Mandy and Rick in the Mayan world

Have now put this travelblog onto my own server for posterity. I will get around to adding slide shows of some of our pictures, but just not yet. Send me your email address if you would like to know when the pix have been added - that might even encourage me to get on with it! Don't forget the anti-spam measure we are using on our addresses..... you will need to edit the address to remove the spaces, sorry for the inconvenience!

Otherwise all that there is left to be said, is goodbye and thank you, it was a great trip!

Where it rains!

We arrived in Palenque late the day before yesterday. This is a beautiful lush part of the rain forest. Huge bright red flowers interrupt the multiple shades of green.

Again we ended up living in luxury ($22), having thought we were going to camp. But no cabanas were left, so we ended up in a really comfortable room in a new hostel with the hottest showers yet :).

This morning we woke up and it was pouring. We had been due to go to see the waterfalls but felt that we had enough water falling outside the window. Instead I went into town, got refunded on the tour and bought firstly, an umbrella and secondly, tickets out of here back to Tulum and, hopefully, a sunny beach for our last two nights.

Last night we watched several fire dancers performing to a background of a drumming group. This is a really lovely place. The ruins are extraordinary, though the guards just a little overbearing!

This will be the last communique to the travelblog.

San Christobal is a pretty town up in the mountains. A little similar to Antigua, there were more coffee shops, but many were too expensive and our favourite, found towards the end of our stay, was called Aroma Cafe on the main shopping street.

We did our final shopping here. I found something I had been looking for for a while! Can´t say what it is, for obvious reasons!

But the highlight of this place was meeting Kevin and Leslie from North Carolina. We hung out with them during the last day, visiting outlying villages in their lovely blue high-rise truck (something like that). Two lovely people we are very happy to have chanced to meet.

Happy Birthday Kevin (on Sunday), see you in NYC soon.

{start rant}

The Rough Guide says that many of the women and children selling souveniers on the streets (particularly in San Christobel) were evicted from their villages because they were converted to Protestanism by missionaries.

If this is true, and it probably is. Perhaps these same "churches" could take some responsibility and at the very least, build some schools (based in indiginous languages) for these children to attend and break this cycle of deprivation.

{end rant}

Comitan has no tourists. Okay, it probably does but we didn´t see them.

This is a lovely city, very very clean. San Franciscoish with dips and hills. Beautiful slate tiled streets and multi-colour houses.

Leonardo, who was giving us some very good coffee at the cafe Quitic on the zocolo, was very keen to practice his english. In fact every person we came into contact with here was really friendly. Perfect for a stop-over recovery.

We headed out towards Lake Montebello national park (an eastward turnoff 18km back the way we had come) and stayed at Pino Feliz, a hospadje run by the daughter of Dona Maria who helped guatemalan refugees in the 80´s amongst many other travellers and whose hospadje next door is now closed as is her story.

Chimpultec ruins are a 3km walk from her house and we got to them with an hour and a bit to look around. This was the first time we had been to ruins that we had pretty much to ourselves, they really were lovely. Lots of butterflies and dragonflies and my first ever encounter with a (harmless) snake who was completly petrified by my scream.

In the morning we headed further into the park and visited Lake Montebello itself and then walked to the Lakes of five colours. These were magnificent, five completely different greens and blues. Finally we searched out caves, which involved, unfortunately, a tedious hike up the wrong mountain!!! A lovely lady told us, on the way down, "there´s nothing up there". Yup that figured. Half an hour later we found the right place.

We reckon we hiked at least another 24km. We caught a bus from the park entrance back to Comitan, picking up our bags on the way. And then grabbed a minibus to San Christobel de Casas.

Rick took me to his favorite restaurant last night. La Gato Gordo. Delicious glass of red wine and food.

We are staying in a lovely Postada, back on budget, for the next couple of nights.

Finally we get to rant about a place we absolutely hated!!!!

But first the lake:

Lake Atitlan is 18km long surrounded by three volcanos. And it is beautiful.

But.....

Panajachel, the main town, has been taken over by aging american and german hippy capitalists. Not that there aren´t some very lovely aging american and german hippy capitalists in the world, however, when they all get together in one place, it´s a lot too much. Our entire view of this place was marred from the first place we stopped into, Crossroad´s cafe (aka Starbucks). Wonderful coffee, prepared by a coffee connisseur - Mike, originally from upstate New York. But ALL the customers were americans.

Later we went to the market at Solola, a short bus ride back up into the mountains. An amazing place, with no tourists and thousands of Mayan´s from near and far, selling everything from raw weaving materials, fruit and veg, to shoes and second hand clothes.

If we hadn´t already paid ($5) for our room we would have moved on that night, instead we ate on "Oxford St" at a busy outdoor restaurant (diners card accepted), whilst being accosted by small children selling souveniers.

Decision made, we moved on.

The worst place incurred the worst journey! Typical.

First a 1hr chicken bus ride up the mountain to the central american highway (CA1).

Then a 7hr (should have been 4hrs) ride on a supposedly first class bus, which is really a chicken bus with softer seats -- if you´re lucky enough to get one, that is (we did after the first hour)!! These buses are old greyhounds instead of old school buses. It was stopped by police and army about 6 times before reaching the border.

This was followed by a rather bizarre border crossing at La Mesilla where you sign out of one country, hop in a cab for four kms and sign into the next.

Lastly a two hour minibus journey to Comitan. (Stopped 3 times by police and army. Perhaps if they actually blocked the border!?!?!?)

Whereupon we finally checked into a luxury, ($31) a night, hotel with a lovely hot hot shower and even a tv (showing "the man with no shadow" in English - but we fell asleep well before the end) in order to wash away the extraordinarily grimey travel experience.

I forgot to tell you about thge spider monkeys in the jungle around Tikal.

This goes with a diatribe about toilets, but that´s another story!

We came down from Temple IV in some need to make use of the very nice facilities in the park. Standing outside, Rick noticed that someone was trying to get our attention from above our heads by throwing half eaten nuts in our direction. We looked up to see a couple of spider monkeys showing off high in the trees. Several other people (including a couple who had been very irritated with us for keeping the bus waiting at 5.30am that morning) were sitting around watching them cavorting. As I looked up I said to Rick "that one´s about to shit on me", we moved back about four feet and the little monster promptly peeed right on the spot where we had been standing!

That broke the freeze from the couple who couldn´t help but crack up.

Thank you to all of you who have let me know that you´re enjoying reading this. Makes it worthwhile trying to keep up with it.
xxxxx

Our plan had been to move on back to Mexico after Flores and Tikal, but the people were so lovely, the country so beautiful that we decided to explore Guatemala a little more. The second night in El Remate a couple from Ontario joined us for dinner. He, Dennis, is a sommelier and she (hummmm - oops) runs a restaurant only open in the high season. Good excuse to travel half the cold part of the year. They were talking to us about San Marcos on Lake Atitlan and Antigua so after a little, a very little, thought we decided to head south instead of west.

Antigua, which is from where I now write, -- on the first floor of a beautiful old colonial building, doors wide open, many gringo´s learning spanish on the balcony -- is extraordinarily cosmopolitan. Our first and best friend here, is Fernando who makes the best coffee in Antigua (if not Guatemala). We organise our days around trips to his coffee shop, from which we could smell coffee roasting from a block away as we made our way to him a little groggily this morning. He also gave me some fabulous internet addresses for jigsaws (he has several completed and hung in his cafe).

This city is a world heritage site and is simply beautiful, surrounded by threevolcanoess, the cobbled streets slow the traffic down so that the many pedestrians have a chance to amble gently past the many many shops, cafes and restaurants. I have been trying to work out how to get G&D here, perhaps as a side trip to the US?

Tomorrow we plan to leave for the lake which will include a detour to the weekly market in Solola, where we are hoping to pick up some nice things.

From there, we will head to San Christobel des Casas which will probably be the next opportunity for blogging.

Manuel also created the most beautiful stove for his wife, it is stucco but shaped with animal heads and carvings and brightly painted in many colours. We have a photo, but we don´t have the technology to load it here,unfortunately. She builds the fire first thing in the morning and keeps it going all day, which proved very useful for Rick´s caffeine habit.

He trained other people in the village to use this ancient technique for building (the same as used by the Mayans) where they boil limestone to extract the material for the stucco. There is a deep cellar (with bats!) that is the limestone extraction quarry, right behind the kitchen. Each cabanna is decorated with mayan paintings and illustrations. And the whole site, high on the cliff, overlooks the lake.

He also trained other people in the village to carve hardwood animals which they can sell. One tree trunk lasts a family a year. We are very fond of this place (where a lakeside peice of land can be bought for for 2000 uk pounds! Though it is doubtful if its papers would be in order ;).

Not that that has stopped David, an American who must now be in his late 70s, from establishing a rather swish hotel on the lake front. Originally he had a place called El Gringo Perdido.

Sunday turned out to be a day of rising`s and settings. We watched sunrise from the balcony over the lake and then later in the day, having moved to El Remate, we watched the sun set from the opposite side of the lake. Finally we were treated to an amazing setting new moon, throwing a shimmer of light across the darkness.

El Remate is a much smaller place than Flores where the prices match the number of tourists. We stayed in a white stucco cabana built by Manual and his wife (unfortunately he died a couple of years ago). We only know her as Senora, but she also became Mama, cooking the most wonderful vegetarian feasts, waking us up at 5am (my clock mysteriously disappeared from my backpack along with torch between Belize and Guatemala) to catch the bus to the Tikal ruins and providing us with a delicious snackbox.

We ate her sandwiches at the top of Temple IV looking over the top of the jungle towards the rest of Guatemala. (Recognise Temple 4 from the opening sequence of Star Wars Ep1.)

On our way to that temple from another area of the ruins we went down a path deep into the jungle, we did see a sign with a red line through a walking man, but I had seen so many which said no running that..., well, okay fifteen minutes later I finally agreed we were going in the wrong direction!

We must have walked about 24 km that day and slept like logs that night in our hut with no windows or doors. The mosquitos now seem to be enjoying Rick more than me, for which I´m sorry to say, I m relieved! Perhaps its the extortionate number of spoons of suger he takes in coffee !

Anyway going back to El Mirador el Duende, la Senora´s place..... I ran into two women I knew from London a few years ago who were standing in her kitchen when we arrived. Jessica and Margot had also fallen for la Senora and couldn´t tear themselves away. We had fun with them that evening trying to drink some of the Blackberry wine. But unfortunately it just left me with a dreadful hangover. Guess that´s what the boys in Belize meant when they said you didn´t feel it til the next day!

We arrived in Belize City at lunchtime on Thursday and had to hang about waiting for Russel´s bus to leave for Bermudian Landing at 4pm. (It took us a day and night to work out that Russel´s bus is Russel´s bus, and a very nice bloke he is too!) But Belize City, particularly in this area by the bus station, was a bit too much like Coldharbour Lane and hanging out by the basketball court wasn´t the most relaxing experience!

Bermudian Landing is the home of the Community Baboon Sanctuary, set up in 1981 by biologist Rob Horwich and Fallet Young. Jessie, Fallet´s wife, is the chairwoman of the community association and works unceasingly to keep the place going always ready with a smile and advice. Their son, Colin, is finishing a Phd at Conneticut in botany. Two ladies at the new sanctuary restaurant (paid for from PAC T who recieve that environmental tax that we all pay when leaving the country) kept us well fed during the two days we spent in this amazing creole village.

We stayed in the Nature Resort, run by Wayne Young, on behalf o his uncle, Roy, who is a professor at the Belize University in Belmopan.

Fallet gave us our first tour through the rainforest, at 7am, to meet a troop of howler monkeys who have become very used to meeting tourists! They came down out of the trees to take cocoa leaves from our hands. He first learnt about fauna from his grandmother and proved to have a wealth of information about the medicinal properties of different plants and trees. Later we were rowed down 18miles of the Belize river by another guide, Robert. He sang country songs to us whenever our energy began to flag!

We already had had a brief hint about this villages´ penchant for country music; the night before, dropping into the bar for a beer all the customers were enjoying some of this music. Honestly I thought it was a joke being made on our behalf, but no, for some reason, which Wayne tried to explain to us, they really do like it! He says its because they´re country folk. But it still seems a wee bit ironic. There is another story to tell here but we shall leave it for another day.

I have taken away with me some blackberry wine (very nice) and some cashew wine (to be honest it tastes like meths!, maybe it just needs to be laid down for a while).

This morning we caught the 6.30am bus into the city and arrived at the bus station just in time to catch the next main bus out to the border. Ever wonder where all the US´s school buses go when they are no longer comfortable enough for american school kids??

We passed through Belmopan and then San Ignacio. A market in the central square nearly had me out of the bus and spending the day there. The town is nestled in the most beautiful valley. And probably one of my regrets will be that we didn´t stop. At the next town we were transported by taxi to the border.

We went through (Belize have put up the exit tax to Bz$30, from $10 a year ago) and on the other side, were immediately surrounded by taxi drivers charging an exhorbitant $50 dollars to take us to Tikal or Flores (our destination). We were scammed even though we knew to take the minibus. But the taxi drivers have forced the minibuses to park way away from the border and we had to take a taxi to the bus. Instead of paying $2 each we ended up paying $10 each. Oh well, que sera sera. (NB 29.1.04: apparently we weren´t scammed, it just felt like it!)

Desperately in need of a hot shower (can you see a recurring theme here?), we went to Flores. This is a very very pretty village on an island near Tikal. It is also full of tourists. We are staying in a lovely hotel called the Mirador in a room with a balcony over-looking the lake. Tomorrow we will either go and camp at Tikal or take a cabana in El Remate village on the other side of the lake.

Moved on from Tulum yesterday aboard a second class bus. Only this one was more like fourth class, a real bone rattler. I thought it was only going to take 2 hours but it transpired that it was a three to four hour journey, thankfully our driver was a fast one!

We have now vowed to take first class buses whenever possible.

We are in Chetemal, close to the border with Belize. The very most important thing about this town is that we are installed in a hotel with a hot shower. But it also has a really nice museum describing the culture and history of Maya.

Tomorrow we move on to Belize.

More of that later, Rick is hungry and pacing behind me.