Week Twelve, Guatemalan Mountains

Week 12

Guatemala’s Highlands

June 8^th- 14^th, 2009

Day 79-81, Mon-Wed: Antigua, Guatemala

In the morning we (the caravan) headed out early on our way to Antigua. The drive was a long one and we would have to pass through Guatemala City. We weren’t able to find GPS city maps for Guatemala, so before getting too far down the road we all stopped at an internet café to research some alternate routes around the city. We found a few maps and some cryptic directions that Kindra had to actually reverse because we were coming from the opposite direction that they were written in. The Colonel led the way with John at the wheel and Kindra navigating for him (this is the standard travel procedure up to this point). Things were going great as we headed up through the mountains on a nice paved road until we came upon a long line of stand still traffic. There was a “demonstration” going on up ahead at a crucial junction in the highway and the thousand or so protesters had completely blocked traffic. This is quite common here in Central American and Mexico, but we had never experienced it before. The wait lasted about 3 hours or so until some law enforcement with their riot gear showed up to separate and clear the way for traffic. These are the things that you just cannot plan for on trips like this one. Our next setback came about 45 min. later when we again came upon a long line of hardly moving traffic. A hillside had collapsed up ahead and the traffic was being poorly directed through the one lane of passage on the dirt covered road. Finally we made it to Guatemala City and braced ourselves for the unknown! Thankfully Kindra took the directions she had found online and magically reversed them, taking us through the city with grace and ease!!!! The trip actually went amazingly smooth (aside from the traffic/demonstration hold ups) and the whole group made it through Guatemala city and into Antigua with just enough daylight to find a hostel and safe places to park the vehicles for the night. The name of the hostel we stayed at was called the Ummagumma, and the guarded parking “fortress” was right around the corner. The hostel was very nice… especially for letting us have Wallace. We would recommend it to anyone traveling to or through Antigua. They have private rooms, bathrooms in some w/showers, a communal kitchen, laundry, TV, and free Wifi…NICE. Aviv and Itai cooked dinner in their room that night for us and we all enjoyed our own beds after a long semi stressful day of travel.

Antigua is a charming old city w/ cobble stone roads and old historic church ruins around every corner. John woke up early to get the truck out of the parking lot before 8 (they charge by the hour after that). Then he and Wallace walked down to the market store for some coffee and to buy breakfast items. So up to this point internet had been really scarce and to have a good, free, wireless connecition was a bit of a treat. We spent the day doing stuff online, in the upper open air rooftop area of the hostel. Later in the afternoon we went to the town center and to the market. While doing some produce shoping we had lunch at a little comedor (eatery) in the back of the market. Most open air markets have these little places to eat where you can get a simple traditional meal for less than or the same as what you would pay to cook for yourself. Itai and John had pollo con cebollas y aroz (chicken with onion and rice) and the girls had a vegetarian dish. It was very simple and super delicious. While checking out the town and meeting up with our couch surfing connection Mauricio in the courtyard, John spotted a young Guatemalan boy heading his way with flyers. He looked a lot like the little tour guide from Lanquin and Samuc. John thought, ‘geez all these little Guatemalans sure look the alike’… he looked just like Crisanto! Remember we are now 4 hours away from where we first met this little guy (only 11 years old) and never expected to see him again, but it was him and we had a happy little reunion, Kindra even exchanged our cell # with him!! ! We met Mauricio and after chatting awhile, we decided to follow him back to his place to stay for the night. His place was about 15 minutes outside of the city in a very nice gated community where he had a room and bed for us to stay. He was kind to cook dinner for us (his roommate and roommate’s girlfriend were there as well) and we all relaxed and chated before they all went into the city for the evening, leaving the house to us.

On Wednesday we decided to book a tour up to the local active volcano (Pacaya) that left in the afternoon out of Antigua. We all packed a snack and had lunch before leaving. The tour bus left in the afternoon and was an hour and half bus ride up to the site where we had to hike another hour and a half before reaching the lava flow. We had heard from other people that it was hot enough to actually roast marshmallows at the top. We had no idea what we were in for though. After the bus ride up the mountain we were greeted by 30 or so young local children offering walking sticks for the hike up the volcano. They approached and ran along side the van yelling… “Stick for you, stick for you!?” Amusing and a little sad at the same time; we didn’t buy a stick. Our tour guide (not Crisanto) led us up the misty side of the volcano through the dense forest. We passed by locals gathering and carrying wood down the mountain for their heating and cooking stoves. Some young boys offered “taxi” services on their horses for those unable to make the climb. Our whole crew was more than able and made the hike with no problems. Nearly there we could see smoke and steam coming out of the top of the crater! The site we were going to was just below this and when we arrive we were amazed to see a thick 2 to 3 meter wide flow of molten lava streaming out of and down the hillside. We took out our marshmallows and with our 6 foot long roasting sticks proceeded to feast on our sugary puffs of earth roasted goodness… yum! A few silly English types brought a pan and some eggs with the hopes of frying them up. Unfortunately, they broke most of them on the way up the mountain and realized they had forgotten a spatula and their pan had no handle… silly English kaaaniggets!!! The hike down was much quicker and when we reached the bottom all the little children who were originally selling the stick were now screaming… “Stick for me, stick for me?!!” they wanted their sticks back to sell to the next group of tourists. Some of the little buggers actually tore the sticks right out of the hiker’s hands!!!

Getting back into Antigua we had planed to stay at Mauricio’s that evening, but were unable to make plans with him and had to stay in the Antigua. The parking lot just around the corner from the hostel said we could camp for one night for the cost of parking 50q (around 4 dollars US). So we lucked out with a safe place to camp and park…nice.

Day 82-84, Thur-Sat: Panajachel, Guatemala

Thursday The Itais (Itah and Aviv) and the Stinkarellas (Kindra and John’s nick name from Itai) met early in front of the Ummagumma hostel. Before leaving John did a little shopping at the near by Super store. We were on our way to Lake Atlilan… destination: Panajachel. Some have said that Lake Atitlan is the most beautiful place in the world. Of course any definite like that is left solely to an individual’s perspective and personal experience…although it is pretty darn magnificent! The lake is amazing and said to be the crater of an ancient volcano. It’s surrounded by three other volcanoes and several other small cities whose lights can be seen across the lake at night. Coming into town we had to descend a mountain and to get into the crater of the lake. The road into Panajachel was lined with waterfalls and beautiful views of the town and lake. Arriving in a small unfamiliar town is always a chore, especially in the truck. The streets here in Guatemala are very small and there a lot of one ways. Kindra had made some connections with couch surfers in Panajachel, while in Antigua, and being the studious little one that she is, got us hooked up with a super cool guy named Chocolate Bob. We split with the caravan after getting into town because The Itais had a couch surfing place of their own, but we stayed in touch via cell phone, (that’s right we caved and purchased a sim-card for our international phone) texting, and walki talkies. After talking to and getting directions from Bob on the phone we headed up to his house on a hillside just outside of town which overlooked the lake. His house keeper/assistant was waiting for us at the end of the driveway to guide us in to his gated parking area. Obispo (the assistants name) then led us down a steep cobblestone path to “La casa de Bob”. As we walked though the entryway we were convinced that we had just been invited to stay on one of the sweetest spots on Lake Atitlan. Bobs house has the most wonderful view of the lake and has a charm all to itself. Bob is an artist who has been living in Guatemala on and off for the last 25 years or so, making his way as an entrepreneur. He at one point had his own chocolate making business as well as glass bead making operation. He currently is getting ready to get back into the chocolate making scene. After a nice chat and “get to know” John, Kindra and Wallace got settled in and unpacked a few things from the camper. That night John, Kindra and Bob all had a curry dinner together.

Friday: After taking more than a week off from daily yoga, John and Itai decided to get together early for some practice. Itai picked John up at Bob’s house and they went down to the bank of the lake for a 2 hour session. Afterwards the whole group drove up the road to check out the Sololá market, which had a reputation for being quite impressive. It was really something, maybe not the most enjoyable but wow, what a place. From the outside it looked very similar to many other markets we had been to, but upon entering the mass of fruit stand and vendors we could barley navigate through all the barely 5ft tall Mayans. It became a chore and task just to manage our way through the people pushing and shoving each other to keep the flow of traffic moving. Having little Wallace with us did not help either and at one point John had to put Wallace up on his shoulder to keep him from getting trampled on. You think we get funny looks when Wallace is on the ground on a leash… you should see the looks we get when he’s up on our shoulders!!! Supposedly this was a market known for pick pocketing, a local Mayan even warned us as we passed her fruit stand. We made it out of the massive crowd of people though. We bought some fruit and sat in the shade to eat it; fresh mangos, bananas, strawberries, pineapple and papaya. Everywhere we go people are amazed and thoroughly amused by Wallace. Most people down here have never seen a dog like him, especially the children. They seem to gravitate and crowd around the little guy. Wallace is a good sport though and will do his little trick routine, as long as we have some treats for him. After the market we headed back towards Panajachel for another comidora style lunch. Again it was very simple, delicious, and cheap… the best combo for a budget-eer’s meal. When we got back to el casa de Bob, we headed out to do a little tour of the town and Bob’s shop and kitchen. Bob introduced us to his little workshop and shared with us his experience in glass bead and jewelry making over the last decade living in Guatemala. He then took us to a local coffee shop where we had a nice cup of afternoon java and picked up some delicious looking sweets for dessert. Sushi was on the menu for dinner, veggie for Kindra and for Bob and John some smoked salmon and cooked halibut. It was yummy! We savored our first sushi of the trip and cleaned our plates. We relaxed out on the porch after dinner and chatted about traveling though Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and future plans.

On Saturday morning John tried to write as much of the previous week’s blog while Kindra packed the truck and camper, with anticipation of perhaps heading towards San Pedro that afternoon. John then helped Bob do some much needed re arranging and shelf building in his kitchen. Then the three went into town to make a batch of caramels, but when we arrived at Bob’s kitchen we were missing some utensils for cooking the caramels correctly, so we all headed back up to the house and made the sweets at Bob’s house in the newly “renovated” kitchen. We hung around Bob’s place that evening and had leftovers for dinner and transferred about 100 or so DVD’s and a bunch of music from Bob’s massive collection. We decided to stay another night in Panajachel with Bob and head towards San Pedro the next morning.

Day 85, Sun: San Pedro, Guatemala

We decided to meet up at Bob’s place around 10am to leave for San Pedro, but not before Bob made some of the best coffee with a machineta (the small percolator looking devices that goes right on the stove; John now wants and is currently looking to purchase one). The drive down into San Pedro was again like Panajachel: breathtaking! We could see the entire town from the steep descent and went miles down into the crater of the lake. After some tight maneuvers around the thin city streets we found the one of the docks in the town where ferries from across the lake bring people on day trips and workers into town. After walking into the town center on a little trail that runs behind town, we returned to the truck and inquired as to whether or not it was safe to sleep in the truck, parked by the dock. The tienda owner across the street said it was safe and we were reassured by a couple of travelers in a 70’s VW van that had camped there the previous evenings. John went for a walk up into town to search for tortillas. With no tortillarias in sight he decided to ask a girl and her grandmother where he could find one. The girl explained she sold tortillas and promptly asked how many he wanted then ran up the hill and returned with a bag of fresh tortillas (how do they do that?) We didn’t have much of a plan for San Pedro and we’re a little disappointed in the town over all. We were sad to see a major distinction between the ‘tourist’ center and the real town where the locals lived. Also, the amount of incapacitated and completely drunken men on and in the gutters was a bit disturbing. Alcohol apparently is a new substance to the natives and there ability to metabolize and process the toxin is slim to none… so a very small amount can turn a totally sober man/woman into blistering fall down drunk (especially with the moonshine that they make here. Anyway it was an experience and not all our stops will be pleasant ones. We were however able to meet a fellow living in Xela, our next destination, who offered to let us stay at his place if we needed to. Kindra and John made dinner in the camper this night while the local kids played football and chased each other after dark. It’s comforting to see and hear the children playing and laughing at night.

Our second week in Guatemala comes to an end. The time seems to be going faster than we can write our blogs. We hope to decide on a place to stay for awhile, now that we have reached Xela. Love you all, Peace

John, Kindra n nuestros pobrecito, wallito