La vida loca!

Semana Santa in Oaxaca

rachel_and_daniel — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:24:00 GMT

We took the night bus to Oaxaca – an 11 hour journey down into the arid plains and up again into the mountains. This was our first taste of the massive scale of Mexico – it’s a big country! It was also our first taste of near ubiquitous cactus desert, which to European eyes is quite a bizarre and alien environment. The journey through the night was relatively uneventful, except that we were stopped ten times. Yes, that’s TEN times, by the police and army, who sometimes checked our bags and always ran up and down the coach to make a cursory check that none of the passengers had ‘drug mule’ or ‘indigenous insurgent’ tattooed on their foreheads. Subsequently, we didn’t get an awful lot of sleep.

Still, we were glad to arrive at Oaxaca, and crashed out at a hostel, before mooching around the centre. A brass band was played in the Zocalo, watched by hundreds of people, while others (including us) ate dinner in one of the numerous restaurants around the edge. There were various other musical events on around town too – including a lovely close-harmony guitar group near to the botanical gardens. The next day we met our friend Jon and my sister Lucy at the airport – they travelled over to spend two weeks with us. Lucy’s bag had gone walk-about (hmmm, there’s a trend here somewhere), but luckily it turned up the next day, without her having to go out and buy any clothes. We had hired an apartment on the outskirts of town for ten days – we were lucky to get it, as we’d booked late, and Semana Santa is the week where all of Mexico go off and visit family, so all the hotels were chocker.

I know, let's carve the top off a mountain and build a city miles away from any water! You have to hand it to the Zapotecs, they had style...

We spent the next few days exploring the city centre. The architecture with fine colonial buildings, many made from a lovely green stone was really enchanting. There’s also some great OTT catholic churches and altars (more gold leaf than you shake a stick at), and we enjoyed the culture of art and antiquities museums. All in all, it’s a pretty chilled place. Which is good, because its bloody hot – it took a while to get used to lowland life again! The food in Oaxaca is pretty good by Mexican standards – lots of different ‘moles’ – different sauces with various intensities of chilli heat. Also loads of people hawking fried grasshoppers. I’m sorry, I wasn’t game. Insect eating ain’t my forte (ever since my mum tried to feed me a house spider in my brussel sprouts when I was twelve…).

We had a couple of trips out. The first was organised by the hotel who owned our apartment, which took in the amazing Cypress tree at Santa Maria del Tule, which is immense (the first tree I’ve ever seen with hundreds of small birds nesting in it), and extremely old (its at least 2000 years…). It made me wander what primeval forests might have looked like before we got around to chopping most of them down. We stopped off at a carpet-maker in Teotitlan del Valle where we were shown how they make dyes from natural materials that they find in the desert, before spinning the wool and weaving it into geometric-design carpets. Very lovely, but I’d already bought one in Merida, so I resisted the urge. Our trip ended in Mitla, which was a temple site of the Zapotecans – fantastic block buildings covered in geometric designs. The aesthetic seemed very futuristic, even if they are over 500 years old. On the return journey we stopped at a Mezcal distillery – the agave-cactus juice drink of which tequila is a variant. If I’m ever stuck in a desert with nothing but agaves, at least I’ll know how to die having a good time. However, even then, I’ll stick to not licking ground up cactus worms off my wrist before taking a shot. That’s just nasty.

Carpet-weaving in Teotitlan del Valle

Our second trip was to take a bus out to Monte Alban. Another Zapotec site, this one is a temple city on top of a mountain. Basically, they levelled the top, built a shed-load of massive temples, and then had to carry all their water from the valley some 2 miles away. These Zapotecans are crazy! The site really is awe-inspiring, the atmosphere doubled by the incessant atonal chant-like droning of thousands of cicadas. The whole experience was really quite surreal.

Back in Oacaxa, we spent time in the various markets, buying cinnamon sticks (cheap as chips - to take home and make tea with), and grass-woven baskets, although I resisted getting one of their fantastic pinatas. We also sampled (and then bought) some ‘Majordomo’ drinking chocolate, which Oacaxa is famed for (which I’m drinking while writing this. Yum).

Pinatas in one of Oaxacas markets

Another highlight (there were a lot) were the ethnobotanical gardens, set in the grounds of an ex monastery/barracks, which has a collection of Oaxacan food plants, as well as a brilliantly set-out collection of the numerous cacti and arid trees you find in this diverse region. We were guided round by a very knowledgeable ex-pat American lady. We combined this with a trip around the Oaxacan cultural museum – in the monastery itself, which has massive collections of Zapotec artefacts, set in lovely old brick rooms, often with painted doors and ceilings.

Oaxaca was a great location to experience Semana Santa – Holy Week. As well as numerous smaller parades to various shrines around the city through the week, there’s the main procession on Good Friday, which half of Mexico comes out to see, it seems. ‘Fraternities’ of masked and robed penitents carry very heavy platforms with statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary and various saints around the city streets. There are also other masked penitents who carry heavy wooden crosses – the mask is so that people don’t know who you are – its supposed to be an act for God after all. There’s lots of incense censors, drums, flutes and massive wooden clackers – equivalent to what you’d have at a football game, but five times the size. The costumes come straight out of classical medieval Spain, although they were unfortunately highjacked by the Klu Klux Klan, which makes them seem rather sinister.

Penitents carry their crosses, Semana Santa.

All in all, we had a really good ten days – a great introduction to ‘Mexico-proper’. Next up was another long journey up to the centre of it all, Mexico City.

More photos of :Oaxaca : the Ethnobotanical gardens and museum of culture : the surrounding valleys

Gallery: Mexico - Mexico City

rachel_and_daniel — Sat, 3 Oct 2009 16:52:00 GMT

Gallery: Mexico, Oacaxa - Surrounding Valleys

rachel_and_daniel — Sat, 3 Oct 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Gallery: Mexico, Oaxaca - Botanical Gardens and Museum of Culture

rachel_and_daniel — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:03:00 GMT

Gallery: Mexico, Oaxaca

rachel_and_daniel — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:15:00 GMT

San Cristobal

rachel_and_daniel — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:04:00 GMT

After the long drives around rural Chiapas, we were glad to get back to San Cristobal and spend a week or so just bumming around. There are worse places to bum, and it seemed that quite a few fellow europeans had chosen the same place to hang out in. Oddly, there weren’t so many Americans and Canadians here – maybe they’ve been put off by the Zapatista rebellion…

We stayed cheap and cheerful in the Youth Hostel, cooking our own meals from veggies bought at street stalls. San Cristobal, although it has a good share of expats and tourists, retains its charm and still operates as a city doing its thing – it hasn’t been knocked around by ill-advised 20th C re-development, so there are still avenues and streets of old colonial town houses, with cobbled surfaces and brightly-coloured facades. There’s lots of graffiti too – even some banksyesque stuff – doubt the man himself, but some fun imitations.

The streets are paved with gold in San Cristobal...

Rachel and I spent a lot of our time just mooching around the streets, checking out interesting shops and the vibrant markets, investigating the luridly-coloured churches and eating a host of different food in the cosmopolitan restaurants. There were plenty of vegie options, which meant Rachel was a happy bunny. There was even some decent music – at the Casa del Pan we ate lovely locally-sourced food, whilst listening to a great local guitarist and singer. This cultural centre also hosts a language school and cinema!

We went to a viewing of a documentary about the Zapatista rebellion, which was a bit of an eye-opener. It turns out that the Mexicans are rather similar to their more southerly neighbours that they try to disassociate themselves from. When the peasants start suggesting that it might be a bit unfair that a very small minority own all the land and pay them next to nothing, and the state gives them no education or services, it turns out the Mexicans used the usual fall back response of ‘send in the death squads’… Yeah. Nice one.

Column detail, Santa Domingo church

We also went to our first bit of ‘cultcha’ since Granada, by going to see a show on Pakal, the greatest lord of Palenque. The costumes were great, although the story interpretation, attempting to take on the myths and world view of the ancient mayans, made it a little bizarre – still, a fun spectacle.

The Na Bolom museum/cultural centre, had a great exhibition on the Lacandon people, furnished with loads of great black and white photographs from the Danish owners of the property, seemingly cast in the eccentric aristocrat role – they explored the Lacandon rainforest, surveyed Mayan ruins and also did an awful lot to try and retain the culture and independence of the native people. Outside, a separate building had a really good exhibition showing fashions in Mayan ladies-wear over the last forty years. It seems that the women from each town/village decide on what patterns and motifs they are going to make that year, and then all make the same blouses, with their own variations. The quality of the stitching is fantastic and the colours are very lovely. The museum also did a really good tea!

We also did the usual tourist thing of visiting the nearby mayan towns of Chamula and Zinacantan. The people are from different tribes and speak a totally different language (Tzotzil and Tzeltal respectively!), even though the towns are in neighbouring valleys, which I imagine meant trading was interesting. Chamula is famous for its markets and the wonderful 16th C church. Well, it was a church when it was built, but its been a mayan temple ever since. The interior is ablaze with thousands of candles on the floor, which is scattered with resin-scented pine branches. On the walls, boxes contain statues of ill-looking catholic saints, which have come to represent different mayan entities, which different families pray to.

The atonal chanting of praying couples, together with the scent of candle smoke and pine and the myriad of tiny flames really is quite moving. It did feel a bit intrusive with groups of tourists wandering around, but it seemed everyone was trying their best to be respectful. We then moved on to visit a traditional weaver family in Zincantan, where the ladies roam around in fantastic shawls decorated with blue and purple flowers. We had black corn tortillas (cooked on a griddle over an open fire) with white beans, ground pumpkin seeds, cheese and salsa – really delicious.

Pine crosses at Chamula market - no, not christian

Our last trip out of San Cristobal was to the Canon de Sumidero – a gigantic gorge, which would be even deeper but for the dam at the end of it. Our trip down to the canyon gave us our first glimpse of the drylands of Mexico, as we drove down the side of the (once) tree-covered mountains, looking out over an arid plain. The temperature difference between the two was staggering. We piled into a motor boat and cruised up the river to the gorge entrance – a titanic cleft in towering cactus-covered rock, with vultures wheeling overhead. I’ve never been up a river with such huge cliffs on either side – the midday sun didn’t hit the bottom.

We passed flocks of vultures hopping around the river-edge, eating salt deposits. Inaccessible woodlands on rock plateaux towered above us. There were even weird formations of calcareous deposits made by dry waterfalls. Eventually, the river widened out into a huge hydro-electric dam, with a vast wall 260m high. The boat disturbed flocks of cormorants and duck that wheeled around us as we powered back to the canyon. A great trip. Later we had a drink in Chiapa del Corzo with its lovely 16th C zocalo centrepiece, in the shape of the spanish crown, before heading back to the welcome cool of the mountains. A fine end to our long journey through Mayan lands. Next up, a rendevous in the lands of the Zapatecs...

The towering canyon entrance...

To see more pictures of San Cristobal, the mayan towns and
Canon Sumidero, click here

Northern Chiapas - Mucho Mas Mayan Metropolises

rachel_and_daniel — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:15:00 GMT

We booked a micro bus to take us out of Guatemala. We suffered a rather large wait for a connecting bus at Quattro Caminos, which caused a rather large Italian fellow traveller to go into an angry tirade with the new bus driver in good Italian fashion. Our new bus then took us up north through wide valleys in the highlands, up to Huehuetenango, and over to Semilla and the border with Mexico. The border crossing was surprisingly easy – no bribing officials or extortionate fees like we’d been warned about. The only glitch was that we had to change bus again, but angry Italian had now decided he was better off using a different transport means and had buggered off somewhere. So, after initially not noticing his absence, we turned round and drove around the border looking for him, until finally deciding he was probably better off somewhere else anyway, and heading out.

Our original plan had been to get off in Comitan, but we were disuaded, partly because Comitan turned out to look like a fairly unpromising industrial city, and partly because our bags were at the bottom of the heap on top of the van and it wasn’t worth the bother…. Therefore we carried on to San Cristobal de las Casas. San Cristobal is a pretty colonial town, surrounded by green wooded hills. Its slowly becoming gentrified, but its in no way as expensive or gringofied as Antigua. One interesting thing was the lack of Americans – maybe they’ve been put off by the the whole Zapatista thing, but there were far more European visitors here.

Another cheery Mayan motif, Palenque

We decided to come back to San Cristobal and stay a while (story to come), but first, took a bus up to the north of the region and Palenque. Our journey took us through wide, pine-covered valleys. It reminded me a strange way of Europe – Germany or Scotland perhaps - it was just nice to find ourselves in a familiar landscape. Soon, however, we headed down into the heat of the lowlands. Palenque is a hot, dusty town with little going for it. In our five nights there we didn’t find a decent meal - stale tortilla chips, rubbery steaks, bitter coffee. However, the Mayan ruins are what people come here for, not the cuisine.

The Palace, Palenque

The Palenque ruins are in a lovely site – nestled into the edge of the tropical forest, with temples piercing through the canopy – a little like Tikal. The palace with its observatory tower and murals was probably the most impressive building – different from any of the other sites we’d been too. However, it was the altar murals and stellae which really did it – the artistry in the lords and gods, along with the glyphs was fantastic, and most were really well preserved. The tomb of the great lord Pakal was just the icing on the cake. We also saw a very strange orb spider with a spikey body. Cudos to anyone who can ID him for us….

Bizarre alien orb spider, Palenque

Following on in the Mayan theme, the next day we travelled down into the badlands of the border road and the Lacandon forest to visit the nearby sites of Yaxchilan and Bonampak. 15-20 years ago both these sites were only accessible by plane, but following the rebellion, there’s now a good paved road all around the triangle of the border with Guatemala. Its also pretty safe – there are military checkpoints at regular intervals – not that it was ever especially dodgy, unless you were a Mexican soldier. A rather strange American fellow traveller insisted on asking random nationals at our lunch stop whether they were Zapatistas. This was despite the fact that to admit as much probably isn’t very good for your health in these parts….

Yaxchilan is still only accessible by long lancha down the strong, swirling Rio Usumacinta, right on the border between the two countries. It’s a fun journey – the river is obviously much fuller in the wet season, as islands and platforms of hard clay border and bisect the river, which our lancha guy had to swerve around in the strong current. Yaxchilan is enveloped in forest. The main plaza is really the only clear area and past the temples thick vegetation grows unhindered. The site is renowned for its carved and painted door lintels – many of which are still in place, although a lot have been carted off to Mexico City and the British Museum (ooh! that’s us Brits again!) – which is fine from a preservation point of view, but I can’t help but think that they lose much of their power when taken out of the context of this arcane city in the jungle.

Long lanchas on the Rio Usumacinta

Such was my anticipation, and the limited time period we had until our lancha left, that I sped off up the hill to make sure I saw the temple groups away from the plaza. Rachel is often happy to mooch around as I hive off to explore that temple on the horizon. In this case, however, she was actually trying to follow me, and eventually caught up with me half an hour later, not best pleased after chugging uphill around various forest temple groups, trying to avoid rampaging howler monkey troupes. In the top temple complex we were bemused by a Spanish group, consisting mostly of middle-aged women in white loose clothing, hugging trees and appearing to be inciting the sun god. What I thought we needed at this point was an ancient Mayan priest to pop out, tear out their finger nails, carve out their hearts and burn them in front of them. Don’t look at me like that. It’s what Chak would have wanted!

Musicians, Bonampac murals

Bonampak is a small site, with just a very impressively large stellae and a massive set of stairs which lead up to a series of small temples containing the famous painted frescoes of a dedication ceremony, battle and parade. To be honest, much of them have faded so badly as to be unrecognisable, and we only really knew what was going on because we’d seen a recreation at the Mayan museum in Chetumal – still it’s a pretty marvelous place. A large tree in the plaza contained a dozen or so hanging oropendula nests (if I haven’t talked about these guys before, they’re large brown birds with a yellow tail and a gorgeous bubbling song). Rachel spent a good twenty minutes trying to take a picture of a bird entering one of the nests – harder than you might think, as by the time you click the shutter, the bird’s either gone in, gone out, or has hidden itself behind the nest. Thirty shots later we gave up – thank goodness for the wonders of digital photography (or more accurately the delete function :) ).

At a nearby border village, with a name like ‘New Union’ or some-such (positive thinking on the Mexican government’s behalf methinks), our American friend pays some local women and kids to pose for a photo. He thinks they must be Lacandon Indians – despite the fact they are dressed like, and look like ladino immigrants – probably brought in to try and stabilise the area. The nearest we got to the Lacandons were the women and rangers at the Bonampak reserve, the men with their give-away long hair and moustaches. Eh well.

For more photos of Palenque click here

For more photos of Yaxchilan and Bonampac, click here

Xela and Volunteering with the Mayan Stove Project

rachel_and_daniel — Fri, 3 Apr 2009 18:40:00 GMT

After surviving our chicken bus challenges (I now see why most tourists travel by private microbus in Guatemala – its still pretty manic, but its this side of hair-raising) we arrived in Quetzaltenango, or Xela (pronounced ´Shela´) in Quiché Mayan. This is Guatemala´s second biggest city, more a large town. Its up in the highlands, so still chilly at night, but nice and warm during the day. We had some time to kill, so we spent a good few days just bumming around the town. Although Xela doesn´t have much in the way of nice architecture (most of it got flattened in various earthquakes), its a lively, bustling university town, with lots of nice cafés and restaurants and a great, diverse market.

We spent a day looking for more fabric like we´d bought in Chichicas´, but found that none of the numerous fabric shops had the same design or colour – it appears the fabrics are hand-made on a small loom, and they don´t make enough to export to other areas of the country. Besides, other areas have their own specific traditional designs. Eh well, we´ll have to hope that the half bolt we have will be enough to cover our sofa. We also investigated sending back the rather large bag of Guatemalan textiles that we´d accumulated over the last few weeks – all eight kilos of it! Turned out that it was going to cost us 240 quid by DHL and 120 quid by standard post! We decided not to send it, but to lug it around some more and try our luck in Mexico....

Yum! Little mangoes at the mercado

We also used the time to start applying for jobs back home. Slightly depressing, but it has to be done, as at some point we have to start earning money again! Still, it´s quite surreal that you can now apply for a job half way around the world. Interviews might be interesting, but we´ll just have to see how telephone lines are in Mexico!

Our trusty Olympus Miu digital camera also took the opportunity in Xela to die on us. Well, let´s say it may be terminally ill anyway, as the LCD screen has stopped working, which is kinda important without a separate viewfinder. Despite Rachel clutching her poor baby camera to her chest and talking softly to it, there was nothing for it but to scour the local electronics stores for a new one. Luckily, there was a good line in mainly old models, although there were rather alarming discrepancies in pricing between shops (eg: more than a hundred quid for the same camera). We plumped for a two-year old Canon – its the size of a small brick, but it does the job. We´ll see whether Miu can be fixed when we get home, in which case we´ll sell the Canon.

Café Baviara, our hangout in Xela

Rachel wanted to do some volunteering with a local community while we were here, and she found out about a stove project that could take volunteers for a day at a time. This project builds wood-efficient stoves for poor mayan families who can´t afford the capital to build their own. These stoves help by reducing the amount of wood required to make meals – so reducing the rate of deforestation on the hills, whilst also reducing the back-breaking task of collecting wood. Just as importantly, the stoves burn efficiently, with a built-in chimney. This stops the women and children of the house having to breath in loads of woodsmoke, which in the long-run leads to lots of respiratory problems and diseases. It was a subject I remember doing an essay on back in my undergrad days in the mid ´90´s.

We turned up at the language school which runs various social projects in the mountain villages surrounding Xela. We were joined by a couple from Canada who´d been volunteering on the project since February. Along with a couple more volunteers we headed off for the chicken bus up to Los Pinos, a Quiché mayan village far up in the mountains, beyond San Francisco del Alto. The latter was having its weekly market, so our bus was jammed full of shoppers – we stood, or sat on the edge of a seat as more and more people were squeezed on. It reminded me a bit of the record-breaking attempts to see how many people you can stick in a mini, or a telephone booth.

Eventually we got off at an un-assuming sign by the side of the road. Sure enough, the area is dominated by pine forest. The village was a large, low density sprawl over the hilside. Each household had a milpa around the house to grow corn and vegetables. Two of us picked up a load of cooking pots that a lady had carried off the bus and staggered down the hill with them to our rendevous point with the local project co-ordinator. Once we got there, she thanked us, hoisted all of them onto our head, and bounded off, leaving us feeling rather inadequate.

The project co-ordinator, one of the village elders, took us up to the family who we´d be building a stove for. After saying hello to the family - a mum & dad slightly younger than us, and their five lovely young kids (eldest about seven), we were shown into the plank and corrugated iron hut that was going to serve as their kitchen. Volunteers at the project had already built the breeze-block and brick base the previous week, so we now set about lining the inside of the stove body with sand before putting in a brick oven-bed. We then sealed the joints with a mud-mix before mixing some concrete and tiling the outer-edge of the stove. The hob-plate was then placed on top (much like that which we used at MMRF in Belize), sealed with more mud mix, and then the chimney box and chimney concreted in place. After about two hours of work it was completed – and very nice it looked too.

photo to come!

Rachel had tried to talk to the younger kids, but they didn´t speak spanish – they only learn this when they go to school. After we´d cleaned up, the lady of the house gave us a nice meal of freshly made tortillas (made on a hot plate over an outside fire), beans, eggs, tamales and fresh lemonade. They weren´t going to be able to use their new oven for a month to allow the mud sealant to dry properly – very frustrating I´m sure!

After, we went up to another house where our other team was doing the finishing touches to another stove – this house was bigger, but still very basic. Neither of the houses had electricity, and water was from a nearby stand-pipe with an intermittent, not especially clean supply. All the rooms had dirt floors, and the families really didn´t have much in the way of furniture, let alone luxury items – the kids were filthy (there´s no-where really to get washed properly), and were dressed in ragged clothes. While we were waiting, Rachel started to feed a half-eaten bread roll to one of the local, hungry-looking dogs. The project co-ordinator told us that the kids at the house we´d built the stove for would probably be glad of it instead, which really took us aback.

We went back via our first family and gave a bag of snacks and biscuits that we´d brought with us to the kids. It brought a lump to the throat to see how happy the kids were to recieve the gift.

We were so glad that we´d volunteered for the day. Although we didn´t achieve much in the small time we put aside, it really did bring home to us what privileged lives we lead, and the small mountain of problems that people in these remote areas face. Getting basic infrastructure will really help them – there´s a project to get a decent water supply just starting up, and preventative projects like the stoves will make a significant difference in the long term.

But we couldn`t really see a way out for the kids. There really isn´t any work in the area except for subsistence farming – the men have to go away and work as itinerant farm labourers if they´re going to get any money. The school is very basic, with poor teaching, and most of the kids only attend for two or three years – after this their parents can´t afford the uniforms and books required, and besides, they need the kids to help out at home or in the fields.

Its this lack of opportunity that really gets to you in the end. There are always going to be poor people in the world, but it is unjust that these kids are not going to have any opportunity to make their lives better, and that they´ll most likely follow on in their parent´s footsteps in grinding poverty. Rachel and I will be looking to support the project more when we get home.

Yes, it was hot, and steamy.

The only other outing we took from Xela was to visit the hot springs at Fuentas Georginas, in the neighbouring hills. Our bus wound up a narrow hill road through thick cloud. We passed large fields of vegetables – this area grows most of the greens for the surrounding countries, until we arrived at the busy springs. We went on a weekend so there were lots of locals having a day out. The springs are pooled – the top one is really hot, and as the water drains into the lower pools it gradually gets cooler. The air, of course, is incredibly humid, and the sides of the hill above the springs are covered in lush ferns and tree-ferns looming out of the warm mists.

The next day we said goodbye to Guatemala and took a bus up the mountains, past Huehuetenango (yes, they have fantastic names here), and over to the Mexican border.

The hot pools lit up as evening draws in...

To see more photos of Xela, the stove project and Fuentas Georginas, click here.

Chicken Bus Challenge

rachel_and_daniel — Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:09:00 GMT

Missing the direct bus from Chichicastenango to Quetzaltenango (Xela), in the west of the country, we instead got a chicken bus to the junction with the InterAmericana at Los Encuentros.

We were ushered onto a chicken bus by the youthful, slightly manic conductor. ´Oia, Oia!´, he cried, and we were off, tearing at break neck speed down the narrow cobbled streets, while Rachel and I bumped down the aisle with our packs, before landing, like upturned beetles, in an untidy mess of legs and flailing arms on an empty seat at the back. Our driver - a middle-aged man, baseball cap firmly wedged on his head, hunched over the steering wheel as he swerved in between parked vehicles around the circumference of the town until we zoomed out, horn blaring, onto the road to Los Encuentros.

As we emerged from town a rival bus joined us going the same way. Its driver was a paunchy man with an impressive moustachio, shirt top open to reveal copious chest hair. When I looked back at him through the rear window, he stared at me with ominous intent. The fate of fares to Guatemala City hung in the balance. The race was on. (Cue adrenalin-inciting music).

Our driver floored it. Smoke and fumes poured up around the conductor in the front. Crunch! Third gear. Crunch! Fourth gear. Just outside town the road dives steeply into miles of hairpin bends down the mountain. Our driver hunched some more and sent us careering round the hairy bends, using racing lines. The bus banked alarmingly. On some bends I could even feel the back starting to come out. I looked behind. Rival bus was still near our bumper.

Out of the hairpins and into steep mountain curves. Our driver started to pull the stops out, overtaking vans and cars in the way with seemingly no regard to the possibilities of stuff coming round corners. THe rival bus did the same. We weren´t shaking him. A slow van came into view, but a steep corner around the mountainside was just ahead. Our driver hesitated momentarily, then with an ´Oia, Oia, Oia!´ from our mad conductor he swerved round it and took the bend on the wrong side of the carriageway, the driver yanking his horn furiously as he did so. Not sure what stuff coming the other way was supposed to do of course. Launch themselves into the ravine I guess.

Around the corner safely, and a straight bit of road. Our driver floored the accelerator again. A 4X4 was overtaking a lorry coming the other way. Surely our driver must slow to allow him to get back in. Silly me. Guatemalan Chicken buses don´t slow down for anything. You get in the way, you eat chicken bus. The 4x4 swerved in front of the lorry seconds before we hurtled past. Looking back, rival bus had done the same crazy maneuvers and was still with us. We came to a village with parked cars. Our driver hardly slowed down, but weaved in and out of the chicane. ´Oia Oia!´ shrieked our clearly insane conductor. We hung on for grim death in the back. The Mayan ladies in front of us chatted in a relaxed manner as we looked at each other in a wide-eyed I-think-we-might-die way. Obviously this was not an abnormal piece of driving.

We hurtled past a sign for ´topes´ (the copious speedbumps everywhere in Guatemalan villages). He must slow down! Yes! He slammed on the brakes metres away from the first bump and we jolted over it. Rival bus, seeing his chance, came alongside and took the bump at the same time. For a moment rival driver and I eyed each other, but, then he shot back as our driver crunched rapidly through the gears again. A hopeful Mayan gent with a large sack indicated he wanted to get off. Of course, we couldn´t stop, as that would allow moustachio to burn us off. So, as we lurched to slow for a tope, the man tossed his parcel off and then jumped off the bus, with a helpful push from our crazy-eye conductor.

At this point a funny thing occurred to me. I hadn´t seen any Guatemalan suicide dogs in the villages we´d been through. But then it struck me. THEY¨RE ALL DEAD ALREADY.

The final village before Los Encuentros. The road guys here had gone one step better than topes – negative topes – eg: gouged holes in the tarmac. Our driver saw his chance and accelerated toward the first one. Now, any normal car would lose its undercarriage if it tried to go over the holes fast, but our trusty chicken bus was up to the task, and instead, the passengers were just catapulted into the air, bums clear off seats, hands sliding over the rail, threatening to deposit you in the lap of the nice Mayan girl in front.

That was it, Moustachio didn´t fancy totally wrecking his suspension, and took the negative topes at a sensible speed. We´d won! We charged into Los Encuentros, rounding the corner on near two wheels. The mad max conductor grabbed my bag and with Rachel and I stumbling behind with backpacks and bags of Guatemalan textiles, we launched ourselves off the bus.

We stood on the pavement, and looked at each other in a slightly dazed way, before being shoed onto the next bus by another keen conductor. We´d survived the Chicken Bus Challenge. Well, this one, anyway.

Lago Atitlan - check out the vibes, man.

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 22:01:00 GMT

After surviving Pacaya, we booked a tourist microvan to Panajachel on the shores of Lago Atitlan. A thankfully uneventful journey, although I did marvel at the way that the Guatamalans appeared to be in the process of blasting away a good proportion of the highlands in order to improve the road. And in true Central American style, they were doing it along its full length, all at the same time.

‘Pana’ is a bit of a non-descript tourist town, crowded with Mayan people selling textiles and pots, and with an horrendous green soviet-era tower block next to the lake. Still, the lake is fantastic – a massive calm body of water surrounded by towering, green volcanoes. Just before dusk a strong wind blew up, sending waves dancing across the surface, whilst sun rays speared the clouds. We stayed a night and next morning got one of the regular water taxis along the lake to San Marcos, where we hoped to stay and chill out for a while.

The view from our room at La Paz
First impressions of San Marcos were of a very sleepy village with informal walkways alongside big gardens full of palms and ginger, nestling guest-houses and restaurants. We managed to get a room in the lovely La Paz hostel – in a timber-framed, palm thatched cottage with an idyllic view out of the window. The hostel provides good, cheap veggie meals and you can arrange massage sessions to get out those kinks in your shoulders from backpack-carrying. Both of us immediately felt the need to do absolutely nothing for a few days.

In process of chillin’, we happened across a little Mayan man carrying an enormous bag of blankets via a strap around his forehead. We told him we weren’t really interested in a blanket, but he charmingly hooked us by offering to do a trade for any spare medicines we had. Therefore, in the peaceful shade of our cottage we got out our medipack and gave away half its contents, oh, together with two white T-shirts…. . I was happy for the guy to have them, but that wasn’t really what he was after – he laid out his rather nice hand-woven wares and got us to choose what we liked – then offered us an astonishing price of Q2500 (£250!):- it was one-of-a-kind, and alpaca wool, with a herd brought from Ecuador. He was such a nice man. And we were so loath not to believe him. We got him down to Q700. I didn’t want to go above Q400, but somehow I did…. damn him, and his charmingly disarming Mayan ways! So, we acquired the world’s most expensive woollen blanket. Although I have to say that it is very nice, and is hand-made, and will last us a lifetime. Oh, and it also came in handy as the nights there were really cold. We just try and forget that guys in Xela later tried to sell us handmade blankets for Q200…

Lago Atitlan - note floating stones...

Having been purged of our Quetzals, we then needed to find a cash-machine in order to pay our hotel bill. There isn’t one in San Marcos, so we got the water taxi over to San Pedro, the supposed party town of the lake – which is mostly nasty concrete buildings, English/Australian pubs and a thriving drugs and gringo-pulling scene. Both cash machines were defunct, so we got another taxi over to Pana’, found a working machine, and then got yet another another taxi back to San Marcos. Blimey. Mental note – in future do not spend available cash on overpriced blankets from seemingly kind-hearted salesmen.

We spent my birthday chilling out, although we did hire a double kayak in the afternoon and managed to negotiate it a few clicks down the coast without capsizing, smacking each other on the head or having an argument about who was steering – amazing! The beach we stopped on was covered in white pumice stone – which floats, I found out… An evening meal in the next-door restaurant newly bought by a gregarious guy from London finished off a good day.

Bougainvillea at La Paz

Rachel spent a couple of evenings meditating at the Pyramid centre next door the other way. The meditation was fine, but the new-age ‘pick and mix’ past-life regression and flaky ‘loving messages for the world’ first bemused, and then enraged Rachel, much to my amusement. We got the impression it was the reserve of middle-class people wanting to ‘find themselves’ in the ‘wilderness’, with lots of money, self-invented problems and needing to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything positive. We especially liked the couples on the thirty-day fast and introspective, gorging themselves on stone-baked pizzas and Chilean Chardonnay at the restaurant next door.

We had a great walk along the coastline west to Jaibalito – along a steep path cut into the hillside. We stopped to have a drink at a fantastic hotel (Casa Lomas Tzuzuna) perched on the steep slope, with gorgeous terrace views out across the whole lake. As we sipped our lemonade, a volcano erupted, sending a large spume of dust up into the atmosphere. Not bad. We got the water taxi back the next day to have lunch and take some photos. If anyone wants a different place for a honeymoon, this is it.

Quiche skirts

We finally left Lago Atitlan on a weavy microbus up to Chichicastenango in the highlands – home to the largest indigenous market in Guatemala. The market really is something – streets packed with stalls selling a huge variety of brightly collared textiles and embroidery, and incredibly busy, mostly with Quiche women with there black skirts, bordered with a bright band of colour and incredibly bright tops. As we wandered, we quickly had to get used to ignoring every other stall owner who wanted us to stop and barter with him or her. We had a good look around and selected the stalls we wanted to buy from. After some rather more successful wheeler-dealing than in Atitlan, we came away with a nice selection of bedspreads, table embroidery and even a bolt of hand-made cloth to re-upholster our couch with. Now we just had to work out how to get it back home…

A great experience, including the copal offerings on the temple steps, the temple confradia in hat and stockings offering stall holders a blessing (which involved kissing a cross in return for a donation), and the pine-strewn courtyard café where we had a break from the hubbub. We stayed the night in an un-obvious guesthouse with a roaring open-fire in our room, in preparation for the haul to Xela the next day.

Gallery: Mexico - Chiapas, San Cristobal, Chamula and Cañon Sumidero

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:33:00 GMT

Gallery: Mexico - Chiapas, Yaxchilan and Bonampak

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:19:00 GMT

Gallery: Mexico - Chiapas, Palenque

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 19:55:00 GMT

Gallery: Guatemala - Xela and Stove Project

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 19:15:00 GMT

Sidenote - The Curse of the Coffee Tour

rachel_and_daniel — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:23:00 GMT

Observant readers may remember that back in Panama,we went on a tour of a specialist coffee producer on the slopes of Volcan Baru. The blurb on the tour said ´warning you may become a coffee snob´. Unlikely, I thought – I´ve been to various wine tastings before and just didn´t really get down with tasting gooseberries, melon and raspberries in my glass. I still have to admit to being in the ´I like that wine´ or the ´that wine is nasty´ camp. For coffee, I´d long stopped drinking instant stuff, which to me tasted as near to actual coffee and Smash does to mash. But, as long as the coffee was strong and perky, I didn´t really mind.

After the tour there wasn´t any road-to-Damascus experience, but a couple of weeks later I was sitting in a coffee shop in Costa Rica and suddenly decided that I didn´t like the coffee I was drinking. It was too bitter. It lacked depth. It didn´t give my nerve endings a metaphorical slap across the face. Oh dear. As we´ve travelled up through Central America, I´ve found more and more coffee that I just don´t like. Its too weak. Its been sitting around for too long. It tastes like the strainings of an acorn soup. Dammit, there´s no oily stuff on top!

And its getting to the pitiful state that if I find a café in a town where I like the coffee, it makes my whole day better. OH DEAR. In various places I´ve been dragging Rachel back to the same establishment just to get repeated happyhappyjoyjoy fixes.

But most of the time I´m disappointed. And this, in the veritable centre of the coffee world (Columbia excepted). Partly its just that I´ve probably become a hideous coffee snob. But mostly its also because people in the countries we´ve travelled through just don´t drink the coffee they grow. Nearly all the good stuff is exported – for example in Nicaragua big American chains like Starbucks and DunkinDonut buy up most of the crop.

Also, most people can´t afford to buy coffee beans (especially if you spend hours every day picking the stuff for next to nothing). So get this. They drink Nescafé. If you wanted another example of how screwed up the world is, there´s a shining example. It reminds me of sad story of Cocoa farmers in south America that have never tasted chocolate.

Oddly, it also seems that restaurants don´t know how to make the stuff. They maybe catering to American tastes for brown dishwater (sorry, American readers). Honestly, I found on average one good café per country we´ve gone through. And if you weren´t worried about me before, in our travels I´ve noted down coffee brands that I´ve really liked for ordering when I get home – Its getting that bad.

I can only hope that my snobby taste buds stop where they are. At this rate I´ll be getting obsessive compulsive by the time we return, and will spend three hours every day making the perfect cup. Help Meeeeeeee.

Antigua, Pacaya, and the herd of ponderous donkeys

rachel_and_daniel — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:29:00 GMT

Another tourist micro bus, another long journey south to Antigua. This time the bad road bit was at the start, so we were able to enjoy the fantastic views whilst not minding the banging around. Our driver was of the ´there´s no speed except top speed´ camp, so we made some rapid, if somewhat hairy, progress down south. About half way, we descended from the mountains and were immediately struck by the difference in the lowlands – the valleys and hills were already parched brown, with most of the trees having lost, or in the process of shedding their leaves. The highlands at this stage in the dry season were still verdant and green. In fact the valley bottom was dominated by large cactuses – the first time we´d seen large numbers on our travels. It was summed up by a hotel we passed - with the name ´El Paso´.

Further on, our route passed straight through the centre of Guatemala City – the biggest conurbation in Central America (two million people). We´d been wary of stopping or changing in the city as it has a reputation for being the crime centre of the region (although like most places, if you´re careful, its probably not so bad – lots of people live their lives there, after all). The city, a bit like Tegucigalpa, is incredibly busy, but also incredibly dirty, as the numerous chicken buses here spew out appalling clouds of noxious fumes and smoke. MOTs there ain´t. The only glance we got at the security situation was going past a bank – instead of one guy with a shotgun, they had three…. wearing flack jackets. Its hard to get an idea of poverty when you´re just passing through a place (we´ve been sponsoring street kids here for years) – but like elsewhere on our travels, obvious slums and poor housing clung to steep hillsides or the banks of rivers - land that no one else wants, and land most vulnerable to floods, landslides and earthquakes.

You´re never far from a volcano in Antigua...

The road then climbed steeply up into the hills again, affording panoramic views over the grey metropolis, and then over into Antigua Guatemala – our destination and the old capital of Central America. The contrast with the capital is extreme. The city consists of cobbled streets, lovely old townhouses and crisp, mountain air. Three volcanoes tower over the city – the reason why the capital was moved to the present location further away. Throughout its history Antigua has been battered by earthquakes, which is clearly visible from the fact that the majority of the old colonial churches are empty shells in danger of falling into rubble.

Antigua is a veritable expat colony, with loads of foreigners setting up business in the city. It also gets most of the richer tourists that visit Guatemala, so prices for accommodation and food were at least double of those in the north of the country. Still, the city is extremely beautiful. The main square was full of purple-blossomed Jacaranda trees and the square is framed by fantastic Spanish administrative buildings and the old cathedral, partly ruined. The materials and decoration used in the town houses shouts of the wealth that was once here, and the large majority have now been restored. We got a walking tour with Elizabeth Bell, an American who´s been living in the city for thirty years, and who has been at the centre of efforts to restore the city´s magnificent architecture.

Beautiful votive, the Cathedral

As we had just started Lent, the cathedral was slowly ramping up to Semana Santa (Easter). While we were there a member of the Mayan ´Cofradia´ (I guess equivalent of a Parish Council) beat a drum accompanied by a haunting whistle to draw worshipers to the ´valeccion´ inside – a beautiful display of coloured sawdust and candles in front of the altar, behind which was a scene from Christ´s crucifixion, created just for that day. Later, a party of school kids marched around the square with a statue of Christ. These parades get far more frequent as Easter approaches – I´m sure we´ll see many more when we arrive in Oaxaca, Mexico for Semana Santa.

Only the front portion of the original cathedral is usable, the rest is ruinous. It was interesting to find one of the crypts was black with smoke were Mayan people had burned votive candles and made offerings to their saints and ancestors. Its quite obvious in Guatemalan churches that the Mayan people aren´t catholic in any sense that the church of Rome would recognise. Instead, it seems to be a melding of Christian imagery with extant traditional beliefs (´cosmovision´). The catholic priests put up with it because if they didn´t they´d lose most of their congregation.

Jacaranda trees in blossom in the central plaza

Whilst on the tour we also looked round a jade shop, where we took the opportunity to look up our birthdays on the Mayan calendar. From now on, call me II Rabbit. Rachel is III Hummingbird. Rachel had fun looking around the rather expensive jewelry shops in town. We returned a day after to get a nice necklace she´d seen – it was only $40. Well, actually the chain was only $40, the actual pendant was $2000. Funnily, Rachel didn´t buy anything in Antigua.

Antigua is full of lovely details

Our only trip out of Antigua was to climb the active volcano Pacaya. We booked a tour, expecting to be joined by four of five other people. Turning up on the day, we found we were actually on a full chicken bus with about fifty other tourists. After messing around waiting for late arrivals we eventually set off and arrived, half way up the volcano ninety minutes later. Once off the bus we were harangued by small children trying to sell us sticks. Well, walking sticks to be precise. Full credit to the local kids for making a stick industry, but we weren´t really in the market for one. One little urchin girl of about seven asked Rachel if she wanted a stick. The conversation went something like this:

´No, thankyou´

´But it’s a really good stick´

´It is, but I don´t need a stick, thank you´

Pause…

´Gift me your bag´

´No!´

´Gift me your bag´

´No, I need my bag´

´Gift me your bag´

´Sorry, but I need my bag to carry our things´

Pause. Little girl has a eureka moment, and slips grubby hand into her dress, pulling out a round, shiny red fruit…

´I´ll give you a tomato for the bag!´

Granted to say we didn´t trade. As well as the urchins selling sticks, the whole place was filled with boys and men with horses, offering to carry you up the volcano. ´Taxi, taxi, very good!´ seemed to be the tag line. No one seemed to be buying a lift either. We started out up the trail, and snaked, single file up the mountain. The going wasn´t particularly hard, but it was rather ponderously slow, as we had to go the pace of the slowest person. Also, the soil here was nothing more than volcanic dust, so the feet of numerous tourists brought it all up in a choking cloud. For the first half hour we stopped and started, trying not to breath in cancer-inducing quantities of micro-particles, whilst we were harangued by the increasingly irritating ´Taxi, taxi, very goood!´ from the ever-hopeful caballeros.

Horde on a volcano.

In addition to this our party included squalls of Canadian French student girls who ambled slowly up the mountain, talking continuously. To my uneducated ear they sounded like something approaching a herd of braying donkeys. This didn´t aid my composure, and I was beginning to wonder what we´d signed up for.

After another half hour we hit the cloud layer and suddenly visibility went down to a couple of metres. The girls at the back, still talking, got lost. So we had to wait for them to find the path. There was some confusion about whether we had them all, of whether there was still one wandering around the mountain, waiting to step into an unfortunately-placed lava flow. At last it was decided with the guide that we had everyone, as we found out that the ´chica gordita´ (´fat girl´ as the guide subtly described her), had, in fact, got a horse taxi.

Further on, we left the path and stumbled over solid lava flows of razor-sharp rocks until we arrived at our destination. Rachel and I tried to get a stable spot on the volcanic scree-slope, whilst others made every attempt to bury their companions in flying rocks as they scrabbled up and down trying to get a good view. Up above and to the left we were confronted by a line of glowing lava, slowly oozing down the mountain side. Every now and then a chunk would solidify too much and break off the flow, bouncing down the slope leaving a trail of flying lava bits in its wake, a bit like an out of control Catherine Wheel.

On top of the world..

Looking out, we were now well above the cloud layer, with just one mountain, Volcan Agua above Antigua, poking through the cloud layer. It seemed as if we were on top of the world. As the light of the day began to dim, we experienced a fantastic sunset and soon, the stars, moon and venus came out. Looking up, the whole mountainside glowed with the lava. We sat down to better appreciate the view. It was getting cold, but your bum was centrally heated by magma, apparently not that far below the surface. Someone dug into the scree a few inches and shoved their walking stick in. It immediately caught fire, which made us shift our bums rather uncomfortably….

After half an hour of staring in awe at the magma bouncing down the mountain we started to return. This was fine for us as we had brought our torches with us, but a lot of the group hadn´t, so had to try and negotiate themselves across the scree slope by the secondary light of other people´s torches. The treck down was punctuated by intermittent cries as Canadians girls fell over in the dark. Looking back, the mountainside behind us was outlined in fiery orange.

In the end we really enjoyed our trip up the mountain. Pacaya wasn´t as plain weird and unearthly as Rincon Viejo or Cerra Punta, but it made up for it with heat, dashings of lava and a rather fantastic view.

To see more pictures of lovely Antigua, click here.

Tikal and the Guatemalan Suicide Dogs

rachel_and_daniel — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:31:00 GMT

We left Chetumal and got a long-distance bus going straight to Flores, Guatemala. This involved heading down through northern Belize again to Belize City, and then across to San Ignacio and over the border. We drove through the Peten basin in Guatemala, which consisted of rolling hills with palms and deciduous forest, much cleared, but with very little in the way of villages or settlement. After a good eight and a half hours we arrived at Flores.

With its sister town Santa Elena, this is the only decent-sized conurbation in the whole of northern Guatemala. Flores itself is a small colonial town built on an old Mayan capital, taking up the whole of an island in Lago de Peten Itzá, and connected to the mainland by a causeway. It´s a quiet, sleepy place, with uneven cobbled streets and old town houses. Its just now starting to be gentrified, with new road surfaces and a promenade around the outside. I hope local people will continue to make up the majority of the residents and that they´re not priced out. We stayed at a great hostel ´Los Amigos´, with fine vegetarian food and a really friendly atmosphere.

One of the immense temples comes into view...

The next morning we were up bright and early (4.30!!!), to catch the tourist bus to Tikal, the largest and most famous Mayan site in Guatemala. The drive to Tikal takes a good hour and a half, as the site is up in the middle of a tropical forest national park, which takes up much of the Petén region. We arrived at the park gates at dawn, and after a quick breakfast, started to explore the site.

Getting there at dawn paid off. The mist hangs over the forest, with parrots, oropendulas, and howler monkeys making an incredible racket in the trees around you, whilst spider monkeys look down at you through the foliage. As you climb the first, immense temple, you get views out over the trees and mist, with the ´combs´ of the other temples in the city poking out above the canopy. It really is quite magical. Most of the larger temples have only been cleared and restored at the top, so the massive sloping walls retain their shrouding of mature trees, allowing you to imagine the site as it was found a few hundred years back, totally covered in jungle.

Tikal is enveloped in thick forest

The temples here are much steeper than other sites we´d visited – meaning that many had to be climbed via separate stairways. Saying that, ´stairways´ is probably a bit of a strong term, as a few of them weren´t much more than ladders. Although I´ve been much less prone to vertigo since our various adventures in Panama and Costa Rica, I climbed up a few feet, and then thought I´d prefer to have a banana on terra firma… . The scale of the site (and this is just the centre) is huge with countless plazas and acropolises. The central plaza was probably the most impressive set of temples and platforms we´ve seen – the scale and the labour gone in to create it are hard to take in.

The central plaza

After a few days we took a tourist bus down from Flores to Cobán in central Guatemala, and then east to Languin. This is quite a trek (another eight and half hours). The well maintained road passes through rolling hills again, mostly deforested for cattle (an unfortunate state of affairs prevalent in most of Guatemala, although without the really steep slopes of Costa Rica, the erosion isn´t generally so bad as there). Every village we passed through was populated by pretty Mayan girls (ok, maybe they weren´t all pretty) in long, flowing brightly coloured skirts and lacy shawls, and packs of scrawny dogs that for some reason known only to themselves, insisted on sitting, lying, sleeping, or having sex in the middle of the road.

Our driver was generally going for it down the straightish road, but in these villages we had to slow down to a crawl to weave in and out of the suicide dogs. And it wasn´t like they got out of the way in any hurry either. Sometimes they might look at the minibus in an indolent sort of way, and just maybe decide to wander a couple of yards before lying down again. But this was the exception.

It made me wonder how there were so many dogs. Obviously the bonking rate is faster than the flattening rate, but I´m not sure how. Its not as if Darwinian forces are at play either, as they all seem to be as stupid as the next dog.

Waiting for the ferry at Sayaxché

Our journey continued up into a series of forested gorges and then into the small town of Sayaxché, where the road stopped and we had to get an unsteady car ferry across the river. Further on, the road scaled higher and the air got fresher until we arrive in Cobán, a large county town, before heading east toward Languin. After about ten miles the good road gave out and we were on a very windy, very basic hard core track. By this stage Rachel had a headache which turned into a migraine, which meant that every bump sent shock waves through her head. It wasn´t long before she was biting her hand, curled up into a foetal position on the seat, moaning loudly. Not a great place for a migraine. Two hours later we arrive at Languin and staggered off to our hostel, where Rachel found the bed and stayed there for the next 12 hours.

Languin and surrounds are lovely – you´re definitely up in the mountains here, with chilly evenings and a certain crispness to the air, not unlike an autumn morning. The rivers are clear and cold, and humble villages are nestled in the valleys. When we got there the local kids were celebrating a saints day, and so were all wandering round covered in ash and confetti, where they´d smashed filled celebration eggs on each others heads (they have a similar thing in Mexico).

The river cahabón falls into limestone tunnel

The reason most tourists come here is to visit Semuc Champey – a small national park containing a large river tunnel (over 300m), with a set of shallow limestone pools on top that you can swim in. A rather bizarre topographical setup. After hitching a lift on the back of a crowded pickup (well, we paid for the privelege), Rachel and I spend a relaxing day exploring the river and the pools.

Clear limestone pools great for swimming

Various guys were hanging round with ropes where the river dives underground – at first we thought they were selling a service to climb down to view the spectacle close-up, but in actual fact they were there to fish out anyone who got clumsy and decided to launch themselves into the torrent. Of course, my amazing water sandals took this opportunity to decide to fall apart again once I was swimming around in the pools, so I spent the rest of the day wandering around with my sole flapping off my foot. Another case for the super glue, methinks.

The river emerges, whilst the water in the pools above cascades down to join it

To see more pictures of Tikal and Semuc Champey, click here

After a slight delay, Belizean Youtube videos now up for:

Lamanai Howler Monkeys,

Rachel´s rather wet chrimo message from MMRF, and

Cockscombe Basin Viewpoint

Gallery: Guatemala - Lago Atitlan

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:15:00 GMT

Gallery: Guatemala - Antigua

rachel_and_daniel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:18:00 GMT

Gallery: Guatemala - Tikal and Semuc Champey

rachel_and_daniel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:37:00 GMT