Tikal

Salimos de Rio Dulce rumbo a la selva Peten. Paramos mas o menos en la mitad del camino en un lugar que se llama Finca Ixobal (cerca de Poptun) que nos contaron que era un buen lugar para descansar y comer almuerzo. Las ensaladas estaban muy buenas porque crecen sus verduras alli, y Ariel se comio una hamburguesa vegetariana riquisima con berengena y queso. Tambien hacen pan casero, y nos compramos un pan de banana para llevar. Mientras almorzabamos llovia torrencialmente, pero despues salimos a recorrer un poco la finca que tienen una piscina natural y algunos animalitos. Siguimos camino a la isla de Flores que esta en el lago Peten-Itza, y que para los Mayas era un lugar sagrado. Cuando llegaron los Espanioles habian muchos templos y altares alli, pero lo destruyaron todo y ahora no queda nigun razgo de esa historia, solo hoteles. No nos gusto para quedarnos alli, y seguimos hacia Tikal y encontramos un pueblo divino en el lago que se llama el Remate. A la orilla del lago hay una playa publica, frente a una reserva natural que se llama el Cerro Cahui, y alli nos dijieron que podiamos acampar. Cuando llegamos tuvimos la sorpresa de encontrarnos con los amigos de Tulum, Tibu y familia! Ellos habian ido a Belice y estaban entrando a Guatemala recien. Pasamos muy lindo baniandonos en el lago y escuchando los monos ahullar por la noche. Al otro dia, pasamos tranquilos en la playa (que estaba muy alta por la lluvia) y a las cuatro de la tarde salimos para Tikal porque si llegas a esa hora podes entrar con el mismo boleto al otro dia tambien. Cuando llegamos dejamos la camioneta en el camping debajo de un arbol con monos, y fuimos a ver el atardecer en la Plaza Mayor de las ruinas. Vimos un tepescuintle y muchos pavos Peten, y por supuesto los monos que los escuchamos gritar toda la noche. Al otro dia nos levantamos muy temprano para disfrutar de las ruinas. Al amanacer, Ariel salio a caminar y se encontro con: dos venados, un pisote (coati), un monton de pavos, un cocodrilo, un tucan, una gallineta y otros aves interesantes. Las ruinas son impresionantes, grandes y hay muchos edificios. Pasamos todo el dia recorriendo! Casi mas interesante que las ruinas es la cantidad de animales que hay en la selva. Vimos un monton de monos arania y ahulladores, cuatro pisotes (coaties), dos pajaros trogon (que son de la familia del Quetzal), muchos colibri es y pajaros carpinteros, mariposas, cotorritas, muchos montezuma orapendolas (un tipo de pajaro), una viborita y muchos mas! La verdad es que Tikal es impresionante: subimos a varios templos pero nada se compara con el numero cinco, donde tenes que subir una escalerita de madera vertical y cuando llegas pensas que estas en las nubes. Nos dimos cuenta que estabamos muy altos porque nos temblaban las piernas y se nos hizo medio dificil bajar de nuevo! Un guia nos comento que mas de un turista se cayo, y por eso cerraron un par de templos al publico. Luego de recorrer las ruinas (que nos llevo unas 4 horas) fuimos a caminar hasta un mirador bastante rustico que esta en la cima de un arbol. De alli ves las ruinas desde otra punta de vista. Terminamos mas que cansados, pero contentos. Fuimos a dormir de nuevo en la playa de el Remate, e hicimos una comida compartida con nuestros amigos. Mateo y Tibu se pasaron con su amigo guatemalteco Adonias, buscando piedras y cristales en las rocas y encontraron un par de piedras lindas, incluyendo cristales y jade. Ayer de noche dejamos la olla con arroz y frijoles afuera, y en medio de la noche aparecio un caballo y se lo comio todo! Los dias que estuvimos alli, paso un americano que esta viviendo en Guatemala conocido en el pueblo como el panadero gringo, y le compramos uns ricos panes caseros. Paramos a comer la rica comida de la Finca Ixobal (de nuevo), y llegamos a Rio Dulce con tiempo para ver el atardecer.
We left Rio Dulce around noon after our last post, and stopped for lunch at Finca Ixobal, about halfway there in Poptun, because we had heard that they had really good food there – especially homemade baked goods and nice salads because they grow their own veggies. The drive through the Peten area was beautiful, with rolling hills and lots of cattle (unfortunately, deforestation comes with the relatively new “development” of this jungle area of Guatemala). We headed for Flores, a small island in the middle of lake Peten Itza that used to be an important ceremonial site for the Maya, and was covered in temples and altars when the Spanish arrived. Of course, they destroyed everything (what else is new) and now the only things on the island are pretty much hotels and tour companies. We decided to keep driving to a little town across the lake, closer to the ruins, called El Remate, where we had heard we could camp on the beach. It is a sweet little town, apparently known for its wood carving families, and we found a public beach right in front of the Cerro Cahui nature reserve to camp for the night. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find our friends from Tulum, Tibu and family, camped out at the same spot! They had gone to Tikal that day and were headed south after spending a couple of weeks in Belize. After getting caught up with them, we slept to the sound of howler monkeys in the distance, and woke up to the birds chattering all around us. That day we spent hanging out and swimming in the lake, until around four when we decided to head to Tikal. We had heard that if you arrive after four your ticket is also good for the next day, so after the drive to the site we parked our vehicle at the campground (right under a tree with a family of howlers in it!) and walked in to the Central Plaza area to watch the sunset. That evening we saw and heard lots of wildlife – this is the thing about Tikal, that you are not only exploring a huge Mayan site, but that it is deep in the jungle and they work really hard to protect the animals here. That night we had the howlers screaming in our ears and the kids got up at the crack of dawn to do some bird and animal watching. Ariel saw two deer, a coati, a Peten crocodile (!), lots of wild turkeys, a toucan, a gallinule, and lots of other birds! That day we saw too many spider and howler monkeys to count, coatis, a piliated woodpecker, some trogons (related to the resplendent quetzal),
We set off early to explore the ruins and spent about four hours walking around the site. The temples themselves are pretty impressive, partially uncovered and covered in green moss. The most exciting one to climb was Temple 5, which you had to climb using these steep wooden stairs (which was more like a steep ladder). Once we got to the top our knees started to shake, and then we realized that climbing up was the easy part! But we made it back down, and one of the guides that we spoke to told us that more than one tourist has plummeted to their deaths from the tops of the temples here, and that is why some of them are closed to the public. We also found out that Temple 4 was used as a vantage point to film one of the rebel base scenes in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (anyone recognize it?). In this area there are many different Mayan ruins, Tikal are just the most well-known and impressive. Every mound/pyramid-shaped mountain is probably a Mayan ruin around here, there are so many that are still uncovered! We wanted to go on a 5-day trek to a place called El Mirador (it is actually just across from Calakmul!) which they think are actually even bigger and more important than the ones at Tikal, but it was going to be too expensive (and arduous) so we decided against it. That night we went back to El Remate and enjoyed one more collaborative dinner and a fire with our European friends before parting ways the next day. Mateo and Tibu enjoyed playing with their Guatemalan friend Adonias, who stayed and ate dinner with us. In the middle of the night we woke up to the sound of some wild animal eating the leftover rice and beans that we left outside the westy – when we shined the flashlight out the window there was a big horse looking back at us, and I think he enjoyed the rice because he cleaned the pot! We stopped at Finca Ixobel again for lunch on our way to Rio Dulce, and ended up by the pool once again at Nana Juana. Now we are trying to decide our next move, which is going to be south to the border with El Slavador, which hopefully we will cross in the next couple of days.

Livingston y Rio Dulce

Eva y Mary se fueron ayer, asi que nosotros cuatro seguiremos camino a Tikal. Despues de pasar un par de semanas bastante movidas, yendo de un lugar a otro, ahora estamos preparandonos y descansando en una marina llamada Nana Juana. Estamos en Rio Dulce. El fin de semana fuimos en una lancha a Livingston, en la costa del Caribe. En camino pasamos por diferentes rios, cascadas, lagunas, aguas termales, y antes de llegar al pueblito el rio serpentea un canion que nos dejo maravillados. Toda esta zona esta llena de diferentes tipos de garzas, comoranes, y mis favoritos; los pelicanos. En Livigston nos quedamos en una posada (del Delfin) y a pesar de que en menos de dos horas uno puede recorrer todo el pueblo, nos quedamos tres dias. Aquí viven ladinos, mayas y los garifunas, que lamentablemente estan mas que marginados. Una maniana conocimos a un musico garifuna que nos explico el verdadero origen de su pueblo, y su triste realidad actual. Livingston atrae a muchisimos turistas promoviendo desde la comida, hasta la musica garifuna, pero de mas esta decir que ellos son los ultimos en beneficiarse de ello. Los pobres ya estan desplazados del pueblo mismo, y a muchos se les ve con pequenios puestos de artesanias, y pidiendo lo que sea en las calles.
Uno de esos dias fuimos a hacer una caminata a un lugar llamado Siete Altares, a unos cinco kilometros del pueblo. Se trata de siete saltos de agua fresca, en medio de la selva. A pesar de que la caminata en si fue larga, y que nos aburrimos de ver basura durante todo el camino por la playa, fue refrescante el banio que nos pegamos. En camino a las cascadas, tambien nos topamos con una viborita verde (foto) tranquilamente colgada de una palmera. Al volver nos tomamos una rica sopita de gallina que tambien fue mas que gratificante. Esta zona culinariamente hablando, tambien es muy diferente al resto de Guatemala. Aquí usan mucho la leche de coco y el curry, que combinado con mariscos, y platanos son mas que ricos. Asi que se pueden imaginar que mas de una vez nos mandamos unas ricas sopitas de camaron! Uno de los platos tipicos llamado tapado es una sopa con todos estos ingrdientes. El domingo regresamos a Rio Dulce, despues de despedir a Eva y Mary, para encarar esta nueva etapa. Aquí, en la marina conocimos a unos australianos que estan recorriendo el mundo con sus dos hijas de cinco y tres anios en un catamaran. Ayer nos dieron un tour de su “casa” y quedamos con ganas de viajar de esta manera cuando vimos como viajan. Despues fuimos a comer unas pizzas al pueblo con ellos y alli a Mateo le cortaron el pelo. A la noche cocinamos una pasta en la combi, y ahora despues de un rico cafecito, estamos comenzando a empacar para salir a las ruinas de Tikal.

Eva and Mary left to go back to Ottawa yesterday, so once again it is just the four of us and we are in Rio Dulce trying to get organized for the next leg of our journey. Here is an update of the last few days: we left the westy parked safe and sound at a marina/hotel complex called Nana Juana, and all took a boat tour up the river to Livingston on the Caribbean coast. The guide took us first to see a small fort built by the Spanish to protect from pirates coming in from the coast, right where the river meets Lake Izabal. Then we cruised by a small island called Isla de Pajaros which was full of cormorants, egrets and big white herons, visited the Laguna de las Flores (also filled with cool birds hopping around on lily pads), and a hot water spring that flows into the river, all the while admiring people as they paddled around in their amazing dugout balsawood canoes. The river eventually narrows through a big canyon, with cliffs and trees on both sides, and the bird- watching there was pretty spectacular. In Livingston we especially enjoyed watching the pelicans with their disproportionate anatomy, and who seem to have taken over the boats floating in the harbor. We stayed at a little place called Posada del Delfin for three nights, where we just hung out in hammocks, took a hike to a place with waterfalls/freshwater pools 5 km along the beach called Siete Altares, where we saw a brilliant green tree snake on a palm tree, and got to know the town. It is a small and fairly grungy place and it is too polluted to swim in the water there, but it is fascinating culturally (insert rant about plastic bags, bottles, shoes, and other miscellaneous garbage that constanly washes up on the Caribbean shores….) There is a real mix of ethnicities here, with the town being divided into the Mayan, Ladino, and black Garifuna cultures (there is also an Asian element here). The Garifunas are especially interesting, as it is the only place in Guatemala where they live and they are marginalized (even more than the Mayans, and that is saying something!). Guide books play up the Garifuna element, and restaurants and business on the main tourist drag also take advantage of tourist interest in the culture while apparently the people themselves are quite discriminated against. There are of course different versions, and I am sure that the Ladinos and Mayans have their own perspectives, but it is pretty clear that not many of the people benefiting economically are Garifuna and that they have been pushed back further into the outskirts of the town. Next door to our hotel was a place that rents cabins that has a pretty good restaurant, and there we tried a soup that is advertised as Garifuna food (but that a man told us really is not) called Tapado, which is a seafood and fish soup with coconut milk and plantain – delicious! Another day Gustavo tried a “coco loco,” which is basically fresh coconut water mixed with rum (served in the coconut, of course). Another neat thing about Livingston is that they speak Q’eqchi Maya, Garifuna, Spanish and English so when you walk down the street you hear all kinds of languages. We woke up at six in the morning on the last day and took Eva and Mary to the main dock so they could head out to Puerto Barrios. After seeing them depart, squished into a loaded down boat, we went and had a sad breakfast of coconut bread and a cappuccino at the hotel next to ours. Teo and Ariel had one last game of fusball and played the marimbas for a while and we left at 9:30 am. On the boat trip back we stopped at some of the same places as before, plus the Tatin river where there was a place in the jungle where the river begins that sells artesanias made by a Mayan women’s cooperative, and where we bought a small bowl made out of banana husks. Once we got back to Rio Dulce we settled in to relax by the pool at Nana Juana for a few days to get used to being just the four of us again: the people running the place here have been really kind to us and don’t charge us very much to park here and use the facilities. Rio Dulce is an interesting place in itself, filled with “yachties” who come here during hurricane season because it is the safest place to be in the Caribbean at that time. The town itself, just a tiny strip along the road, is surprisingly well-provisioned – surprising until you realize just how many foreigners live here and all along the river! There is an Australian couple with two gorgeous little girls staying here at the marina who have been in the area for about a year already. Yesterday we were lucky enough to get a tour of their catamaran, which is very cool: next time we want to tour the world in a boat like that! We also went out for lunch with them to a place in town called the Sun Dog Café, owned by a friend of theirs from Holland, which had good pizza. Mateo was excited because he got a ride over there in their dinghy, and he also got a fancy haircut from the café owner’s Irish girlfriend. On the way back, the girls got a ride in our westy over the bridge (which is apparently the longest one in Central America). Today we are planning to head to the Tikal ruins in the Peten jungle (yay – more howlers!) and then probably on to El Salvador. We were thinking of going to the Bay Island of Utila in Honduras to do some more snorkeling first, but apparently there has been a lot of flooding recently and the roads in Honduras are in really bad condition.

Chichicastenango to Rio Dulce, via Antigua

Aca estamos tomando mate y baniandonos en una piscina, aprontandonos para salir a Livingston. Despues de un par de dias de manejar entre montanias, volcanes, subidas y bajadas,y a veces hasta sin frenos!, finalmente decidimos quedarnos por estos lados para descansar y disfrutar este paraiso. Hoy voy a mostrar mi hilacha y sin ningun tipo de vergüenza hacerles saber que no tengo ni un poquito de ganas de escribir en el blog. Asi que por favor miren las fotos que de ultima lo dicen todo. Prometo? Escribir pronto….
The town of Santiago Atitlan is famous because in 1990, in the middle of the war, the community got together as a group and said no to the military and the guerillas, that what they wanted was peace. One night, Dec 2 1990, the military targeting one family and everyone else in the town tried to protect them by standing together. At one point, someone fired their gun into the air and the soldiers started to fire into the crowd, killing 13 innocent bystanders, known as “los inocentes.” Right down the road from our hotel, we visited a memorial site called the Peace Park. Of the 13 people killed, two were children and it was definitely a sobering moment to find their graves. This incident was the first catalyst for a movement for peace, which was finally declared in 1995. One of the guys who was working at our hotel, Salvador, gave Eva and the kids a 45 minute testimony of that time, as he worked for an American priest that was very well loved by the people and spoke the languages, took care of the orphans and widows. He was murdered by the military while inside his church, becoming a martyr. Apparently, when he died, his family back in the United States wanted his body, but he had said in his will that he wanted to stay with his pueblo. So, before they shipped the body, the townspeople kept his blood, brain, guts, and heart and apparently they still have them in the church. I guess this means that, in some way, his heart is still with is people. That afternoon, we took another boat back into Panajachel (this time the water was calmer) to pick up the westy, which was safe and sound. We had heard of a place to camp, close to the Reserva Natural Atitlan, where they have created a jungle setting in amongst the oak forest and coffee plantation up the side of the mountain, with a butterfly enclosure, hanging bridges, and monkeys and coatis. The Vision Azul camping place was a bit dirty but was right on the edge of the lake with an amazing view, but the local high school students were having a big Valentine’s Day celebration when we got there, with loudspeakers and music, so we decided to check out the nature reserve. They had some pretty cool “ecological” cabins with giant bamboo theme, so Eva and Mary stayed in one while we camped out in the parking area, which did not have the view but was much quieter! The next day, the kids woke up early and went bird-watching with Mary, helping her to identify the birds with the help of a book of local birds that the office provided. That afternoon, Mateo could not resist jumping off the side of the mountain strapped on to a cable called a “zip line,” which allows you to zip down the mountain over top of the trees! (video to come later) Later on we decided to try the camping place, so after the school party was over for the day (we found out that it was happening over three days!) we set up camp close to a kitchen/bar area they had set up beside a pool under a palapa and had a fire where we cooked fresh onions roasted in tin foil, peppers stuffed with cheese, salad and some little sausages. Earlier we had gone into town and bought some delicious desserts from a bakery that makes the most delicious macadamia nut pie and brownies, as well as cheesecake and great bread.
In the morning, we were greeted with the arrival of yet more high school students with their loudspeakers and music, so after hanging out and observing them for a while, we relocated over to Eva and Mary’s cabana only to find that they were both sick, with a combination of stomach bugs and Mateo’s cold. They were still willing to move, so after a hair-rasing drive of 20 km (which took two hours!) through mountains up and down and 180 degree turns, we reached the town of Chichicastenango, which is well known for being the site of one of Guatemala’s largest indigenous markets. Our timing was perfect, as the market is on Thursdays and Sundays and we arrived on Saturday afternoon, just in time to see all of the sellers begin to arrive and get set up. The drive here was pretty scary, especially since the brakes began to fail once again! Before Gustavo took the vehicle in to a mechanic that was recommended by the owner of the hotel we are staying at called Posada el Arco, we went out for lunch. We invited Diego along with us, a kid we had met soon after our arrival in town, who asked us for our soccer ball. He is a very chatty little guy who is 8 years old (or at least, that is what his mother tells him!) He goes to school during the week, but on weekends helps his mother to sell different handicrafts, mostly to gringos like us. The problem with the car seemed to be with the brake fluid overheating, so the mechanic drained it and filled with a different kind and hopefully it will not happen again! The market day in Chichi is difficult to put into words: we spent the entire day wandering amongst the stalls, filled with clothing, fruits and veggies, wooden toys, household articles, and anything else you can imagine, people watching and learning the art of bartering (actually, Eva was the expert in this regard). It was the most colourful and “authentic” scene we had ever seen in our lives and became at times overwhelming. The best thing about this place is that unlike Pana, it is not built for tourists (although lots come here) and people are just going about their thing and for the most part completely ignoring us (except to try and sell us stuff). We eventually got used to getting out of the way of people carrying enormous loads on their heads and backs, because if you don’t you will get stomped on! Same goes with the traffic….We spent some time in the Iglesia Santo Tomas, apparently one of the oldest in the Americas, observing them burning copal incense and lighting candles and making offerings. This town is well known for its interesting mix of Christian and Indigenous traditions (with the indigenous ones winning out more here than in other places). The church, built around 1540, was plunked right on top of an already sacred Mayan site, so it really feels like the church still is just a cover for what they are really doing. Apparently the Mayans had hidden their sacred book, the Popul Vuh, behind something in the church, and it was only in the 18th or 19th century that it was “discovered” by Europeans and taken to a museum in France! The steps of the church pre-date the church itself, and a lot of the supposedly Christian symbolism is connected to earlier beliefs; there is still a rich shamanic tradition here in Chichi, and the rituals are more Mayan than Catholic. At the church, Gustavo got talking to some guys from the local TV station, and they interviewed him and Mateo about our trip and our impression of Guatemala (I don’t think we will ever get to see it though). That night we were so tired that we just hung out by the fireplace in our room, eating tamales (rice and chicken wrapped in banana leaves) and chuchitos (chicken and corn masa wrapped in corn husks) that we bought from a local woman on the street.
The trip to Antigua was very hilly and twisty again, but we made it with no problems. Eva and Mary found a hotel room, and we ended up parking the westy for the night in the tourist police barracks – very strange, but it ended up being fine. Mateo was a bit sick in the middle of the night and Gustavo almost got shot at by a nervous officer while taking him to the bathroom! We didn’t feel like spending much time in Antigua, too much traffic and pollution (it is in a valley). After taking some photos of a smoking volcano, Fuego, that you can see from the city, we took off early the next day towards the Caribbean side, and made it before dark to Rio Hondo, which is about halfway. The detour around Guatemala city was hellish, as there are no signs to direct you where to go, but we asked about a billion people and it was fine. In Rio Hondo we stayed in this place with lots of birds (in and out of cages) and a great pool which was perfect for the heat. Out of the mountains and into the jungle, it is starting to get hot! The next day we made it to Rio Dulce, where we are now, and are planning a boat trip up the river to the Caribbean town of Livingston before Eva and Mary have to leave on Monday afternoon.

Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

We stopped again in Comitan on the way from San Cristobal to the Cuahutemoc-Mesilla border, for an oil change and to buy some bread, cheese and fruit for the road. Once we got to the border we cancelled our temporary vehicle importation permit and got our passports stamped on the Mexican side before crossing into Guatemala. We had heard some horror stories about crossing borders with our own vehicle in Central America, particularly in Guatemala (a Canadian couple we know of recently got stung for $200) but we had no trouble at all. In fact, it was the easiest border crossing we have had so far! They charged us a small fee to “disinfect” the vehicle with some insecticide spray, and another little bit for a tourist card and permit for the vehicle (which was much less than they charged in Mexico) and we were on our way. The guys in the office even gave us a map and some information on good places to visit. It took about 15 minutes, total! Apparently there is this thing called a CA-4 border agreement between Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua which means that we do not need to pay again at any of those borders for tourist permits. We immediately noticed a difference upon crossing the border into Guatemala, and the drive from the border to Lake Atitlan was the most awe-inspiring we have seen so far. All along the highway there are communities in the hills that are only accessible by these hanging footbridges, and every space is used to plant things. It took us a while to figure out what it was, but huge cloths line the road covered in green and brown coffee beans drying in the sun. The scenery gradually changed into larger mountains and pine forests, and we literally lost our breath once a volcano appeared in the distance – I swear we thought it was a mirage! At 3,000 metres we were completely up in the clouds, and the sunset was absolutely spectacular. The only problem were the occasional derrumbe (rock landslide) and the tumulos (speed bumps) which we grew all-too-familiar with in Mexico, where they are called topes and are mostly responsible for our tailpipe hanging by a wire. We arrived at the lake area just after the sunset and decided to break our own rule about driving at night just to meet Eva and Mary. Unfortunately, distances on a map deceive in Guatemala, as the roads are completely twisty, sometimes potholed and steep. So it took us about twice as long as we thought it would to get to a town called San Antonio Palopo (near Panajachel) on the most frightening downhill, hair-pin turn ride we have ever had. On top of it, we had been driving for so long that day up and down the mountains that our brakes eventually overheated and started to fail so we had to stop and let them cool off a bit before continuing without problems. We finally made it to the hotel and were greeted with happy hugs and a dinner under a full moon at a beautiful place called Las Terrazas del Lago. We loved the terrazas, which was run by a local family, but in the end decided to look for a place with a kitchen so that we could cook for ourselves, so we relocated (in a crazy, fast, bumpy and sometimes wet, 45 minute boat ride across the lake) to Santiago Atitlan to a place called Posada de Santiago. The place is exceptionally beautiful, located right beneath at least two volcanoes. We decided to stay for a couple of nights because there is a pool, a solar-heated hot tub, and an amazing home-made (if a bit claustrophobic) wood-heated sauna. We need to build one in Punta del Diablo! In Santiago we went out the first night and wandered in the completely Mayan town. Everyone gets around here either by walking (often with heavy loads balanced on their heads) or by these neat moto-taxis called Tuk-Tuks. The people here are incredibly friendly, but we are having a hard time getting used to the segregated feel of this place. There does not seem to be much of a Guatemalan middle class around here, and there is a real separation between tourists and the local people (in very concrete terms). It seems that almost the entire tourist industry is monopolized by non-Mayans and foreigners. A bit of research about the situation here in Guatemala yields a sobering amount of information about the sad history of this country, not least of which is that in 1999 they held a referendum to seek equal rights for indigenous people that was defeated by the ladino (mixed race) population, who are the minority, and who tend to deny their indigenous roots. What is very clear is that the Mayan people are at the bottom of the totem pole in all areas of society. Yesterday we walked in to the market to see the town in daylight and get some veggies and chicken to make with the mole negro and pipian verde we bought at the Oaxaca market in Palenque: aside from the stunning natural beauty of a deep blue lake surrounded by volcanoes, it is hard to explain how dazzled we were by the sights and sounds of a bustling town, with all the men, women and children dressed in their traditional clothing. Apparently there are 23 different Mayan dialects in Guatemala, and the residents of every town on the lake speak a different one and wear a different pattern of clothing. Many of the older people we tried to talk to didn’t speak any Spanish at all. In a couple of days there is a big market in Chichicastenango that we want to go to, to see them all come together at once to sell their clothing, food and wares. Today we are going back across the lake to Panajachel, where we left the westy in a (hopefully) secure parking lot, and are going to check out a place to camp close to a butterfly preserve there for a couple of days before moving to a different part of Guatemala.
Antes de salir de Mexico, en Comitan, cambiamos el aceite de la combi, y pasamos por un supermercado para comer mientras vijabamos. Un poco de fruta, yogurt, agua. Justo encontramos queso para sandwiches de Uruguay! Llegamos a la frontrra con Guatemala despues de un par de horas y en Cuatemoc (lado mexicano) devolvimos el permiso para conducir mexicano y nos sellaron los pasaportes. La Mesilla (Guatemala) fue la primer ciudad que nos recibio. Despues de leer y escuchar diferentes historias de horror de varias personas que cruzaron esta frontera y les hicieron practicamente la vida imposible, nos sorprendimos con lo rapido y sencillo que fue nuestro cruce.
Se complico un poco cuando comenzaron a venir las montanias. Mucho mas altas, con la carretera un poco mas precaria, con curvas todo el tiempo, y a veces con derrumbes. De todas formas, nuestro asombro crecia cada vez que que veiamos la majestuosidad del paisaje. A lo lejos podiamos observar entre las montanias varios volcanes, y al costado de la carretera los diferentes pueblitos llenos de vida. Sin lugar a duda, aquí resaltamos mucho mas que en Mexico, y muchas veces la gente nos saludaba, o nos senialaban haciendo algun comentario.
Llegar al lago Atitlan nos llevo unas diez horas. Justo antes de llegar a Panajachel,los frenos fallaron un par de veces, asi que paramos para dejarlos enfriar un poco, y seguimos camino hacia San Antonio Palopo sin problemas. Alli nos encontramos con Mary y Eva, que nos estaban esperando con ansias. Comimos a la luz de la luna llena y ya, mas que cansados, nos fuimos a dormir. Las vistas de este lugar son dificiles de explicar con palabras. Es increible ver, y tener enfrente nuestro a dos volcanes gigantes, y el reflejo de estos en el lago nos dejo mas de una vez con la boca abierta.
Hace dos dias,dejamos la camioneta en un estacionamiento, y cruzamos el lago en lancha, y ahora estamos quedandonos en una cabania con cocina y agua caliente! Este lugar tambien tiene piscina, jacussi, y hasta sauna. De mas esta decir que las tias nos estan mas que malcriando. Ayer cocinamos aca unos ricos moles (los habiamos comprado en Palenque) con pollo, y arroz, y muchas verduras frescas que que habiamos comprado en el mercado de aquí.
Hoy nos espera otro dia de aventuras. Vamos a cruzar el lago nuevamente y quedarnos en un camping en la combi (la verdad es que la extraniamos mucho), y las tias rentaran una cabania en el mismo camping.










Don't get too jealous, Eddie!

en el lago atitlan