Panajachel, to Antigua, Guatemala

VOLCANOES

I love volcanoes. For some reason I just love they way they look. When we arrived in Panajachel, a lovely little town on lake Atitlan, we found no fewer than three huge volcanoes scattered around the lake - all of them over 3,000m. We booked two nights at the Santa Elena guesthouse for about US$10 a night and had dinner by the lake. In the past this little town was renowned as a hippy hangout but it seems to have changed a little since the 60s. We took a boat across to a small town on the other side of the lake, San Pedro, and got lost in the maze of streets in the afternoon heat. I had been tempted to try and climb the San Pedro volcano but I couldn't agree a decent price with a guide. In the end we were happy to just walk around and catch the boat back to Panajachel as the sun went down.

The bus that deposited us in Pana - chickens not visible

 San Pedro Volcano from Lake Atitlan

Today we're in Antigua but in a few short hours we catch a shuttle across the border to Honduras - it leaves at 4am. Today has been one of those days to remember because I finally got to climb a volcano, an active one at that. Pacaya is right next to Guatemala City and at 2700m it isn't the tallest volcano in the area but it is the only active one. We had been warned about bandit attacks over the past few years but the tour company here in Antigua assured us that we would have two tour guides and three armed guards during our climb which helped to calm any fears. The climb was a lot harder than I expected. The last 40 mins was straight up through loose volcanic rock. At times we were taking one step forward and sliding two steps back. But onwards and upwards we climbed until we finally reached the windy summit just before sunset but we didn't stay long. I couldn't feel my ears and the steam made it difficult to breathe and see much. A quick look into the crater though revealed a strange red glow - lava?. On the walk down we slid most of the way down the scree slope then emptied our shoes of all the rocks before continuing. The sun sank and was quickly replaced by a brilliant full moon to light the path. The lights of Guatemala city glimmered in the distance, beckoning me to return back down to earth. The feeling returned to my ears.

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

BUS EVANGELISTS
The overnight bus ride to Guatemala City was very frustrating. The air conditioning was turned up full and it was so cold on the bus that we barely managed to sleep at all. We probably managed an hour or two but kept waking up with the shivers. We arrived, jaded, at 6am. At 7.15am we boarded another bus headed west in the general direction of Quetzaltenango - which was our target for today. The fact that the bus wasn't actually going there didn't stop the bus driver from herding us onto the bus anyway. We would find out what we needed to know later. During that bus ride we were subjected to sermons from three different bus evangelists and a sales pitch of 20 minutes from some punter selling tablets that did something we couldn't understand. I wanted to know if they were sleeping tablets. The locals gave each speaker much respect and didn't seem to be bothered by them in the slightest. Five hours later at an unknown small town we were told to get off the bus, grab our bags and jump aboard a much smaller US school bus type contraption. Confused and beaten into submission by the last 14 hours we followed directions and threw our bags on the roof and squeezed into the packed bus. There was much humour as it turned out we where the only foreigners on board and obviously not used to Guatemalan buses yet. We drove through the lush hills, up past 2000m and into the clouds, stopping briefly as a mud slide had blocked part of the road. On and on for the next two hours in close quarters and finally we made it to Guatemala's second largest city, nestled snugly next to a huge volcano. We've been here for two days now and tonight we managed to meet up with an old friend of mine, Mike Paulsmeyer, who has come here to learn Spanish. Unfortunately Mike was away for much of the weekend ironically in the town where we head to tomorrow - Panajachel - but we managed to hook up tonight for dinner and a beer.

Meeting up with my old buddy from Salt Lake City in Guatemala - Mike Paulsmeyer

Quetzaltenango town square

 Locals in Quetzaltenango

Belize to Flores, Guatemala

THE TAN
We spent three great days on Caye Caulker in Belize laying in the sun and eating seafood. Sara worked diligently on her tan and managed to achieve a colour somewhere between cream and ivory, but not quite as dark as beige, but darker than bone. She was incredibly impressed with the colour change and quite pleased to avoid turning pink.

THAT CASSETTE
We took a bus from the Belize capital across the border to the Guatemalan town of Flores yesterday. Flores is situated on a tiny island in Guatemala's second biggest lake about 70km from the border with Belize. I'm not exactly sure on the official rule with islands and bridges but this island is connected to the mainland by a 500m causeway so it isn't an island in the sense that we didn't have to catch a boat to get here. Nonetheless the setting is very pretty and we've been impressed by the food and the people here in our short stay to date. We chose the Toucan Guesthouse - a bargain at US$8 a night with a real toucan in the garden to keep us amused.

Toucan @Toucan Guesthouse

We have noticed that all the buses in this part of the world seem to have the same greatest hits collection cassette which the driver plays non-stop and occasionally at volume throughout the journey. We have heard 'Love hurts' by Nazareth and 'My heart will go on' by Celine Dion more times than any one person should safely endure. Whereas the former is a classic piece of rock legendary which I don't mind so much, the latter is a terrible piece of tripe from an overrated movie. The same could be said for a few other songs on the tape in question, namely 'I will always love you' - Whitney Houston, and 'Hopelessly devoted to you' - Olivia Newton-John. These songs haunt me now.

TIKAL
Today we visited the Mayan ruins of Tikal, about an hour north of Flores. It was supposed to be one of those sunrise trips but like many of our other sunrise trips it rained so we watched the alleged sunrise from the restaurant near the gift shop and drank coffee until the rain stopped. To get to the ruins you need to walk for about 30 minutes through secondary jungle growth and many of the temples have yet to be fully excavated - we walked straight passed Temple III believing it to be a hill when in fact it was a 55m tall structure that has yet to be touched. We were surrounded by howler monkeys making a tremendous noise as well as anteaters, toucans, parrots, woodpeckers and even a huge tarantula that one of the locals pulled out of it's hole.

Breathtaking Tikal

Temple V

  Temple IV

Me being more of an active type of tourist decided to climb all of the temples (except for the two that were off limits) while Sara, content to be a passive observer, watched from a distance and read the guidebook. The locals are very proud of their Mayan heritage and so they should be. Tikal is brilliantly clean, well maintained and the jungle setting is truly fantastic. One of the Star Wars movies was filmed here but I can't recall which.

The Great Plaza near the Temple of the Great Jaguar

LA VACA ES MARRON
My Spanish is progressing slowly. My vocabulary is up to about 200 words and I am able to say interesting things like 'the cow is brown' (see above) and 'here is a pen' which has, to date, been staggering useless to us in our everyday travels. Still it's more than I have bothered to learn in any other country, although in Mongolia I learned to say 'I hope your animals are fattening up nicely' in Mongolian and use it on a Mongolian herdsman who replied with the customary 'fattening nicely, thank you'. It's those small successes that we have learned to celebrate.

Tonight we catch the overnight bus to the capital.