El Mirador

For 3 days I waited in Flores Guatemala to begin the Jungle trek. It is a hike I was told about several times over the last 3 months and was looking forward to immensely. I had heard it is the hardest hike in Guatemala and you walk through knee deep mud. At first I was disappointed when I heard the trail would be dry for us, but after seeing the large seas of dry mud, and guessing optimistically at their depth, I am very happy that we went in the dry season, although it proved to not be completely dry!

I met up through the tour company with 4 other people and we were off. The trip started with a ride to the town of Carmelita, where we met up with our guides and horses...all our gear went on the backs of 4 horses and a mule, we just had to carry water and cameras! Most of the trek was over dry mud and it was apparent that it would be atleast knee deep in the rain, but now was dry and solid, just somewhat bumpy, a minuture version of the moon with cow foot meteors having impacted the surface the last time it was wet.
The hike was super hot, but there were patches of shade. Our two guides were Carmelito who stayed with us, and Angel, the g is pronounced like an h, who was with the horses, usually ahead so camp was set up by the time we arrived. The first day we hiked 5 hours to some ruins called Tintal, and camp was set up for us. We went to climb one of the pyramids there and it was the most breathtaking experience of the whole trip. We followed a trail to the foot of a mountain, but there were stairs going up... It was steep enough that there was a rope with the stairs making one into a self propelled elevator.... As it was pretty steep you couldn't see what you were coming to until you were there.... A 360 view of the entire jungle!! I had no idea it would be such a view as the pyramid/temple was covered in trees, but hoo boy! And the sounds, and sights, you could see another pyramid in the distance... pictured below, and there were monkeys swinging in nearby trees! Here is also a pic of the sky in the other direction...


This is what a meal looked like, our guides treating us like royalty....although I became permanenetly known as el vegetariano, our chefs catored to me extremely well, and we even had some fried plantaines on a few occasions! Their specialty was trotillas though and with more dedication and willpower than the worlds greatest mailman they delivered hot tortillas 'weather' drizle, rain or jungle downpour! The next day was our seven hour hike and we made it to El Mirador and scurried up a pyramid known as El Tigre... El Mirador was the first large city on this side of the world, it is the location of the first highways, which can still be seen from space and the worlds largest pyramid! It is surrounded and mostly covered by beautiful trees of all kinds, which are crawling with life...from hanging plants like orchids to swinging monkeys and butterflies, to Jaguars, ants, tics and tics again! The causeways, one of which we walked on for 7 hours from Tintan to the main sight are 20 meters wide, 4-8 meters off the ground and covered in trees, but while your walking on them a lot of the time you can see the slope down to ground level if you look for it! The city itself was the first center of the Mayan world (most probably) and was bursting at the seams with about 80000 people around 300 BC. Many of the temples are aligned with the stars and phases of the year.
Here's a view form another pyramid, and what getting there looked like. It was hard to capture these buildings in a photo as it looks like a pile in the jungle, only when you climb it does it look like a building of sorts....


Here's a local...The paths between all the ruins were all clear and wide, much nicer than any path we had seen on our entire journey ( on the road to Carmelita we crossed a bridge with a sign saying 'caution dangerous bridge' and it was!)...this is because for 3 months (starting 2 weeks after we left) 300 archaeologists and support staff would be there.... they had a decent camp set up too. A not so big coincidence occurred when on our last day the head archaeologist arrived with a bunch of people form the world heritage fund as well as some other investors...he was giving the big wigs the grand tour and we got to tag along! One girl in our group had an incling that this might happen and timed her trip to coincide...this is also the reason we were there for a week, most trips are only 5 days, 4 in and out and 1 at the site, it was great to have 3 there and just have all the time in the world to explore.... So we got a tour from a man who has been working there for 30 years, and learned alot about how much effort (not only physical and mental but also in raising funds) is required for a project of this magnitude...the place is barely uncovered, but in 10 years it will be a major tourist attraction, what is stopping it now is that you either need to fly in by helicopter or do a 2 day very hot hike....



This is the group of folks who came, before we were all caught in a torrential downpour! We saw it coming from on top of the largest pyramid in the world...and it came in fast, we were done and on our way back when it hit and it was juicy! (someone in this group got peed on by a monkey...can you guess who??)

Here is a close up of the picture next to the people, it has been re plastered to keep it intact, but this layer can be peeled of easily to expose the original when an adequate solution (that is a pun in this case) will be discovered to preserve it better.

This is looking down from the top of a pyramid, where it stops is another level then it goes down again 2 more times...
Showering in the jungle was quite a trip... You would walk down to the beehive by the lake and then do a boogie dance with the bucket. First job was to get the bucket away from the bees/wasps in order to fill it up in the pond. Step 2 was walking on the sketchy dock thing and filling the big bucket with water, then of course making it back to land safely. The problem with land was the wasp bee things...they stung and would not leave you alone...and the water is brown! So you would dip a smaller pail into your bucket but as you poured it on your head you would have to run aways from the wasps, wasting water faster than a cattle farmer! On both ocasions that I washed there I was chased naked my a bunch of swarming stinging insects.... But the water was cool and refreshing!
Here is our last supper in the jungle... no one was killed and reborn a few days later, but the whole trip was taking a huge step back in history. The moment really clicked for me when we slept on one of the pyramids.... spending lots of time up there, getting a view that only a few privileged mayans ever got was nuts. Of course in their time the Mayan chiefs would have seen something entirely different, instead of jungle it would have been several square kms of planned out city! I am sure that if you were a good kid and did all your homework and had a good piercing through your unmentionables you would be allowed to climb the pyramid, but thats just romantic dreaming....probably very few folks got to go up there in the times it was active, and they were all the rulers.... Today its anybodies temple...if you are willing to risk the tics and rain!


Followinf the last dinner and some sleep there was the last sunrise ontop of a pyramid...We were back at Tintal on the way home and a few of us got to see this great sunrise!On the way in and out there were many things looking like this...any ideas what it could be??


Does Indiana Jones or Lara Croft make a good hint??
Its from Treasure Hunters and tomb raiders! They just dug into the side of ruins looking for treasure! No one knows what may or may not have been found!
Here is our other guide Angel with out trusty steeds...
So that was El Mirador.... Although I half-assed tried to get in a bit of the description I can't even begin to convey the wonder with spoken words let alone written ones where no emphasis or hand gestures are really perceived. To be able to lie on the floor of the jungle in an ancient city and watch a family of monkeys or climb the equivalent of the empire state building 2000 years from now when New York may be covered in trees and look out over the sights and sounds of nature returned, is something that is not only gulped up by eyes ears nose mouth and skin but digesting all this information firsthand gives you goose bumps on the inside. Yummy insightful and inspiring gooselike prickles and tickles....

(if you have been perceptive enough you may have realized that I have finally found a Tom Robbins' book to jiggle my brain with....)

Tikal

Hello! Just got out of a week in the jungle! It was hot! Before I left I went for a sunrise tour of Tikal....Some old ruins that have been copletely uncovered...a whole city! They told me the bus would come by around 3am to pick me up, and ofcourse it was at 3:45! After a 1.5 hour uncomfortable ride we got there and hurried through part of parc and climbed alot of stairs! The view was great and the sunrise too!

Our guide grew up in New York so his English was perfect and he knew alot! Showed us some animals, including monkeys, here's one.... They were atually swinging through the trees!

Here are some of the ruins...i enjoyed being there but I didnt get much sleep the nigh before and it was hard to stay awake! All the pyramids are completely filled in, solid blocks of lime stone!

Here's some fruit on the ground! and a giant tree that has passed on to tree heaven!

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!!!!!!