Spanish, Volcanos, & Antibiotics in Antigua

All travelers in Guatemala spend at least a few days in Antigua because it is a town famous for brightly painted colonial buildings, gringo eateries, and Spanish schools, although our favorite find was the $2 gargantuan banana split. The ancient roads are cobblestone, the buildings old, and streets full of gringos...
We spent 2 weeks studying and living in a student boarding house which gave us a home base to make some friends. All spanish schools have similar design with one-on-one tutoring for 20 hours per week. The class is mainly unstructured without quality textbooks and is taught by young teachers lacking much experience. Most of the day is spent chatting about life and culture and the differences between the USA and Guatemala. My teacher was only 19 and was married until the second week of class when an American student became interested in a date; her spouse was then reduced to a mere boyfriend. It is a rare opportunity when a Guatemalan has a chance to leave the country for a better life, so many of the other teachers were encouraging her to "go for it". She was still thinking about it when I left...
Antigua holds the largest Semana Santa (Easter) celebration in Latin America, so preparations were in full force. The churches displayed offerings of flowers, fruits, and candles, most buildings were decorated with purple streamers, and a parade marched through the streets every Sunday night. When Scott and I heard the word "parade", we were thinking bands and candy... But, the parades for Semana Santa consist of hundreds of men dressed in satin purple robes followed by the single float of Jesus held by 40 men marching at the slowest pace possible through the streets. Not very exciting for us to watch, but the locals seemed very passionate and excited about the arrival of Easter.
Antigua is surrounded by 3 volcanoes, including 2 active ones. One of the big tourist events is to climb Volcan Pacaya to see the flowing lava rivers and steam vents. We decided to make the trek for my 32nd birthday. After a huffer through the forest, the view opened up to a land of dried lava fields that has doubled within the last 2 years. We climbed over sharp lava rocks following the painted white trail, feeling the heat and steam the closer we came to the glowing red lava. Once again, Guatemala did not disappoint us with that fine line of safety. Our guide proceeded to hike below the flowing lava and encouraged the group to approach for that killer picture. Okay, so I had to join too even though this picture doesn´t quite show how much my heart was pounding...
South of the US border, you do not drink the water unless treated or bottled. This is difficult to avoid when eating uncooked fruits and vegetables in restaurants, brushing your teeth, and when purified water cannot be found. But, down here diarrhea is a traveler´s rite of passage. As our second week commenced, Scott began to develop some serious stomach problems and was out for 4 days. So, for my birthday he gave me a bottle of poop to be examined for parasites by the local medical clinic. Luckily, bacteria were the culprit so the savior was a bottle of Cipro antibiotics I brought from the states. For those leaving the country for southern lands... don´t leave home without it! After recovering, we decided to travel to Lake Atitlan to study Spanish for another couple of weeks. More to come...

Bienvenidos a Guatemala

(note the live turkeys in the basket... welcome to Guatemala!)

As soon as we left Tobacco Caye we headed straight for the Guatemalan border. After a sweaty 3 hour chicken bus ride sitting on our backpacks, all passengers were unloaded at the last dusty town in Belize several miles from the border. We then hired a "taxi" (really just an old man using his barely-running station wagon) to travel the last few miles to Immigration. The border crossing was very chaotic, primarly because we were entering the true abyss... donde nadie hablan ingles . We were headed for the Mayan Ruins at Tikal, which entailed another 3 hour ride on an unpaved road - true adventure in the middle of nowhere.
One thing about indiginous Central Americans is that they are tiny people. It's great for me because I feel tall, but unfortunately Scott's head did not clear the ceiling of this particular minibus. Not a problem for most Guatemalans... but a problem for a 6 ft American. Without complaint, Scott made many friends on the crammed bus speaking his gringo Español as we got a glimpse of Guatemala. The people here must rely on their own resources for supplies and food because we didn't see a store for hours. Only rows of corn and horses, pigs, and cows roaming freely (unless tied to a tree on a short rope). Life in Guatemala had a different feel... The people were definitely poorer than we had seen, but yet, happier. Friendlier. Mostly uncontaminated by tourist contact. We made our home in the small town of El Remate, 30km from Tikal, for 3 days. This town was situated on beautiful Lago de Peten Itza which was peacefully free from motorboats .
Visiting Tikal provided a purer glimpse of Mayan Ruins in contrast to the tourist trap at Chichen Itza. The ruins are situated in the entangled jungle, full of toucans, howler monkeys, and the fer-de-lance, a snake that can kill a human in 30 minutes. yikes... Despite my efforts to spot one along the narrow walking paths through the dense jungle, we escaped certain death. The most spectacular moment at Tikal was arriving at 6:30 in the morning to experience the jungle come to life without a sole gringo nearby.
Next on the tour was an extended journey to the heart of Guatemala. Although the "highway" map may show a mere 100 mile trip to your final destination, the journey takes hours. This was partially due to the beautiful mountainous terrain, but mostly attributed to the many random stops for no apparent reason. One highlight of the journey was a ferry crossing, overloaded with cars and even a semi-truck. The entire ferry was propelled by a tiny motor attached to a submersed garbage can:
We visited Coban for a couple of days and we realized that we needed more Spanish skills - and quick! Few spoke English, so we limped around on the few phrases we knew but everyone continued to be extremely helpful and friendly. Coban is a bigger city (around 20,000) and although most still wore traditional clothing and spoke Mayan, there were modern shifts occuring. A large group of Mayan and Spanish women were marching in the streets with signs demanding the end to discrimination towards women. The same day, we witnessed a large group of excited teenage boys running around in the streets wearing eerie black and white masks asking for donations toward their "cause". We assumed this had something to do with conteracting the women´s demonstration but later understood this demonstration was unrelated and intended to raise money for an extreme political group... not sure what they stood for but we avoided them at all costs.

coffee plants in Coban

Coban is situated high in the mountains with a climate conducive to growing coffee. One would think it would be easy to get a delicious, fresh cup... right? Wrong! All of the good coffee is exported to (mostly Starbucks in) the US and Europe leaving the locals to suffer with bitter, nasty coffee camoufloged with plenty of sugar. We visited a coffee farm to learn about the growing process and to see the coffee beans actually being scooped and weighed manually for each exported bag. The tour included a delicious cup of coffee fresh from the farm - and this was the good stuff! Coban also so served as a launching point for Semuc Champey, which is a national park established to preserve a natural formation of clear turquoise blue pools conncected by cascading waterfalls. This park is in the-middle-of-nowhere, Guatemala, so it took plenty of patience and arm strength to remain standing in the back of our truck-taxi while completing the final 10km of death-defying road.
Another interesting formation in this region are the many limestone caves. Since our hostel offered a $3 candlelight tour of one nearby, we had to check it out. We began walking through the cave on the muddy floor until the water began to cover our feet, then our knees, until before long we were swimming in deep water, holding our candles above our heads. At the terminal end of the cavern, our guides tried to get us to jump off these dark 20 ft. cliffs into the micro-pool. Safety Patroler Rachel didn´t even need to step in... this was evident madness. Aside from a late night craving for water with absolutely none available, these were good times and a great introduction to one of the big themes in Guatemala- Safety isn´t First!!!

Chicken Bus Tour of Belize

It was great to get out of Mexico! I bet there are beautiful parts of Mexico filled with very kind people. However, the Yucatan strip of beaches from Cancun to Playa del Carmen-Cozumel and beyond was really not that enjoyable or an authentic cultural experience. More like resort strip hell. Mexico´s biggest industry is tourism and they are professionals at milking every gringo for as much as possible. The friendly people were usually doing so to exploit you later. This lack of trust of everyone got real old real quick.

Belize put our Mexican experience into light. The tourism industy is growing fast and they are learning the gringo-milking skills but there is a little more trust. Perhaps because they speak English for the most part, it was easier to get to know how these people live their lives. We opted to stay away from the big resort areas and chose Tobacco Caye to spend a week on the beach. This was a 5 acre island 20 km off shore. We chose this place because of its size-intimacy but also because the snorkeling was accessible right off the beach. We were in the middle of the second largest natural reef in the world and as soon as you stuck your head under water you knew it. We enjoyed the biodiversity of fish, coral, rays, dolphins, sharks, and creepy crawly invertebrates much more than our Mexican adventures. And it was reasonably cheap.

Rachel and I showed up on the island without making prior reservations and quickly found out there were no vacancies. THANK GOD FOR OUR CAMPING GEAR. We even brought over food and water supplies in preparation for such an event. One of the locals, who had grown tired of pandering to all the tourists, had set up his place for self-sufficient people. The island is so small that there are no restaurants and most people have all inclusive deals... meals and lodging. So we scored some points with our self-sufficiency and gained access to the local community. We gained so many insights... it will be hard to recount them all. One biggie, which relates to our experience in Mexico, involves the conflict of local sustenance, ecotourism, and biological preservation. These people live off the sea. Few of them snorkel for fun. They hunt for their food and eat most meals directly from the sea. Thus, they have a very different relationship with the ocean than tourists. We began to understand the reason why the experience was so cheap... these people don´t completely rely off the tourists yet! They can fish and do just fine. And really, if they didn´t have to feed all the tourists, the system would be a lot more sustainable. They wouldn´t need to harvest so many fish. So in essence we felt like we were witnessing the early stages of the evolution of the Cancun and Cozumel we didn´t enjoy so much. As soon as the government starts restricting the fishing (the wheels are in motion) the more the people will rely on sucking the blood-money of grigoes.

On a happier note, we became such good friends with our host that he gave us the keys to his house for three days. Mr. P was a farmer back on the mainland and had to check on his crops and family. Mr. P shared a vision of good neighboring and community involvement that I had only read in books. Indeed, the more we travel the more its like going back in time... when the communities were more interwoven and people relied on each other. Mr. P would bring his crops on the island and gave them away freely. He would also share some finances from his gringo visitors. In exchange, his neighbors would give him extra fish when they brought in good yields. Rachel and I caught onto this vibe and wanted to contribute something. We had brought along some walkie-talkies and decided to give them to Mr. P. He said that such things are hard to come by and very expensive in Belize and that they would be helpful on his farm. In exchange for our kindness, he surprised us later in the week with the keys to his house and thus water supply (water is the big commodity on the island as they have a narrow window to collect it off their roughs during the rainy season). Later in the week we found out his neighbor was an old-school cottage industy doll maker and so we commissioned a doll of Mr. P as a parting gift.

"Señor P"

Other crazy Belize stories largely revolve the madness behind the bus system. The chicken buses didn´t really have chickens much to our disappointment... but they did pack the people on them like hen house chickens. We quickly found that the early bird gets to sit down on the bus. When the bus arrives to the bus station, it becomes a free-for-all to get on and find a seat. Rachel and I ended up sitting on top of our luggage in the very back of the bus and were lucky at that. We would continue to place wagers of how many more people could fit on the bus at each stop and were amazed at how all the people standing up in the aisle of the 1970´s school bus would crunch together to create a little more room. As soon as the bus starts rolling... the reggae stats pumpin´ and all is good, mon.

This doesn´t begin to show the madness...

Adios until Guatemala...