Ixcan continued!

The family who owned the hotel invited Lucie and I to all the things that they were doing during the week..It was super sweet of them and we couldn't thank them enough. The folks were Carmen and Cesar, and while they have 5 kids 3 of them left the day after the lake to go to Coban where they live together and go to school. David and Diana the two youngest still live in Ixcan as do Carmens parents, and they were all around every day. Carmen's mom was really sweet and smart, wanting to learn English as I wansted to learn spanish...if I asked he how to say somethign in spanish she would want to know the english translation as well... She had made tamales....some mixture of cornflower and a green leafy plant at the lake...or heated them up there i think, and I asked her if she could teach me and she did!!! Here are some pics of that....when made they are wrapped in banana or other nig green leaf and then put in a pot with some water and steemed..... Looks like I will be doing it at home with tin foil...if you happen to have a banana tree (plant!!) in your yard let me know!


So that was one adventure and another was a couple trips to the river. The importance of these trips must not be underestimated as the humidity was so high that there were actually fish swimming by in the air! I thinkI took more showers there in one day then I did on my whole trip!!! It was also the first time there wasnt this electic heater hooked up to the shower head, so not only was I able to not worry about getting shocked in the shower there was actually cold water! No idea why in some other places they give you hot showers!!!! In freaking Guatemala!!! Who wants a hot shower!?!?!¿¿!¿!¿ (don't those upside down question marks make this authentic?!?!?!¿!¿¿!)Just down the river big trucks were hauling out gravel, I think it majorly reshaped the river in the area, but hey...the water was nice and wet! On the way I saw something I found quite a amusing at another river we passed that was much smaller...a car wash!!! people drove their vehicles right into the water and washed them!!! Interesting idea....
The next great adventure, which took alot of convincing to get me to go to was the Jalipero....aka Rodeo!!! When I foudn out it was only bull riding and not lassoing the babies I desided to go.... Got to see everything atleast once! And it was lots of fun....The bulls were quite wild and impressive.... The dude in the dress is a rodeo clown, there were a few dressed less feminanly but what they did to the animals made me a little sick....at one point they had a bull on the ground holding him down and pulled out his toungue and one guy held it in his own mouth! They were also yanking the tail like crazy and while I assume that would hurt I am no Bull anatomist.... If anyone knows what the huge weird camel hump some of them have between their shoulders, please let me know!

In the town and all over there are guys making snowcones on adapted bycicles.... here's one example, they grind a huge block of ice infront of you, then add syrop to it...mmmmmm....
The maeket was also really neat! The internet connection is awesome hear, hence all the pictures!!! here is more of the market...



As the family took care of us so well on the last night I was there (and supposedly Lucie's too but I left before she did and it is entirely possible she is still there so it may not have been her last night, we both planned on leaving every day for each day we were there but we just couldnt.... anyways on the last night....) we deicded to thank them with dinner and a cake... I wipped up a peanut sauce and a curry and lucie delved into the world of chocolate! Here is the kitchen! There is a fire under the flat thing on the right and the smoke kinda just comes out the other end!

You can see Carmen and Cesar and Lucie and Diana here, and they really liked the peanut sauce...the curry was not as pleasing for the kids and that is when i remembered how long it took for the taste to grow on me! But the gramma liked it the next day when she tried it! That made me really happy!

Somehow during this time I met another organism that I really didnt like.... It made me lose lots of liquid form places where there should be no liquid exiting! And poor Lucie..... As I mentioned before the walls between the room and bathroom gave no sound barrier and atleast the first time as it was the middle of the night I didnt have the tv blaring! But by the end I said I have one mother in Canada and now I have 2 in Guatemala! Carmen and Lucie were both really sweet to me, Carmen giving recipes and Lucie getting the food for me.... Papaya smoothies and garlic and lemon juice...(not at the same time!) I was very well taken care of and eased back into solid food with BBQ'd Plantane, which aparently was the right thing as I am much better now! So there is one more experience I got to have while at the hotel.... for the record I am 99.9% sure the bug came from something I had at the fair!

So with much heartache and a surprise goodbye gift from Carmen I was off again on my own! It took most of a day to reach Flores...the absolute best part was when I reached the fork in the road where I rejoined the asfalt!!! What a moment to remember! I had come form the south and turned left there, and now I headed north! The ride here was crazy as usual and for the first time there were actually live chickens in the microbus! and a puking kid who I got to sit next too....but boy did I jump for the first open seat! I tink I was almost sick again but managed ok.... sorry if that is way to much onfo on bodily functions in this post but I wasnt to give a realy feel for the place!!!

Now I am waiting for trip to El Mirador, some ruins you can only get to on foot with a 2 day hike.... Tomorrow I am off to Tikal, aparently some of the craziest ruins in the whole mayan world... they will only be topped by El Mirador in 10 years, as most of it is stillunder Jungle!

Adios!

Ixcan (Playa Grande)

The last night at the lake Lucie who I had met at El Retiro showed up...shes form France and I was able to practice lots af french along with my spanish for the next week! Although when i get home I hope i wont be mocked for having a bit of a France accent! That would be funny as normally I am just mocked for my english/french accent! Anyways she had spent a night before coming to the lake in a town called Playa Grande and said that the owners of her hotel were coming to the lake the next day. The lake is a popular place for locals to come on day trips, and expecially during national holidays which luckily it wasnt one at the time!

When the famliy arrived and made lunch I did not know it but my next week was set in stone. They had invited Lucie to join them for lunch and then me as well. A situation that i had been dreading for 3 months finally occured....I was offered a home made meal consisting of among some other things a hunk of beef! It was not easy to say no but obviously I had too..... (I guess had too is a little strong but so are my convictions about consuming animals) They were understanding and there was still other food to eat including a tomale...more on them later! The cook was the grandmother....a most incredible woman, and the family included parents, 5 kids, and 2 grandparents as well as 2 other people staying at the hotel who work in the town. Through my broken spanish we talked some, and luckily Lucie can speak quite well.

As it was too late in the day to make it to Flores, where I am now, I asked if they had room to give me a ride back to their town where I would stay the night and head out the next day. They said no problem and it was settled. That afternoon we all piled into the back of the pickup, (the grandparents made the 4km hike out no problem) just sitting on the lip...or hovering a few centimeters above it as the roads were none to smooth....I couldnt believe i managed to stay on! If i hadnt this post would be a lot shorter!

Lucie and I got a room at their hotel, one of the nicest I have had in a long time....for Q125 (divide by 7.5 for $) we got two single beds, with floorspace...A FAN!!!!!!! cable tv and a private bathroom! and 3 huge windows!!! quite often windows are not part of hotel rooms here! The only downside was that the bathroom walls were none too thick, which proved quite unfortunate for Lucie's ears, but more on that later....

That night was the opening night of the town fair....a week long festival that occurs annually.... The family invited us to join them and off we went.... Right away I found myself on a crazy ferris wheel with their son David.... We were a yelling and a scremaing and a swinging and a swaying for a long time! I must say that while some carnival rides at home may make you alittle nervous, its the ones that make you alot nervous that get sold to guatemala! But that is just another way of making things more exciting I guess!

A little backgound on the town is that Katie had told me she was avoiding it because one of her friends, an Aussi tough guy had said the place was dangerous, and when a 'tough guy' says something like that people genearally listen...but the family was sweet and I had a safe place to stay and it was only for one night so off I went!

At the fair we went into a tent to grab a bit to eat, Lucie facing out and i was facing the tent wall a couple meters away. Inside the tent was ridiculously loud music so you always had to scream...it seems the whole city is inlove with ridiculously loud music and we sometimes had to scream in the hotel room.

So while we are eating tons of people rushed somewhere and as a joke (because i heard it was a dangerous place) I said maybe it was a fight.... sure enough 5 minutes later a security type person is holding a guy with his arm twisted behind his back and a crowd is gathered around them just outside the tent we are eating in...(the tent is huge by the way, not a pop tent but one with 2 food stands and 40 tables) anywho, eventually the security guy sits the guy he is holding down just behind lucie, with his head resting on the back of a table that is agianst the wall. then everyone seems to leave. 2 minutes later this guy walks up to him and i thought he would talk or something but instead he gives him a roundhouse kick to the head that would have made chuck norris jealous....It was insane, and right infront of me, one of the scariest things i have ever seen, just walked right up and kicked this guy in the head, and not an amateur kick either...the guy was knocked right out! and that seemd to settle everything!

So I started to think that maybe Katie was right about this town.... just the sound of this guys head being kicked would turn any stomach.... also there were many peple carrying guns....but not carrying badges like gun carrying people do at home! That was enough for that night for me...after winning some tupperwear at a game we went back to the hotel!

The next day there was a parade that passed by outside and we had a great view from the roof, while i am not really a horse person I think the horses that passed by must have been some of the most beautiful in the world.... not sure if this picture does them justice though

Here is the fair in the daylight, this is a typical eatery there....

Gallo (the 'll' are pronouced like a 'y') is the Labatt of Guatemala, unfortunately I find it doesnt taste much better, although the hot weather helps....
It was so hot I felt I needed a hat, but I didnt end up buying one. This pic was my creative idea to see how I looked in the hat as there was no mirror....(there was one I just didnt see it right away!)
Here is a game where you throw quetzal coins onto plates floating in a pool and if it lands you get a 3 litre bottle of cola!

And here is a dude who was singing in the town square, he had a great song about all the departments (states) of Guatemala, but then turned to Jesus for every other song, like most of the music in the town.... Maybe all this Jesus music is why I am going around in a thick beard and sandals...Just cant help myself....soon I will be doing hail marys!!! hahaha Just kidding, but there are a bunch of churches that have live music what seems like all day every day, starting at 7:30am!!!! there was one right behind the hotel and it jsut never stopped, and the speakers are just fuzzy enough that it is between music and static but blaring! I dont know how to describe this most unusual type of church music, it is something that must be experienced but not recommended for those who want to keep their ear drums functioning!


More on Ixcan Later....time for breakfast....I have found a great internet connection to take advantage of as I am taking a resting day before going on a 5 day hike tomorrow!

Laguna Lachua

Howdy.... I'm now in Flores but still writing about last week....At el Retiro I made a friend from England....Katie who was working on a really neat project in Guatemala....she was going to villages to help
install mini hydro dams to get them power and have a community business. Anyways she was heading to a place called Laguna Lachua which after reading a bit about i realized I must go. Its a lake in the middle of the jungle that requires a 4km hike to get to and then there are rooms or camping and a kitchen you could use as well as BBQs.
The night before we left I got about 5 minutes of sleep...literally although it may have been 4, and we wanted to get on a ride a 5:45 in the morning! We actually managed to get to the road on time and then started waiting....finally a microbus came by and said he would take us into town where we could get a ride where we wanted...this is after a 20 minute wait... So we get into town and get onto another mini bus and this one starts moving and we have lots of room! Then we proceeded to drive around Lanquin for the next 40 minutes looking for more people until the bus was full...with our final stop being El retiro! where we got on but one hour later to pick up 2 more people! So I could have had an hour and 5 minutes of sleep!!!
The day's journey was ling and fun, it was almost impossible to sleep on the bus....but we were so tired, it was one of those you nod off and get bumped awake immediately for 6 hours or something! we had to change buses once where we bought food for our time at the lake and paid half a quetzal for the bathroom... the funny part about the bathroom is there is no running water...only running people...after you use the toilet someone fills up a bucket of water and then tops up the tank behind the toilet and flushes it for you!!! What I think is the craziest part is that if they would fill it before you go in then they wouldn't need to see what you deposited. One may think hey, why don't you just put the lid down when you are done, but don't get ahead of yourself, before hoping for a lid it would be good to hope for a seat!
So back on the collectivo and now we got to something that would mark me for the next week....its a fine powder that goes in your nose! and your ears...and your hgair and your beard (if you have one....i have been lazy recently so I sure do) and everywhere else...dust! After a fork in the road that i did not return to until yesterday nothing is paved or cobbled or evena lawn! its all dirt and dust! Windows must be open as it is stupid hot and humid but this is balanced by the ridiculous amount of particles floating dancing and playing in the air! Every time a car or truck would pass in the other direction it was a race for everyone sitting by the windows to see who could slide them closed quickest.... it seemed that no one won and eveyone lost! From that moment on until yesterday I have been blowinf all kinds of fun stuff out of my nose and throat non stop!
But it was worth it!

We got to the entrance to the park and saw it was only Q5 a night for camping! less than 1 dollar! Then we realized that the posted price is for locals and we paid Q25 which was still a great deal! I have always thought people with more money should pay a little more but I have never really been a person with more money.... Now that it happened I am proud to say I still believe the same thing....not that it should be proportionally the same...then you get nothing in return for your hard work, but if you can't afford as much you should still be able to participate in what you want....within limits ofcourse....it would be funny if a government would subsidize purchases of lambourginis or something!

Ok digression ended.... so we began our walk to the lake after being squished in a bus for 6 hours and not sleeping....its possible Katie had even less sleep than me...

The hike was actaully super easy, a very well maintained trail with tons of informations signs and labels on many of the trees! there were so many different tree species but stopping for too long would invite a zillion mosquitos to lunch!

After2 km there is alokout on the lake, almost a perfect circle...quite beautiful, and somehow i only managed to get one pic the whole time i was there! the sunset....

When we arrived we were covered in sweat and ready to jump into a nice cool refreshing, revitalizing....BATHTUB!!!!!!!!!!! The water wasnt warm but almost hot! It was unbelievably hot! If i dint know any better I would have guessed it was the worlds largest hotspring! But it is just the normal temperature for alike in the jungle that gets pounded by the sun day in and day out, and it doesnt even get a chance to cool at night! So while without wanting to sound like a putz i will say the lake was not quite refreshing atleat it washed off all the sweat! And the fish!!!! Tons of fish! and evenb colorful ones! They were swimming all around us! Up to 30cm long! some in the lkae are 2 meters but we didnt see any! There was a no snorkeling poicy as it is a park and they wanted to ensure no one would do any spear fishing as that is common along most of the rivers in the area...but the water was so clear almost everything was visible!

One funny thing was that I like to sometimes bite my nails and I threw a peice into the lake and 100 fish competed for it! I felt bad but it was funny! One grabbed it in his mouth....these were the minnows by the way...and would swim away with half my nail hanging out, actually looking very much like a hook....and then 30 other minnows chased him/her all over the place! Even more insane (this is a little nastier) is that the same thing happend when I coughed up one of those dusty loogies!!!

From the cleairng where you could camp and cook there was a boardwalk heading to the lake...and right at the bigeinng was a tree I have always wanted to see! can you guess what it is before reading farther dwon...I will put the answer at the bottom of the post!

That first night I passed out way befre dinner and didnt wake up till the very next morning! what a well needed rest! Chilling at the lake was great, and that night a frined from El Retiro showed up.... and she had spent a night in a place called Playa Grande before and that fact turned out to create a wondeful series of events that led to an incredible week which I will write about next!

The aswer to the mistery tree/fruit/nut....cashew! each nut grows seperately on the bottom of one of these fruits! there is also a yellow variety of fruit..... so maybe that is why they are so expensive....we toasted the nut in the fire and then you crack it open and pull the cashew out from inside!!! mmmm!!!!!!

Lanquin and El Retiro

Hello again, its 1 minute since my last post, but I am still writing about last week! Its fun to relive some memories.....

The place we arrived at was spread over a sloping field that went down to a river which i did not take a single photo of, so I hope you believe me that it existed....if not it's just a short hop to guatemala and 15 hours on a chiken bus to verify!

I was able to put up my tent and slept in it for the next few nights.... Super cheap too, although it did cost me a new shirt I never even got to wear! But such is life....I have heard many more stories of people 'losing' things like cameras while staying in dorms so one shirt in 3 months is ok....

The place held about 100 people in private rooms, dorms, and then some more in tents and hammocks..... They had a yummy but expensive kitchen and supper was served family style with about 70 people eating together...they were even quite vegan friendly as some American girls passed a month before and were the guinea pigs...so they didnt even flintch when I asked for my meal to be vegan...Here is Dinner... Lots of fun and then came lots of beer!

The next 2 night I found a couple other veggies like myself and folks that were happy eating just veggies and we did some cooking on my stove, another thing that I had yet to use....it took me 2 months to find fuel and then a while to need to use it as some hostals have kitchens.... One night we had a peanut sauce with a side of green beans and the next a curry with a cabbage salad! The food at the giant dinner was great but Q50 a meal whle cooking came out to about Q7 each... And I met an Israeli guy who also had been carrying around the same mount of gear as myself so I felt a little less insane.....

Here are a couple sites form the street in Lanquin....Dont know what that tree is but I want one in my yard..... (I guess I should hope for a yard before the tree though!)

There were a few great activities to do from El Retiro.... One being getting a ride up the river and floating back down in a tube! It was a long float and awesome.... The funny part was that to get there we all had to ride in the back of a pickup for 10 minutes in our bathing suits...not bad for me or the other guys but for all the girls in bikinis it was like they were paraded through a town where women usually swim with t-shirts on.... I would not be surprised if the truck driver calls ahead before he drives through town to alert his friends of the passing excitement!

The Highlight for me of Lanquin is by far this cave!

Our guide was an awesome guy who was very happy to share all his knowledge of the area! We had a tour where we went into the cave for about an hour, there is a Mayan altar inside and many cool rock formations....the inside is covered in black soot in many parts from hundreds of years of burning sacrifices....these days chickens are sacrificed and thats all I wanted to know about sacrifces! On the ceiling there were some baby bats!

Here are some more formations on the cave and a local residnet who is harmless but scary none the less....when I askled to hold him (her?) he ran up my arm and almost into my shirt, it was pretty freaky!!!

The absolute best part of the cave came at sunset, where about 100000 bats flew over our head! It was pretty freaky and very cool, you ould hear them and then someone would take a photo or turn on a light for a few seconds and all you can see is bats bats and bats!!!!

We sat at the entrance for a long time checking it out and then headed home! One of the coolest things ever!.....

Well now I am halfway caught up.....

tune in next week same bat time, same bat channel...

sneak preview....isolated jungle lake....cooking tomales, seeing people with handguns and much more!!!! oh yeah...and the runs!!!! hahahaha

Samuc Champay

Hello there! I feel like it has been a long time since I was able to post, so it probably has! I guess I will be more recapping for a while as the last week has been so incredible I cant recall everything nor do I have the time too....

When I left off I was in Antigua, one of the bigger cities in guatemala, and without much arm twisting I left...it would have been great to stay and see some more hockey but the bed bugs made the decision quite easy!!! To all you parents who tell your kids ''goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite'' to hell with you!!!! It is impossible to not let them bite!! there is nothing you can do...they are vicious insane creatures and run a close second to tics on the list of any plant animal or insect that I may actually hate....there are only 2 things on the list so it is a big deal! They bite far worse than mosquitoes and last much longer.... luckily I the rest of my roommates were super folks or I don't know what i would have done...in the dorm we were 4 norwegians and one canuck....all people who understand what cold is! so we got along just swell..... I left Antigua with a friend from Australia and we headed to a place called lanquin which is near samuc champay, a popular area of waterfall type stuff...I was told that id i went to El chiflon (which i had in mexico) I could skip this pplcae but boy am i happy i did not!

As we pulled into Lanquin in the microbus locals would hop on the ladder on the side and give us flyers for tours to samuc champay.... the funniest part was that one of them spoke hebrew! and not just hello and goodbye! Israelis are everywhere... this last week has actually been the longest I have gone without meeting one of the 'chosen' people!

The first night we stayed in a hotel and then needed to Samuc Champay the next day, not taking the tour as we wanted to camp there. But sure enough the ride we got was with plenty of folks going on the tour so we joined them...(50% Israeli)... and it was a great idea! On our own we would have seen the waterfall part but not everything and boy was there more! We started by being told to et into just sandals and bathing suits and then we were each handed a candle that we were told would last for 2 hours, but we will only be one and a half....very reassuring. You may guess that we were heading into a cave but why the bathing suits you ask?? well because the cave is mostly a swimming experience! We were swimming in the dark holding a candle over our heads with one hand!! then you would climb up a ladder and walk for a bit before swimming again! After 45 minutes we got to the end and you could climb up the wall and jump 2m down into the water, but you can barely make pout the wall and we jumped into something the size of a well....very freaky!!! So lucky this was not in another country where you would be lucky to see a movie of the inside of the cave!!!

After that we had a 5 minute float down a river in a tube which seemed to be added just to make the trip longer and then it was off hiking.....

We climbed up to the main view point of the area and got the view you see on all the tourist pamphlets but it was much better in person!

Just breathtaking...and for once the guide did not rush us down! Then we climbed down and jumped in the pools....you can dive form one to the next...really great and water is nice and warm!!! The guide had us all go down to the last pool and then he tied a rope ladder to a rock....we were wondering why he had brought it and threw it over the falls....we climbed down and went into another cave where an underground river came out...all the pools are on top of the main river which is underground! Samuc Campay mean hidden river inthe local dialect! This is where the river begins to go underground.... It would be at the top left of the above pic....

The river is not the same pristine color as the pools but awesome none the less.....the next day we got to go swimming at the bottom of that last fall...the pic of the two heads is just over to the side of the part we climbed down.... That part was full on waterfall and slippery...

The night we arrived we put Augustus (my tent) by the river and some kids came by to talk...or so we thought, they wanted to sell us stuff or get some money.... I figured the best thing to do would be to hire them as security--- which we did and also ordered some tortillas for breakfast.... The next morning we found out that one of the boys was addicted to photography...he finished the battery on Emily's camera and then took a hundred more pohotos on mine...the funny part is that they were all perfect pictures!! it was incredible! He would make us pose or zoom in on a plant.... Here is a shot he set up of breakfast...

And herwe is the photographer....Joe cool!...and his siblings!

At night Emily and I engaged in a game of scrabble and it turns out we were both a little competitive.... good times....and it made it worth carrying it around for 2.5 months without using it!!!

Here are some cocoa beans drying on the side of the road and they are followed by a little burniung of the forest where corn will be planted....the problem though is that after a crop or two all the soil will erode and more land will need t be cleared....so adios forest.

Of course the other side of the coin is that there is no other room to grow anythign and these poeple are way out inthe middle of nowhere and need food to sustainthemsleves....(this is all guess work on my behalf, along with what i was able to hopefuylly translate correctly)

This part of the trip comes with a funny story..... We needed to catcha bus back to Lanquin and while we were waiting Emily went to go buy some water...I was going ot put on some music and a wild Trance song came on and I just could helo myself I had to do the Trance Dance! Sure enough I tirn around to face the road and there is a bus stopped with 50 Guatemmalan faces pressed to the window all staring at me googly eyed!! (I am upset that using this word now makes me think of a search engine) So anyways I smiled and walked up to the bus which was going the wrong way anyways and asked if we could go to Lanquin and they said yes.... I got on the bus to big smile and a cute old man who wasnted to shake my hand....

I thought they would go 100 meters up the road and turn around at the falls, but they ended up going for half an hour before turning around and that is where the last 2 pics were taken....where the ride did make its turn was a tiny village which could really be considered the middle of nowhere in a country where lots of roads seem to lead off into such places....And it was the first time I got a look like wow, a person with different skin!!! we could have been the first in the village or more likel the first in a very long time!

The bus took us back to Lanquin where we went ot a place called El Retiro....and that will be in the next post....