My relaxing weekend was just that. I hadn’t realized that I had been going nonstop for two weeks, and hadn’t slept past 7A in all that time. The next week was pretty uneventful. It was filled with Spanish class. I decided to go on a trip to Tikal the next weekend for 3 days, so I took 7 hours of Spanish per day, Mon-Thur, to make up for the ones I’d be missing on Fri. On Tuesday, I hiked up the Cerro de la Cruz (literally “The hill of the cross”) with our school. It’s a pretty short hike, but it affords a good view of the entire town of Antigua and surrounding volcanoes.
On Thursday, I went with our school to visit the “Mujeres Tejedoras” (“Women Weavers”) outside of Antigua. They’re part of a Mayan tribe who emigrated during the civil war. They explained their lifestyle to us and gave some demonstrations. They weave intricate clothing and they explained that certain types of clothing were worn depending on your marital status and that each color in the clothing had significance. Yellow is for the sun, green for the life surrounding them, red for blood and so on. They also weave grasses into mats. They work most of the day, every day, from the time they’re eight years old. It was very interesting and they encouraged us to be a part of their demonstrations. I tested my hand at tortilla making and it went pretty well.
The weekend was amazing. There were 18 of us from various Spanish schools in Antigua. We left in two vans at 4AM Friday morning and stopped at a Chiquita banana grove where our guide explained how bananas are cultivated. We also visited “Quirigua,” a site of Mayan ruins that pales in comparison to Tikal a bit, but is interesting nonetheless. It’s essentially a big field filled with rocks that were carved by the Mayans. I think my favorite was an estella (a pillar-shaped carving) that had various sex positions carved on it. Our guide explained that it represented creation, but I’m not convinced they knew sex resulted in infants back then. After all, they didn’t have microscopes yet. I think it’d be pretty difficult to make that connection. It’d kind of be like eating a plate of beans (which you eat several times a week perhaps, unless you’re married) and then getting sick nine months later and thinking, “Damn! It must’ve been those beans!”
After Quirigua, we stopped on the river near Rio Dulce for lunch and to visit the Castillo de San Felipe del Golfo, built by the Spanish in 1651 to protect the Caribbean port from rampant piracy. It was small, but pretty with great views and interestingly designed gunning alcoves. After lunch and a refreshing swim, we were on the road to Flores where we stayed the night. We were all exhausted when we finally got to our hotel at 10P.
We left for Tikal the next morning at 6A and had breakfast inside the park. Tikal was a great Mayan empire centuries ago and was built in the middle of the jungle. It’s taken scientists decades to uncover the temples and pyramids that were overgrown with grass and trees. In 1979, UNESCO declared it a world heritage site. From then on, archaeologists were no longer allowed to replace old stones with new ones and they can only uncover 40% of each structure. The city is massive and very impressive. The stairs are high-set and steep and it makes one wonder how these tiny people dragged all those stones to build the structures, let alone climb them afterwards. The place was beautiful and fascinating, but the pictures probably do a better job of describing the structures than I could.
After Tikal, we made our way back to Rio Dulce and then took a boat down the river in the dark to the place where we stayed in a sort of eco-lodge. It was very simple accommodation in the forest near the river. There was a massive spider on the screen in our bathroom, a frog in the cold water shower, and mosquito nets (on two of the three beds in our room anyway). It was an environment I’m perfectly comfortable in, but many of the people in our company were less than pleased, which served as a source of amusement for me. After we settled in, we headed to Livingston, a town at the mouth of the river. Probably once a happening town, it now bears resemblance to a red light district. We had dinner and a few drinks there, wandered down to the beach, then headed back.
On the last day of our tour we took the boat back down the river to the town of Rio Dulce, where we wandered for a couple of hours before heading back to Antigua. The trip was great, made better by a great group of people. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I got home at 8:30P Sunday night – and I still had Spanish homework.
This last week was fairly uneventful, filled with Spanish class and spending a few last nights with the friends I’ve made here. On Thur. afternoon, a few of us climbed Volcan Picaya, one of the 3 remaining active volcanoes in the area. Apparently, you’re in more danger of getting robbed while climbing Picaya, than of getting incinerated. It’s probably the most popular tourist attraction near Antigua. If you’re lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it), you’ll see flowing lava when you near the top. The school had taken several people up 2 weeks prior and they didn’t see any flowing lava. But we were lucky. There was a nice “warm” streaming flow when we reached the top. The scene was completed by tourists roasting marshmallows and hot dogs over the flow. The experience was right up there with the giant shark chasing the turtle on my list.
Last night I was out late with friends. Today I tried to mail a 3-4 lb. package home to lighten my load a bit, but they wanted $40 to do it, so I changed my mind. Tomorrow, I move on from Antigua and am headed for El Zonte, a beach in El Salvador where I’m told there is surf during the day and campfires at night. Seven more weeks!
The photo link is the same, but the new pics start at #48:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2911009&id=8369089&l=125882dbde
Best wishes to you all,
Sierra
