School's Out! The Roadtrip

My six weeks of school ended on February 13 and after the big graduation, I caught a bus to Guatemala City where I met Grant at the airport. We set off on a journey around Guatemala for 10 days with backpacks and a (very) loose plan.

First stop was Antigua, the so-called jewel of Guatemala and former capital of all of Central America. It is surrounded by volcanoes, one of which still belches smoke on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Antigqua's location was not optimal. Sitting on a faultline proved its downfall, and after the devastating earthquake of 1776, it lost its status and the capital shifted to Guatemala City. However, what remained is still pretty special. It has a gorgeous central park with beautiful trees in full bloom which served as a great setting for morning coffee and newspapers. For Grant this was a welcome change from the white landscape of Ottawa.

Antigua has endless blocks of Spanish colonial architecture and some 38 churches, in various states. And they keep finding new ones. An excavation in the 1990s turned up the extensive remains of a Dominican monastery, which has become the setting of the classiest (and most expensive) hotel in town. It has its own private museum in town, paid for by the owner of Gallo beer, the Labbatt of Guatemala. The remains of the chapel are now the hottest place for weddings for Guatemala's ruling elite.

We spent 4 days in Antigua, one day longer than planned due to a bout with the dreaded bug. In the end, both of us caught it. I made my entree into Guatemala's health care system to get a prescription, which quickly cleared things up. Grant was afflicted off and on for a couple of days more. However, our extra time in Antigua meant we could hang out, read and wander. One evening we stumbled upon an opera concert in one of the many decommissioned churches, now functioning as a cultural space. It was wonderful to hear and see.

On our last day we chatted with this family who asked us to take a photo of them. In exchange, we asked if we could also take their picture in their traditional dress or traje. Picture-taking is sensitive among Mayans and must always be negotiated first. Taking pictures of children is rarely a good idea. Virtually all Mayan women and girls in Guatemala wear traditional dress, which features brightly coloured, hand-made embroidered skirts and blouses (huipil) which are usually very ornate.

From Antigua we headed to Rio Dulce, a six hour bus trip to the east coast of Guatemala (close to the Caribbean). There we stayed in a cabana in the jungle on the river, a short boat trip from the town. That was the jumping off point for a great boat trip through the Rio Dulce to Livingston. This town lies on the Caribbean coast and is populated by the Garifuna, originally from Jamaica. While there we ate one of the traditional Garifuna dishes, a soup made of various kinds of seafood - including a whole fish - with coconut milk and coriander. Muy bueno! And we toured the local museum and had a demonstration of Garifuna miusic from one of the leading practitioners in Livingston.

The big event of this trip, though, was Tikal, which took another 4 hour bus ride to reach. This was via second class bus, meaning we stood in the aisle for half the trip as it was so crowded. It was not supposed to be a "chicken bus" but that is what we got. We stayed on the tiny island of Flores, about 1 hour south of Tikal, in the middle of a lake.

How does one describe Tikal? It is the king of Mayan ruins in all of Central America, with towering temples and massive structures. There are literally thousands of buildings here, only about 20% of which have been uncovered by archaeologists. Work continues in many areas of the park. Many of the sites in Tikal pre-date the time of Christ by hundreds of years.

The settting too is spectacular, since the temples are in dense jungle populated by wildlife, including toucans, spider monkeys, and howler monkeys such as the one in the picture which emit this terrifying roar heard for miles around.

Tikal reached its pinnacle in about 900 AD but rapid decline quickly followed. Scholars speculate about the reasons. Shortage of food, water, conquest by others and disease are all probable causes. Tikal was the setting for some of the shots in the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. We did an organized tour of Tikal with an excellent guide and then hiked to some of the more remote temples, spending almost the whole day there before returning to Flores. Temple Number V, recently restored with help from the Government of Spain, just had to be climbed, a feat facilitated by a series of steps and wooden step ladders to the dizzying summit.

Not wanting to do another marathon road trip across the country in chicken buses, and sadly running out of time, we caught a Taca airlines flight from Flores to Guatemala City and then a bus to Lake Atitlan - the other big tourist draw in Guatemala. We saved more than 10 hours of travel by flying. It is a beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes and ringed by tiny villages, many of them accessible only by boat. Spent the first night in Panajachel and then took a launcha to the tiny town of Jaibalito. Our accomodation was just outside the town in a fantastic place called Casa del Mundo (from the dock a climb of more than 100 steps to our room). We stayed in a beautiful rustic cabin with balcony overlooking the lake and volcano and took advantage of the hot weather and being on the lake to go for a swim. Dinner was a collective affair in the lodge and we met interesting folks from Israel, the United States and Europe.

Hiked for 3 hours the next day along the lake to San Marcos - up and down the hills, following paths through very small corn fields, being wary of the loose dogs. San Marcos is a neat little town which has become the mecca for purveyors and consumers of every type of holistic therapy and spiritual development imaginable, and then some. Unfortunately this new-ageism and its followers have moved into the centre of the town while the locals seem to be pushed to the fringes, eking out a living from bananas and coffee. I wonder what they think of it all. Lunch at a French cafe was delicious and well-earned after our hike to San Marcos.

After 3 wonderful and relaxing days at the Lake, the Guatemala chapter came to a close and sadly Grant and I made our way back to the capital to catch our planes to different destinations - he back to Ottawa (and he was sad about that) and me to Managua, Nicaragua. We had a final dinner in Guatemala City at an Argentinian restaurant of course with some fine wine from Mendoza. Muy suave! (Note the copy of Lonely Planet, which is rarely far away.)