who the locals come to pray to as he represents a mixture of a Mayan god and Judas. Maximon does nothing all day but smoke and drink - apparently he is only happy when he has sufficient quantities of cigarettes and booze. It is all quite confusing as most people are Catholic and go to church but quite a number of them still have their traditional beliefs that somehow run alongside the Catholic beliefs. From what we could gather, Maximon (and other similar "men" around the country) represent the underworld so if you need something more powerful than a prayer in church, you come to Maximon bearing gifts and let him sort it out. Maximon stays with one family in the village for a year, and then moves to a different house.
We next visited the town Quetzaltentango (also known as Xela), another pretty town, but not quite as nice as Antigua. From there we did a couple of trips. We went to see Volcan Santiaguito (from a distance - it's too dangerous to climb it). Every morning from 9am, at half hourly intervals, the volcano puffs out huge amounts of smoke. An amazing sight.
We were then to move onto an archeological site called Abaj Taklik. As we were driving away from the volcano, our driver was stopped by a man on a motorbike who told us there were armed men ahead stopping cars and robbing people. Our driver said this was a very quiet town and such things only happened once a year (nice timing on our part). He rang the police and said we'd wait where we were until they arrived. Then about 5 minutes later he yelled "vamos" and took off down the road at a rather high speed. Er, weren't we waiting for the police?? Our driver's theory was that the best thing to do is drive so fast that the robbers haven't got time to jump out and stop the car. I guess he knows what he's talking about and I was willing him to go faster and faster. As it turned out, we saw no one and when we turned onto the main road, the police had arrived. Phew. We thought then that statistically, we had had our fair share of close calls which should add up to an actual incident and therefore, the remainder of our time in Guatemala will be incident free. Hopefully.
Anyway, we made it to the ruins of a very old Mayan settlement. There we saw lots of carvings in stone representing the underworld and its powers. It appears the Mayans had a very healthy respect for the underworld. Some of the ruins are dated around 800BC.
Next we went to a coffee and rubber tree plantation. We'd never seen rubber trees before - amazing the way the rubber just drips out from a small cut into the tree, and is exactly the same as Copydex in a tube.
The next day we went to a glass blowing factory. It was great to see the way glasses etc are made. We even got to blow through the pipe to start off the process - Dylan blew too hard and I got it right on the second attempt.
Then we went to Zunil, an indigenous town near Xela where we got to see San Simon (Maximon's colleague). That day we also went to a couple of other small towns during market day to see all the chaos that involved. Once a week the local farmers bring their produce here and sell it to lorry drivers from neighbouring countries. There must be a prize to the driver who packs the most lettuces into the oldest and most unroadworthy truck.
On Xmas Eve we had an uneventful bus journey back to Antigua where we checked into our gorgeous, posh hotel for 2 nights. We found a shop that sold Champagne and had it with our buffet Xmas breakfast overlooking the pool. We then lay by the pool for the rest of the day listening to a 8 piece Maraimba band and the Macaws. Not such a bad way to spend Xmas.
On Boxing Day, Dylan went off for a mountain bike ride and I, with tears in my eyes, had to check out of the posh hotel (I made sure I stayed right up until the last minute before check out time). Oh the luxury of piping hot water, clean floors, cable tv and a comfy bed. Dylan didn't really enjoy the ride - I'll let him winge about that one.
Dylan says: Yeah it was rubbish.
Kat Continues: The next day we went north to Coban. From there, we visited 2 areas. The first is Semuc Champey which is a beautiful jade green river with a natural limestone bridge. Actually it's more of a tunnel through the limestone structure housing many lakes fed by a seperate water source, but breath taking all the same. The water is crystal clear and very inviting. The other place is Grutas de Lanquin (the caves of Lanquin). We walked through the caves as far as we could and saw all the usual and fantastic shapes and formations inside. The caves go into the hills for well over 2KM, and have only partially been mapped out. Dylan says: Unfortunately, we were with some wimps what couldn't hack our sweaty pace so had to turn back early. We also missed the bats leaving the cave at dusk, apparently an amazing sight should anyone want to go there.
Kat says: Next stop was further north, in Flores. Flores is near the well known ruins of the Mayan city, Tikal. Tikal is amazing like Macchu Piccu is amazing. So many of the temples and pyramids are in such good condition (following some reconditioning by archeologists). When the Mayans lived there it must have been a sight to behold. The temples tower above the tree canopies. You can climb up most of them so you are standing above the trees looking across at the tops of other temples. It really is an unforgetable sight. Apparently, only about 10% of the city's buildings have been excavated and the rest are still overgrown with jungle. At the end of the day while on top of one of the pyramids, we saw a few yellow beaked Toucans - made my day that did (Toucans are notoriously hard to spot as they only hang out on the top of the trees)!
Dylan says: One of the temples was used in Star Wars. The book says that it was the fourth film in 1977, but it's wrong, we think that it was the first Episode. Anyway, sitting on top of a 50 metre temple looking out over ancient forest and listening to the howler monkeys, the Parrots, Macaws and Tucans is a humbling and quite probably religious experience. Anyone that makes the trip to central america would be terribly rude not to visit.
Kat says: On New Year's Eve, we travelled down to Rio Dulce which sits on the edge of Lago Izabel. Rio Dulce is a bit of a ramshackle place but the lake and river are lovely. We found what we thought would be a good bar down on the waterfront to spend the last hours of 2004 and settled in for the night. We found that Rio Dulce (or maybe it is just this bar) is full of old, single, American men (boat owners who sailed down here and never went back) who reminded us of extras from the first Jaws movie. They seem to just hang around, fixing the odd boat for some cash, and getting the local women preggers (we met one man of at least 65 yrs who has a 1 and a half year old daughter).
"I hope you have stocked up on your ammo?" We should have heeded the barman's advice. During our time in Guatemala we have come to realise that the locals like their fireworks. They have been setting the bloody things off ever since before Xmas. These are not organised events and usually involve 4-10 yr olds setting off rockets in the streets. Therefore, it was not without surprise that in the run up to midnight, more and more fireworks were being set off (by seemingly younger children).
Around 10.30pm we went to another bar and met a very drunk American man who has lived in Rio Dulce for 12 years. He told us that at midnight, all hell breaks loose. There are more fireworks than we've ever seen and they are going horizontal down the street, not vertical. He advised us to find somewhere to hide at that time. He then told us the same thing about 20 times. I wasn't that concerned until a car went past carring a man with a real gun, firing up into the air repeatedly. Our friend expressed his disapproval of this saying that if they're going to fire their guns, they should do it properly. At this point I decided I did not want to spend this already fairly dangerous event next to a man who encourages horizontal gun usage. We made our escape to an upstairs bar to watch from a relatively safe distance. Our drunk friend was not wrong. The streets cleared just before midnight and then warfare broke out. You could barely see the street from all the smoke and rockets were going everywhere.
At midnight we hugged the bar owner and his family, then Dylan wanted to go and set off the banger he had bought. He risked death by running into the street and lighting the banger. I got a bit worried when the local kids saw the size of his banger (no rude jokes please) and ran into a doorway and shut the door. However, Dylan made it back upstairs before the almighty bang.
As the bar was closing we decided to make a run for it back to the hotel. Without being able to see a thing we stumbled along the street, dodging rockets and god knows what else, making it to safety. It was absolutely mad.
The next day we were going on a trip to visit some hot waterfalls but our boat driver was too hungover so didn't turn up. We therefore decided to go up river to Livingston. A boat owner called Ronny took us. The journey is up the Rio Dulce and is a beautiful ride. The river is so still and runs through a gorge - spectacular scenery.
Upon arrival in Livingston a skinny man on a bike introduced himself as Alexander the Great and said he could take us to a good hotel. Normally, I say no thanks to this sort of thing but decided on this occasion to give it a go. He took us to Hotel Garifuna (which turned out to be fine). The Garifuna people are the descendants of African slaves brought to Guatemala (and Belize). We spent the rest of the day looking at all the colourful "events" taking place (I presume in continued celebration of New Year). Livingston is very different from the rest of Guatemala, more in line with southern Belize (as we were to discover). Very much what I imagine the Carribean islands are like. We are therefore very much looking forward to Belize.
