Guatemala: Week 1

So I finally have a chance to post... I've been really busy with the start of school and whatnot. I only had access to a computer for about 15 minutes at a time in Guatemala so I didn't have a chance to update. Also, I'm going to have to find pictures are from other people since my camera was stolen... details to come.

Wednesday the 19th:

We flew into Guatemala City with a connection in Houston. We ended up having to wait in the airport a couple hours because Alex's flight from Miami was delayed, then we met our driver Vinnicio and he drove us to Antigua (about an hour away). Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala, and is one of the bigger cities we stayed in. The streets are all cobblestone and lined with multicolored houses. It reminded me of something you'd see on Househunters International, one of my parent's favorite TV shows on HGTV. Antigua is one of the wealthier cities as well, there are lots of boutiques and restaurants owned by Europeans. The first night we met up with Christie and she took us to a restaurant that had live music. Christie works for CasaSito and also worked with us on the radio station project (and deserves credit for some of the pictures).

Thursday the 20th:

We woke up super early in order to drive to Porte Barrios, where we took a boat to Livingston. Arriving in Livingston was one of the scarier experiences I had on the trip. When we got off the boat, we were swarmed by Guatemalans trying to persuade us to come to various hotels. And when I say swarmed, I mean swarmed. Meanwhile, the driver of the boat is walking away with my luggage (he had helped me get it off the boat). So I'm clutching my backpack to make sure no there's no stray hands in it, following this random guy whose carrying my luggage away, and being followed by these yelling guys. After a few minutes they started to ask if we wanted various drugs. We told them no and at that point they became irate, shouting any combination of profanity and 'American' they could think of. We asked our boat driver to take us directly to our hostel, telling him we had a reservation. "Oh, you have a reservation!" he replied cheerfully. So we got back on the boat and he took us to another harbor where our hostel was located.

Needless to say, we were a little shook up by that. We decided to just walk around close to our hostel to find something to eat. We stopped at a little restaurant on the water with beer posters all over the walls. There were two items on the menu: fish and shrimp. Oh, and Gallo beer. You can't walk 10 feet in Guatemala without seeing a sign for Gallo. Anyways, the cook invited us back into the kitchen to see the seafood, proclaiming that he "caught it fresh this morning!" I got shrimp, and although it was swimming in grease that later solidified it actually turned out to be really good (at the time). It did give me a bit of a stomachache later.

We had been reading in Sean's guidebook about Los Siete Altares (The Seven Altars), a series of freshwater pools and waterfalls that was supposed to be close to Livingston. We asked our hostel owner about it and he said it was about a 20 minute car ride and a 20 minute walk and offered to call a 'taxi' for us. The taxi turned out to be an old pickup truck that the 10 of us stood in the back of for the ride. (This is actually a very common mode of transportation in Guatemala.) They dropped us off and we walked down a very dirty beach to Los Siete Altares. The pools were really pretty and it felt nice to swim since it was so hot. The waterfall furthest upstream had about a 10 or 12 foot ledge you could jump off which we took advantage of.

That night, we had dinner and just hung out at the hostel. We learned Alex's favorite card game Scopa (spelling?) which turned out to be a big hit for the rest of the trip.

Friday the 21st:

We took a boat in the morning from Livingston to Rio Dulce. It was about an hour boat ride and it was at that point I realized that we were literally in the jungle. There were dense trees on either side of the river rising up hundreds of feet. We also passed people in canoes checking their traps for fish. Vinnicio met us in Rio Dulce and we drove 5 hours to El Remate where we stayed at La Casa de Don David. The hotel had beautifully maintained grounds and was on the lake Peten Itza. We went to bed relatively early because the next day we were visiting Tikal National Park.

Saturday the 22nd:

We got up early to go to Tikal. Tikal National Park is where many of the Mayan ruins are located in Guatemala. This was one of the things I was most excited about going into this trip, and it was awesome. At the first temple, if you stood in a certain location and clapped your hands you could hear a squawk noise which was supposed to be the sound of the quetzal. (The quetzal is Guatemala's national bird and is also the unit of currency.) We climbed up the tallest temple, and from the top you could see the tops of the other temples poking out of the trees. We also went to the town center, where all the buildings have been unearthed and restored. They restore the temples in the original ways of the Mayans. There were courts for playing a game which our guide explained was like a combination of basketball and soccer--you had to get the ball in a hoop without using your hands. The winners of the game were sacrificed; this was a great honor. Our guide also explained that only 15% of the temples have been unearthed, and pointed to lots of random hills where buildings where still buried.

After a long hot day at Tikal we wanted to go swimming so we walked to an area on the lake that had a dock. The water was super clear and like bath water--probably around 80 to 85 degrees. There were a couple kids there swimming when we got there, and this unfortunately begins the story of how my camera was stolen. I was taking a picture of the sunset when Kunal realized that his glasses had fallen off the dock so I walked up to shore, put my camera in the case and set the case on top of my bag (next to everyone elses' bags). Then I walked back out onto the dock to help look for the glasses. About 20 minutes later we found them and when I walked back up to shore my camera was gone. We looked everywhere for it but couldn't find it. The only thing we could think of is that one of the little kids took it while we were distracted looking for the glasses. So that was a bummer. I lost all of my pictures from the ruins and the rest of the trip. Fortunately have more than enough pictures from everyone else, but it was also a bummer because I had just got the camera in China. Oh well. I'm currently bidding on another one on Ebay so we'll see how it goes...

Anyways, we went back to the hostel and had dinner and then hung out for a while. We spoke with Don David for a while and he told us that there were big spiders that came out at night near the rock walls in the garden. We went searching for some and they were not big spiders--they were TARANTULAS. The biggest, hairiest spiders I've ever seen in my life. Most of them hid in the rocks when we approached but we were able to snap a picture of a few. (Pictures to come soon.)

Sunday the 23rd:

Vinnicio picked us up and we drove back to Rio Dulce. This time we took a boat to la Casa Perrico. The hostel was only accessible by boat and was definitely the coolest we stayed in. It was literally in the middle of the jungle for only $7/night. There were boardwalks to get from room to room and really big gross spiders (again).

We went downtown Rio Dulce and did some shopping. I bought 2 hammocks, which I have no idea how I am supposed to go about hanging. Hammocks are everywhere in Guatemala. That night we went back and had dinner at the hostel, which was all-you-can-eat buffet style and was awesome. We hung out at the bar for a while with the hostel guard. This guy looked like Samuel L. Jackson, was dressed in all camo, and carried a shotgun. (Guns were actually pretty common in Guatemala. For example, the Pepsi trucks are open flatbed trucks and the racks are stacked on top. In Guatemala City, I saw guards with shotguns riding on top of the bottles. Also, when they are doing money exchanges at ATMs guards will stand outside with shotguns. I was near one when they were fixing it one time--it was definitely the closest I've been to a loaded gun in my life. It made me nervous. I don't know who would be stupid enough to try something with those guys, but I guess it's happened.)

Monday the 24th:

We spent most of this day driving from Rio Dulce to Antigua, about a 6 hour drive. When we got to Antigua we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and had a couple drinks. We went to bed relatively early.

Tuesday the 25th:

We drove from Antigua to Xela, where we were staying during our volunteering. We met up with Amanda (the CasaSito coordinator) and she took us to some hot spring pools up in the mountains. They were HOT. Definitely hotter than any hot springs I have ever been in before. But the view from the top was awesome, since we were almost at the peak of one of the mountains.

That night Amanda took us to get Guatemalan food, it was a tiny restaurant where we literally took up every table. The food was super cheap and pretty good too. I got chicken with this sort of orange bean sauce with cinnamon and rice. It was only 30 quetzales ($3.75) for the meal and drink. Can't really go wrong with that. That night we went to bed early because we had to get up at 6 AM the next day for volunteering.

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Phew, that was a lot of writing. This is where I will end it for now. Week two starts our volunteering. I'll also work on finding pictures to go with everything I just wrote above! Check back soon. Buenas Noches.

Katie