Sunday, April 27, 2008

Market time in Chichicastenango

Today I went to a market in a town about 2 hours from here in San Pedro on Lake Atitlan, called Chichicastenango. It's apparently a very world renowned market place so I thought it would be a good thing to check out. It certainly was huge! There were a ton of people there, shopping, as well as hocking all their goods. It was crowded, so I had to be extra vigilant about my purse and a couple of times I evenn got pushed over by little Mayan women! It is funny when you see stall after stall of the same items....So much of the stuff is so beautiful, with all these vibrant colors. I would just love to buy blankets, table coverings, and other cool Guatemalan knick-knacks that I know would look great in my future residence- but since I don't have one, and can't fit all that stuff in my backpack- I settled for some nice jewelry....

I don't like bargaining much, but I turned out to be a pretty good haggler, of course accidently. I wanted a jade necklace, but didn't want to pay 200 quetzales. When they didn't like my offering price, I just said no thanks and started to walk away, really just preparing not to buy anything. That really was my plan, but that always worked for them to agree to my price :) So I ended up with a great necklace, a pair of wooden earrings, 2 headbands, a belt...and my meal... for about $30 USD. After thinking about bargaining later on, I started to wonder if I should feel guilty about the final price I paid. Does the bargaining really cheat these people of money they need to live on? You always expect that they mark up the price expecting to be bargained with, but is what they end up with just not enough?

There were so many kids trying to sell things, and more just begging for money. That is always difficult to see. I did buy one headband from a little girl just really to see a huge smile on her face after we made a deal. If you buy something, or give money to one little kid it's like an alarm goes off on every kid in a 40 foot radius (which is alot in this crowded market). Suddenly they all swarm around you...It's hard to even help one little kid because then all the others expect money from you as well. I know this is a problem everywhere that I know many of you have experienced during your travels as well, but it is always hard.

Tomorrow we are heading out of our blissful chill time at the Zoola hostel. It has been one of our favorite places so far. It is so easy to just pass your whole day lounging around reading and relaxing (and not at all feeling guilty about it!). And the food is absolutely delicious here, too! The place was started by an Israeli couple, and they made a menu that caters more than to just the Guatemalan native tastes. I stocked up on eating yummy salads and veggies, because I feel like that has been a little lacking in my diet.

So we are headed to El Salvador tomorrow...We only have 4 days to get over to Honduras to pick up my mom and her friend Lynne who are visiting us!!! Very exciting!!!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Lago de Atitlan

We are in a beautiful lake region of Guatemala, called Lago de Atitlan...It really is beautiful here. There are a ton of mountains and another volcano that surround the lake, dropping down right to the edge of the lake, making for a very picturesque setting! We first went to a town called Panajachel, a cute little lakeside town, and today we moved to San Pedro, another cute lakeside town. We did some kayaking on the lake yesterday...whew that is hard!! I'm sure tomorrow my arms will be feeling the pain.

I missed a great fun weekend in Boston this past weekend...an alumni game, Red Sox, and the Boston Marathon, one of my favorite all time events to attend...mmmm....:( But, it's all good, I will just have to catch them next year!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Enjoying Antigua

Ok, so after getting over the few days of ickiness, we are now enjoying ourselves in Antigua. It´s a very cute, old Colonial town in the mountains. It´s a small little city, with cobblestone streets and multicolored old stucco buildings. It just oozes charm...The weather is a little chillier here then we have encountered yet on our trip, but that´s ok.

It´s been an interesting week...I decided to take a Spanish class for the week, hoping it will help me more. Today was my last day...I would go in the afternoons from 2 to 6 and speak with my instructor, Tatiana. At first I thought she was a little strange (she told me that eating strawberries makes your hair fall out!), but she turned out to be very nice and patient with my messy Spanish. She told me a lot about her life in Guatemala, her family, and all the reasons that make life in Guatemala very difficult for many people. It was very interesting to talk with her and be able to ask questions about her life...I just wish I had a better answer then ¨ah, es muy dificil¨. Not that she was complaining, or at all whining about her life, it´s just what she knows as her life. This week she bought a used washing machine, and it was a huge deal for her. The first time in her life she ever had credit, and of course now she has to have monthly payments. For the past 2 days we would just read the Guatemalan newspaper and discuss what we read, which was interesting for both of us...My problem is that Spanish words are so damn long!! I mean, we don´t have many common words that are 5 and 6 syllables long...Anyways, I enjoyed my class and I think it helped.

Onto other things from this week...You know, just your everyday earthquakes and volcano hikes. Yes, you read that right, there was an earthquake here on Monday night! We were sitting in our room eating some cheese and crackers and drinking wine and then I felt the bed shake...First I thought, ¨Antigua has an underground train?¨...Then we realized the whole building was shaking!!! I ran to the doorway with my proper earthquake response (but I think I didn´t make it there until it was over!) and everyone in the hotel starting chatting with amazement. It was a big quake, 6.1, but there was no damage and to my knowledge noone was hurt. It was felt in El Salvador and up in parts of Mexico! My first earthquake...I hope I don´t feel any more!

Two days after the quake we went to hike Vulcan Pacaya. There are 4 active volcanoes just in this little area!! It was a pretty steep, but short hike up. We couldn´t go all the way to the top, but we walked around the field of lava rocks. There was even lava flowing down this field that we walked right over! That was pretty crazy to me. I couldn´t believe how hot lava is!! (I know, it´s brilliant) It was pretty cool...

We will probably head to a new place on Sunday...We have only until May 2nd to get to Honduras to pick up my Mom!! She´s coming for a visit, so I am very excited!!!

Friday, April 11, 2008

yuck....

That goes for my first, and hopefully only, bout of intestinal yuck-i-ness on the trip...I starting feeling dizzy and nauseous in the afternoon and from there it went down hill. We're not even sure the cause, as I ate the same things everyone else ate, and they are ok?! After finally falling asleep last night, I feel ok today. So it was only a 6 hr. bug...Let's hope it stays away...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Semuc Champey and Lanquin!

So we are continuing on to see the beautiful country of Guatemala. We have just arrived in the city of Coban for some catch up on laundry, internet, various supplies (shampoo, etc) for a few days before we move on. We just came from a place about 2.5 hours north of Coban, a town called Lanquin -we had to get up at 5am to catch the only bus out of this town in the middle of nowhere!

The attractions of this area was a place called Semuc Champey, a park nearby Lanquin. This park has a beautiful river that flows through a valley, but also kind of on top of the river the natural limestone there formed beautiful natural pools all connected by little (and big!) waterfalls. It´s a little strange, but yes, there is a river flowing under a limestone bed, with the natural pools on top of it...I´m no geologist, so I cannot explain it further, but trust me-it was a beautiful place and we had a great day there! First we took a hike up the side of the valley, to the lookout called El Mirador to see the view of the natural pools. It was only about 35 minute hike up, but it was hard!! Very steep, and the heat and humidity add an extra level of difficulty. The view was well worth it, as we looked down on the series of pools that were this beautiful vibrant green color. After enjoying the view we hiked back down to go swimming in the pools. The water was so clear, and the setting was so pretty, so we all went for a dip. The pools were mostly connected by little waterfalls, or ledges, so you could just slide from one to the other or dive from the upper pool. It was even deep enough in some areas for Adrian to do a crazy 35 ft high jump off a tree hanging out over the river! Our guide told us he had a secret trip for us, so we scooted down a bunch of the pools and got to a bigger waterfall where the surprise was...He brought a rope ladder with him and threw it over the 15 ft. waterfall and had us all climb down into a cave where the underlying river meets the water flowing from the final pool, if that makes sense. Some surprise!! It turned out to be a little scary, dangling on this rope ladder in the middle of a waterfall, especially when we got to the bottom and the guide tells us to ¨step on him¨ to get down!! He was literally standing in the cascading water holding the end of the rope, and he was a human rung on the ladder! That dude must be insanely strong to have 15 people climbing down a rope and standing on him, in the middle of a waterfall!!! Craziness!!! From there it only got crazier as we walked into the cave that was under the pools and we then shimmied through a hole about the size of a smallish TV with stalactites and stalagmites protruding out...We sat in the cave, getting drenched and chilly totally unsure of what the hell we were doing there or how we were going to get out! He then told us a story about the Mayan caves we´d heard before (and at this point I am thinking he just made up) and turned us around to get back out the same way...Needless to say, it sure was a surprise part of the tour...Scary at many points but kinda cool to have done it...

From the park we went to see some caves in town of Lanquin. They were OK, but since we already saw an amazing cave on the ATM tour, so this one wasn´t as nice (but I should say, I think caves are always pretty cool)...I guess it was just different. But there was one strange twist here...At dusk, thousands of bats fly out of this cave into the night sky, and you can sit outside the cave and watch. Or so we thought...There was only 5 of us now, and our guide decided to take us back into the cave in the dark to get a closer up look at the bats!!! Since both of us forgot our prized headlamps we were making due sharing the light of one flashlight, the guides´ headlamp, and my not-so-bright-maglite, in the pitch black trying to hike through a cave. We manage to get a bit inside and scramble to find somewhere to sit. At this time, a few bats are flying around here and there making their way toward the exit...We sit and wait some more and suddenly there are bats everywhere!! I really do mean thousands!! We managed to sit still and quiet for a few minutes (me with my hands covering as much of my face and ears as possible), and you could feel the wind of their wings flap as they flew by your head...Bat squeaks everywhere, and then we would just cower on the side and someone would shine the light and watch tons fly by and all around us. Adrian and Nick were brave enough to stand up and move even closer into their flight paths, but not me!! I think you will all be proud, I didn´t even shreek...that much...Just a few squeals here and there :) I startle easily :)

There´s even more to mention about my first sighting of a tarantula....The beautiful ride up the mountains of Guatemala, incredibly winding and inducing car-sickness bus rides (KC, SS, JH-you would definetly have vomited!). And the back of the pickup rides up and over dirt mountain roads to even get to Semuc Champey...But I know I am babbling on to much for a quick blog update!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Country Number Three

So we have made it to Guatemala. We arrived Friday in the late afternoon and are sweltering in the Guatemalan heat. The weather was hot in the Western side of Belize, but the temperature has definitely just kept going up as we moved into Guatemala. I am in a state of constant sweating!

We are in a little island called Flores, which is located in Lago de Peten Itza. We came here to serve as a base for going to Tikal, but this is a nice little island. It´s basically just a hill, with crazy cobblestone streets throughout the town (which seem to be the most difficult cobblestone I´ve ever tried to walk on!), and maybe there is about 2 trees. At the top of the hill there is a nice open stone plaza where there is a basketball/soccer court, and it seems to be the only open area on the island...And that´s where the 2 trees are. But it is so hot here that we have just been spending a lot of time in the water. There is not much of a beach, but there is just one section with steps down from the road onto a little pebble beach and everyone swims there. It´s a very chill place here with not much to do but swim...It´s cool.

We got here Friday evening and arranged a sunrise tour of Tikal for yesterday morning (Saturday). The idea of a sunrise tour seemed like a good plan, but we had to leave at 3:15 in the morning!!! So painful....The ride is a little over an hour to Tikal, but with the tour they let you in before the park even opens. You hike in the dark to one of the temples, climb up there, and wait for the sun to come up. It turned out to be a great way to see Tikal...First of all, getting there so early allows you to miss alot of the crowd factor, and you miss the midday heat. When we left at 11 it was really sizzling out there so we were so glad we were done!

Tikal was amazing!! Such a huge Mayan city...When we climbed the first temple, many days there is a fog that prevents you from seeing the view of the other temples peaking above the forest, but we had a clear view. We sat in silence watching the forest and hearing the birds and monkeys waking up, all while taking in the amazing view of the jungle and the temples in the distance. It was pretty nice...The rest of the time we spent walking around to the other temples and hearing about the history of each. We got to climb almost all the temples, so that was also an added bonus. Some were very steep and it was a little scary to climb them, and by the end of the morning our legs were shot from hitting all those stairs!! We also saw a bunch of toucans, toucanettes, howler monkeys, and a few other exotic birds during our walk around Tikal.

We got back to Flores and immediately went to the lake to cool off...As we were walking there, Adrian and I were talking about emailing Tracy and Nick, a cool couple from England we had met in San Ignacio a few days ago. They just started traveling for 6 months, and are going the same way we are so we exchanged emails and decided we would try to catch up with them. I was saying to Adrian,¨ok, I will email them after we swim and see where they are.¨ Low and behold, as we walk up to the beach, there they are swimming around...Cool. So we met up later for happy hour, and hung out all night having some beers and chatting...At about 11:30 we left the hostel and tried to find another bar. We ended up at an outside bar just grabbing a beer when one of the local guys from the table next to us busted out his guitar and started singing. That began a round of the four of us trying to join in on his songs, making requests, and enjoying the music. He was even playing some Spanish song that I actually knew! It was a great little music session with us singing Spanish songs and the guy trying to play any English songs he knew...Good times! We sauntered home around 1am, realizing we had been awake for almost 24 hrs...I was exhausted...

Friday, April 4, 2008

More ruins

Yesterday we went to a smaller ruins, at a place called Cal Pech. I know we both keep mentioning ruins, but we are not sick of them yet! They are always interesting...This was a smaller site, but was cool because the excavated buildings had more little rooms and passageways to walk in than other sites we have been in. The site had all these arched doorways leading into various rooms, and even a hole that just went into darkness under a temple (none of us were brave enough to go in). It was a nice afternoon just walking around with a couple fellow travelers from Vancouver. After the ruins we walked back to town and got some food. AJ & Jaimie were obsessed with the jalapeno poppers, but they were so hot they were both almost crying!!! Food that spicy does not seem tasty to me at all?! Why torture your poor little mouth...

Today we are leaving Belize to go to Guatemala. I better get my "Spanish-speaking boots" back on...

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

A Living Museum

Yesterday we went to one of the best museums I have seen in a long time....We went to a Mayan cave called Actun Tunichil Muknal. This cave was used as an ancient burial ground over 2000 years ago! The Mayans viewed caves as "portals to the underworld", where they would go to worship their ancestors, make offerings to their gods-in the form of human sacrifices and food and pottery items brought into the caves. In this cave there were 15 human remains, all sacrifices...A few were adults, but most were children. This was such a fascinating tour, in many ways.

First of all- we had to hike, swim, climb, and crawl 1/3 of a mile into this cave to get to the areas where the artifacts were. I mean, it was a challenging thing to do-trying to keep yourself not from falling over in the dark, and trying not to fall into any huge rocks. We wore helmets with headlamps on them, and you had to be sure not to get your head wet as to not kill your light (which would completely suck!). Upon entering the cave, the first thing we did was to swim neck deep across a 15 ft pool (wearing all our clothes and sneakers) to get to the first rock! At least right from there we knew what we were getting into, seeing as there was no time wasted in getting wet and already trying to find footing on hidden underground rocks. It was a bummer we didn't have our cameras with us at some point during the hike, but I definitely would have dropped mine in the water and/or smashed it into a boulder (the guide carried them in a wet bag for us until we got to the artifacts). It would've been a good picture to see us all trouping through this cave. The guide led us through some crazy tight squeezes, up and over little waterfalls in the cave-all while pointing out the beautiful geological formations along the way. There were crazy crystal limestone rocks on the walls, and beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. The cave was huge!!! It is 5km long, and we only went a quarter of the way in!

Second of all, all the Mayan artifacts are undisturbed and were left in this cave just as they were found. It took them 4 years to map the cave, and the archaeologists just took inventory of everything but left all the pottery and human remains in the cave. After climbing up this 6 foot skinny rock, clamboring over a rocky ledge-we were about to see some Mayan artifacts. But first, we had to take our shoes off! We all had to hike through the remaining areas of the caves in just our socks...which was a little rough on the feet! They wanted to keep skin oils off the areas where the artifacts were. Which made some sense, as we were about to see. When we finally got to the chamber where the artifacts were-some were just inches from your feet!! Broken Mayan pots were everywhere...I think the Mayans brought the pots into the caves and then broke them to release its' spirits. We walked along, in and around pottery shard lying all over the cave floors, hearing about why they were brought in, and what it meant to the Mayans. Then we saw the first human skeleton-and its' skull was just lying on the ground a few feet away from us, just as it had been for years and years....After going through so many museums in my life and seeing pottery and plates in a glass case next to little descriptive typed paragraphs, seeing them in so-called "real-life" was so cool! We had to be very careful where we walked, as the artifacts were everywhere. One small misstep to the side and you could crush an ancient Mayan pot (and wouldn't you feel like such as ass?!), but luckily noone in our group did. It was such a cool thing to be somewhere where archaelogists didn't just sweep the place clean of everything and throw it into a museum, but let people see the items in their original actual place and how they were used.

The last thing we did was to climb a ladder up to a 15 ft. ledge and through a couple more narrow caves to see the only complete skeletal remains to be found in a Mayan cave. The remains are of a woman, estimated to be about 18 years old. They call her the "Crystal Maiden"....Check the bottom of the blog for her picture!