Guatemala
San Ignacio
Tikal
Flores
Notes from Jane
Puerto Barros
Livingston
Rio Dulce
27 July, Coban
Mountains of Coban, 25 to 31 July
Moira's notes from 4th August
5th August note from Jane
Antigua and Monte Ricco, 8th August. A bus adventure.
Jane on 18th August from Antigua
Moira on 18th August from Antigua
Back to Belize
On to Nicaragua
Road map..
Sunday 2/7, San Ignacio
Headed out west to the Guatemalan border to a town called San Ignacio.
It's about three hours by bus from BC in the hills where there is a lot of "ecotourist" adventures available, at a cost!
I spent a day in bed with a tummy upset while Moira went off caving. Funny, she wasn't all that keen on going but it turned out to be a fantastic experience as the caves were accessed after a two hour hike thru the jungle, a swim into the cave, much walking and many Maya ceremonial sites, with pottery and skeletons etc in situ. It has been kept as a "living" museum.
Another day we did a canoe trip up the Macal river, thru the jungle, to a place called "Ix Chel" which is a farm, plantation, factory using local plant and trees for traditional Mayan medicines.
They have a trail there where the trees and plants are identified with their medicinal uses - very interesting.
We took a guide which was just as well as it was 14 miles up there and back and he was a strong young man!!!!
I'm constantly amazed at how many people know and use bush medicine over here. First noticed it in Cuba but also in Belize and now Guatemala. What I have heard about the Maya way of treating illnesses reminds me of Liz's explanation of homeopathy. I must ask her if there is any connection (two different cultures have arrived at the same treatment of curing like with like).
Bought myself some jungle juice for my heat rash - how come I don't get it in Darwin???
There has been an incredible amount of jungle clearance all thru Belize and Guatemala, and the lack of wildlife has been a little disappointing.
Index..
5/7 Off to Tikal in Guatemala.
San Ignacio is only half an hour from the border.
Our guide took our passports to immigration, we didn't need to be sighted, faster that way - although later we had to be seen to walk thru the Belizean customs section!!
The countryside here is used for citrus fruit and some cattle - it looks very rich soil. I gather that agriculture (oranges and bananas - all owned by foreigners) is the number one income earner for Belize, followed by tourism.
Fri 7/7 Flores (Guatemala to Belize City again)
We're in Flores, Guatemala, quite close to the
Belize border where we
go tomorrow for a stint of ocean - hopefully better than Tulum.
Index..
Notes from Moira, Sun, 23 July
Things are fine except I have just discovered that the stove has blown at home and needs to be replaced.
At the moment we are fine and having a wonderful time on the waterways from Belize into Guatemala.
Index..
Puerto Barros
Again we seem to find ourselves in the drug running area as we hopped onto a launch to bring us into Puerto Barros, Guatemala, and were asked to put our life jackets on. One of the passengers told us about a shooting of one of the launches and the passengers were killed including the tourists. Jane thought it was not a good idea to have a jacket on as it would make a good target.
We later learnt that the shooting was deliberate in that it was directed at the boat owner.
The places we have stayed at in the past few days have been amazing cabanas over water, the sort that I feel should be built in Darwin.
Index..
Livingston
From Puerto Barros we caught a launch to Livingston and stayed a couple of nights in thatched cabanas. After a walk through the town on the first day in the rain, we discovered that the thatching need re-doing as Moira's bed was wet and Jane had a few drops on hers. We decided to chance it for the night even though there was amazing electical storms on the horizan.
In the evening we went in search for some local Garifuna music. We came across and Garifuna cultural centre, Aubafu, where a women was playing the drums and was supported by some men with other drums, conch shell and maracas. It would have been a better evening if we knew what they were singing and the significance of the dances.
The second day included a walk and an "experience" of Garifuna culture with a non english speaking guide yet again. We walked through a cemetery, up to look out, through some villages, and across a river in a wooden canoe to the Siete Alters (a series of waterfalls). All in all it was a pleasant but exhausting day.
On our last day in Livingston, we discovered we had to move room as they had over booked. We ended up with two beds on the verandah of the house at a cheaper rate.
Index..
21st July, Rio Dulce
Our trip up the Rio Dulce was organised through the hotel where we were staying. The scenery is magnificant: tropical jungle on steep cliffs along the waters edge interspersed with small villages and expensive homes. This area appears to be the yaghties paradise. There is obviously plenty of money here as there are big boats in covered slipways in front of large homes and plenty of jet skis. Along side of this are the Mayan people with their wood canoes and fishing nets.
Yesterday we took a launch for one hour, up to Finka Parecer, agua callente (hot water springs). The lady at the hotel we are staying, gave us a mud map to find some caves with indigenous Mayan paintings and a couple of other caves as well as the hot waterfalls. As usually we promptly got ourselves lost and walked for 3 hours which should have only been 2 by the lady's description but would have actually been 1/2 hr when we found it. The adventure was a bit hair raising as we could have a mud slide down the step slope.
We finally found the caves and the waterfall which only took 1hr. Jane was trying to cross the fast flowing stream to reach the hot water falls and ended up being lodged under some rocks. With a little help from some tourists she managed to get out of this situation.
We celebrated that evening with a gallon of awful white wine. Tomorrow we head off to Bopan by road, 216 km that will take 9 hrs. It is suppose to be beautiful.
Index..
26th July 2000 Coban, Guatemala – Jane’s notes.
HI George,
Trying a cheaper way of getting info on the net. It costs $15 an hour to use Internet so am writing this and sending as an attachment.
We are now in Coban, a mountain region in central Guatemala. It’s cold at night, which is a fantastic change. I was sick of being hot and all the washing that entails to keep oneself sweet smelling!!!!
We are off further up the mountainside tomorrow to stay in yet another Mayan village. That trip entails a two hour bus trip on dirt roads and then a three hour hike, upwards, (I think) to get to our bed!!!!
The next day we are being taken up into a cloud forest which I’m hoping will be fantastic (if I’m up to walking after the hike in!!!).
So much of the jungle has been cleared for growing coffee and maize! It’s a real tragedy, but they also need the money. What to do?
The cost in visiting this place goes to the village and is an incentive to the people to stop slashing and burning the jungle. In fact it is more financially beneficial for them to keep the forest and have tourists visit because it gives them more money than cultivation as they can also sell their handicrafts.
The trouble is that we won’t be buying as our packs are too heavy already.
We get back in on Friday arvo as there is the National Folkloric festival here that apparently is spectacular.
So then we will spend the weekend back in Coban and then go over to Antigua on Monday.
Index..
Coban area, 25 to 31 July
(Written on Sat, 12 Aug 2000)
The following info is from the 25/7 to 31/7 our time in a mountain region of Coban. This is after our ride up from the Rio Dulce.
We have yet again managed to arrive in a town that is having a cultural festival for which we have decided to stay. The organisers of the festival were unable to give us much information on the activities and venues, and all the hotels have been booked out.
The festival is the main Mayan festival in the country.
We booked a trip to Semuc-Champey. Our jeep arrived at 8.00 am on the hotel doorstep where we met a fellow Aussie working for the UN and who had spent some time working for ATSIC in Katherine. Talk about a small world!
We met him again on route. He was travelling in a Landcruiser while we had a bone shattering 2-hr jeep ride.
En-route to Semuc-Chempey we were taken to a limestone cave where our daredevil non-English-speaking guide decided to take us caving in the dark without the right gear including lights.
Semuc-Chempey is a beautiful limestone bridge with lovely crystal green water cascading over the bridge as well as gallons of water under the bridge.
The guide took some of the intrepid tourists (including Jane, even after her near death experience) down an 8m waterfall to view the flow of the water under the bridge as the water continued down another 10m drop.
On returning from the climb, Jane admitted it was a foolish thing to do.
The next day was spent organising our trip to a cloud forest, including a cultural experience and accommodation for the weekend.
The Mayan and cloud forest experience was done through Proyecto Ecologico Quetzal (Guatemala’s national bird). The project assists with minimising the destruction of the cloud forest by getting the tourists to spend time with families in their homes and also by encouraging the local candle making industry which uses seeds of plants grown locally.
The visit involved wearing wellies because of the rain and mud. The walk was to take 3 hrs up the mountain. Jane expressed her concern about our ability to complete the trip with the result we were taken on a shorter walk of 1.5 hrs.
We don't exactly know where we went, and after catching the usual crowded bus and walking 1.5 hrs we arrived in the dark in the rain. Carlos, our non-English-speaking guide, left us in a dark part of the house while they held a family conference.
The house is basically a thatched roof with wooden panels down the side and a short wall dividing the room into two.
Jane and I shared a bed, which was necessary because it got quite cold in the night. Of course we needed to go to the toilet during the night, that was a pit toilet behind the house.
The room was shared with Carlos's parents (we think).
After a meal of flavoured rice and tortillas we tried to sleep with much groaning in the background.
The next day it was a magnificent sight to see the clouds roll in, and to see the view from the pit toilet.
We had not been given any Mayan phrases, so it was difficult to communicate to the shy women.
Our rainforest walk was not the place we were expecting but was quite pretty. There were wild avocados that are eaten by the elusive Quetzal.
We were forever running into the back of the Carlos while he was taking a leak!
The walk down the mountain was a fast trip including slides by some people.
The bus down was not as full as the trip up. We needed to catch two buses and found ourselves running and jumping onto the back of a moving bus.
Our accommodation was with the Director of the Proyecto and his Spanish wife.
That evening we visited the festival site, where the men dance their traditional pre and post conquistador dances to their music all night and during the night they consume alcohol.
Next to the dance area is a shrine where their masks are blessed.
The next day was more dancing and music in the streets with their blessed masks.
That evening we decided to go to see more traditional dances that we thought was the main feature.
Well, their 'beauty' pageant called the Raban Ahau turned out to be the main feature with 84 entrants that paraded before us from initial 174 entrants. The contestants need to speak at least two languages, Mayan and Spanish.
The judges had not made their decision, so at 12.00pm 10 finalists had to respond to 15 questions. Thankfully not 15 each, but 1.
As a fill in there was a group of contemporary dancers that brought an interesting reaction from the audience. The dancers had little on, especially the men who only wore G-strings.
We did not get home until 2.00am and could not inform the family who had won.
Index..
4th August
Hi George,
We have finally got onto the site and at the moment Jane is having a Spanish lesson with the site and her teacher.
The following is some information for the sight on Guatemala. Jane felt that her incident with her third life was not exciting.
Hola (the only sexpensive Spanish word we can utter with confidence!!!!)
The overall impression of Guatemala to date is lots of guns!!! We are wondering if this is the left over of the "Spanish" influence.
There have been a number of bank, petrol stations, tourists, and takeaway food outlet robberies. The newly elected president has decided to have the army on the streets to guard these places.
The banks take an hour and a half to get through depending on whether it is the day you can use visa card or traveller's cheques. In some cases you may need to buy or withdraw the money in $US and take the money to another bank to buy quetzals.
Because it takes so long to process money, the bank is not a safe place to be in, because during robberies they shoot everybody on sight.
With each election there is a change in party and the losing party changes its name. In 15yrs of democracy no party has been in office for more than one term of office.
The east is different to the west by the ethnicity from Garifina to Mistiso/Ladino (Spanish Mayan mix), Mayan and many expat's, and by climate that changes from warm & humid to high altitude cool and wet.
From Rio Dulce we caught the local bus along the Lago Izabal to El Estor, an almost deserted ex-nickel-mining town. We were hoping to make a connection to Coban but it had departed some hours earlier. We walked to town in 10 minutes!!!!!
In the anxiety of missing our morning bus (having confirmed the departure time as 8.30 with the cleaner the previous days) we arrived and jumped on our ex American school bus. The baggage loader collapsed onto the pavement whilst trying to load Moira's pack on top of the bus (he was only a tiny fellow and the pack weighed 22kg).
We then 'endured' a circuitous route for 1.5 hrs around the town trying to fill the bus before actually heading off to Coban!!! A soccer team, farmers, and family going to market joined us.
While we were assisting with making the journey comfortable for others, Jane managed to frighten a child who needed to go back to her father. (Foreigners stealing children has been a problem here!!!)
The bus wound up through the mountains, past running rivers, precariously planted farms, and cleared land.
This will be all for now. I can’t believe that this has taken an hour. Jane got onto the Australian Foreign Affairs site and read about what has happened in Fiji.
Hope all is well and will write to you soon. Moira.<
Index..
5th August from Jane
Hi George,
I left Moira at the Casa doing her Spanish homework. She will have caught up and gone beyond me by the end of next week. She'll then have to do all the communication - it's her turn!!!
My teacher is very different, no homework but he is also very uninspiring as a teacher, no imagination. The liveliest the conversation has got is when we were doing the vocab for bedrooms.
In Spanish they call a double bed a matrimonial bed. I told him it was a very funny term, as I was sure that most people that occupied these beds weren't married! They're heavily catholic here!!!!!
He was intrigued by the thought of queen and king-sized beds. I guess here it is more than likely that a whole family sleeps in the matrimonial bed. Families seem to be anything from 5 to 10 odd children!
How do they do it?
We wondered even more in Belize and those other places where hammocks are the norm how they managed to procreate so well!
Tomorrow, Saturday we have 4 hours of class in the morning and then we are going to try to take a bus down to the Pacific coast for the weekend. Will let you know how that goes - I gather that the sand there is black.
Internet access is much cheaper here so should be able to catch up with all our chores!!
Love to all.
Jane
Index..
8th August, Monday, Antigua
Hi George
Back to school today. I'm having to brush up on my English grammar in order to understand some of the construction - a long time ago!!
Moira says she is brain dead but it has something to do with our weekend adventure to Monte Ricco on the Pacific coast.
We decided that as we hadn't seen the Pacific coast of Guatemala we should use the weekend for a visit.
There are so many tourists in Antigua that there is a roaring trade in shuttle buses between all the most visited places in the country.
We had a class on Saturday am and were unfortunately unable to catch one of these as they left early in the morning.
Most advice given to us pertaining to times etc related to the shuttles not the local bus system, so we discovered! We had been told that it took around two hours to get there, with one bus change.
Travelling in the local buses here is quite an experience! They normally carry three or four times the stated capacity!
The seats are designed for very LITTLE people, and many Guatecs ARE very little (tiny in height and size) although there would seem to be a growing number of plumper residents.
The left-hand seats are wider than the right hand seats, so we have learnt to go for the left, as you MUST always seat three people.
Initially we took the right hand side assuming that only our bots would be there!! How wrong we were.
Some how it extends to the right hand side too and although they are much smaller it is expected for three people to sit there. You can imagine all this with our butts.
Most people have three adults and maybe one or two children in the seat as well! The aisle almost does not exist, ie about a six-inch gap between seats. This means that the poor bugger who is in the right hand aisle seat basically is wedged in by the over hang from the left hand person and their near neighbour on the right.
Once you have the required minimum six in seats, then it is expected that someone stands in the "aisle" between those wedged in - ie the ones who look like they are sitting but in fact are hanging on to the seat in front for dear life while they sit on air!!!!
Once the bus is completely full off we go. I guess at least we didn't drive around the town for an hour and a half trying to collect more passengers as in El Estor!
There is always at least one off-sider to the driver. Their job is to then wiggle, crawl, and walk over the back of the seats and to go up and down the bus to collect the fares! This may mean an exit out the back of the bus, a climb across the roof and a climb back down into the bus via the front door - all while the bus is in motion!! - They are usually very trim people!
No such thing as personal space here! If you don't allow enough people on your seat they just sit on your lap or jump in the middle and slowly ease you into the aisle position!
We arrived at our interchange in Esquintlar and pointed in the direction for our next bus. Before we could settle amongst the throng a very insistent man dragged us off to jump on an overflowing bus going SOMEWHERE. We were the overflow!
An hour down the line we were told to get off as there was another interchange, not one we were expecting!
The problem with this form of travel is that you can't see where you're going, who wants to see the scenery anyway - we're having a cultural experience!
We arrived at Monte Ricco about 1730 that day only to find that all the hotels (ie all 5 of them) were full except for a really grotty room out the back away from the ocean and NO VENTILATION at all. I had said no originally, but we traipsed back and said we would take it!
The sand is quite black particularly when wet but there was surf much to Moira's joy. The Caribbean coast does not have any surf.
We immediately changed and went for a swim even tho it was getting late.
A beer was then in order, medicinal of course to help with the sleep! Gallo (which is rooster in Spanish) the local brew.
Well, yes , it was hot, not much sleep!
We had organised a trip up the waterways - this area is a designated nature reserve - to look at more mangroves - I said to Moira that you probably wonder why I left Darwin to look at mangroves George!
As usual we had another Spanish speaking guide, it's called putting our learning into practise!
The boat turned out to be a wooden canoe! Anyway it was lovely out in the canals, very pretty although not many birds to see.
The Jacanas here, and in Belize, have yellow under their wings and are not quite the same.
The guide (or more appropriately, the misinformer, as we discovered later) was amused by the name "Jesus Christ" bird because it walks on water.
After our "tour" and breakfast with a group of evangelical Christian youths, we tried the captive-breeding site. They no longer have caimans (crocs to us, or alligators, I don't know) and are re-introducing them, we think! Also they collect turtle eggs and green iguana eggs and hatch them.
It was quite informative and it was here that we discovered that our guide was full of misinformation - nothing to do with our misinterpretation!
Another surf was in order and Moira proceeded to perform "strips" while refreshing her skills in body surfing. You can't take this woman anywhere!
Fortunately for us, as it turned out, we left the hotel at 1300 hours on Sunday to walk down to the ferry terminal.
Missed an amusing photo shot of a punt with a van and man sitting on his motor bike going up the river. From where I was sitting at water level it looked as though the car and man on bike were on the water!
We arrived at land for our first bus and had to wait half an hour, a good excuse to try out the local tostadas and fresh coconut.
The driver advised us NOT to get off the bus at our scheduled stop as there weren't many buses going through (understatement, we discovered later that means none) so headed off to town unknown and unspellable - Chichimullila???).
At this point the driver pointed us to another bus as the one to catch - only problem was it wasn't going to our destination!!! The driver of that bus told us that the bus we wanted was the one we had just got off!!
Well we started chatting to a Quebecan who was as lost as us, he proceeded to practise his newly acquired Spanish with some other women who said a bus would arrive in 5 minutes. Half an hour latter - nada - then a mini-van arrived saying it was going to Esquintla, our destination.
It was one of those every day mini-vans we use for deliveries in Australia. Twenty people plus later off we go - it was VERY COSY - off we went at quite a speed!
The young man next to me had a chook in a plastic bag. This was one of those ones that they have here that look as though it has some horrible disease, half it's feathers missing so it had feathers on it's head then this red raw looking scaly neck and then feathers.
He kept pulling it's head out of the bag and stroking it and rubbing the skin on its neck up and down, very lovingly I might say - enough for me to look at the young girls opposite for their reaction - fair amount of smirking and giggles going on there. I asked him whether it was dinner or for eggs and he said - both. I suggested it was far too beautiful a chook to eat for dinner.
He also suggested that we might not get back to Antigua until Monday although another passenger said that there was a bus at 2000 hours that night from Esquintla.
Needless to say we did arrive intact at Esquintla only to find that everyone we asked gave us a conflicting opinion about buses home. We decided we would risk a bus into Guatemala city and then try for another back out. Well that bus dropped us off on the outskirts, so we had to face yet another traumatic time trying to get to the right spot for a bus to Antigua. We were ever mindful that the guidebook said the last one left at 1900 hours and it was already later than that.
The Quebecan meanwhile decided he would stay in Guatec for the evening and come out the next day - we weren't so lucky as we had very little money on our persons and our passports/TCs were at home in Antigua for safety reasons. Getting around Guatemala city in the dark is a risky affair, the place is not safe, so it was a little nerve racking.
We eventually found the bus station and low and behold there was a bus in the distance - I took off, I wasn't going to miss that one. Moira being a few months older was left standing in the stalls, just as well she got on the bus as I had the only money!
Not long after our Quebecan friend joined us as someone on the street had suggested it was not a safe place to stay!!!
We arrived home at 2100 hours, only 8 and a half hours to get there.
A very long explanation as to why Moira is brain dead today.
Having refreshed ourselves we went out for a DRINK and dinner!!
Time to get off the line George, more info later, George. We are alive and well!!!! Time to go home for dinner, and our washing.
Love to all
Jane
Index..
Jane,
It is Wednesday (16th???) I think.
We are over-nighting back in Antigua having been up in the highland country of Chichicastenanga and Lake Atitlan.
Tomorrow at 0400am we leave for the Mayan ruins at Copan, Honduras. It sounds as though we may be incommunicado for a week or two until Costa Rica.
As we are not going to the Caribbean coast of Honduras (the main tourist sites) we will probably transit to Nicaragua and hopefully find some interesting places there. Most information on Nicaragua would lead us to believe that the most interesting part of travelling there is talking to the people about their history etc. We'll see.
Last week we went into Guatemala City to try and change our flight dates as we were getting too far behind schedule. It has been fun and games as the airlines here were telling us that they couldn't change our dates, only Ansett could do this. Ansett, via e-mail, were telling us that the Airlines here could change them!! We knew this was correct but how do you argue the toss in Spanish when they are saying it is not possible!!!
It turned out once we went to the Varig office in Guatemala city that Ansett had changed the dates from our e-mail request but neglected to let us know!!!!
That caused an avoidable trip in the wonderful local buses. I remember that trip in particular as the driver thought he was a Formula One racing car driver down the steep and windy mountain roads. I concentrated on building my Spanish vocabulary from my textbook while Moira did not look relaxed, had a slightly maniacal look on her face!
Anyway we got it sorted out and found a very nice coffee shop at one of the five star hotels. This was my first rich, smooth coffee tasted in a long time. Mostly it is like dishwater. Guatemala is supposed to have some of the best coffee in the world but it is hard to find as most is exported.
Also had fun shopping in the hotel complex! Spent money on an expensive pair of mauve jade earrings. I can regret the buy at my leisure.
Moira lost the second pair of glasses this trip. A very nice pair of Italian sunglasses bought in Mexico. In the tizz we forgot to tip the doorman for our very, very expensive taxi from the hotel (a ten minute cab ride)to the less salubrious central bus station for our $0.50 cent two hour bus ride back to Antigua.
I don't know that we have said much about Antigua. It is one of THE tourist places in Guatemala and famous for it's Spanish language schools. We decided that this is where we should do another session of Spanish.
The city was the original Spanish capital for what is now Central America (Guatemala, Chiapas in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize and Nicaragua) so is old (16th century) Spanish style city with cobbled streets - not so interesting if you come from Europe but very different for an Aussie. Quite charming - except we've had so much rain that when you walk in the "quaint" narrow streets and the cars and buses pass, guess what? Those lovely cream slacks no longer look so fresh!!
This side of the country is very heavily catholic, religious icons, churches, religious slogans and incredible T-shirts with such things as "Jesus is my friend" etc everywhere. Don't know that they relate their religion to the real world as they like to rob us whenever possible in the most unpleasant ways sometimes. I'll have to learn to say something appropriate in Spanish (in true Roger form)!
The town has very pretty surroundings because volcanos, both extinct and active surround it. We were going to climb the one that is active but ran out of time and I wonder whether I could climb for three hours anyway!
I'm onto my second cold in the time we have been away which is pretty amazing as I don't think I have had a cold for more than ten years prior to these episodes. Travelling is obviously very stressful!!
One of the other things here is the number of Australian trees in the place. This area is a coffee growing area and they use Silky Oaks as the shade trees here to protect the coffee bushes. There are also lots of gum trees too, particularly blue gums. We get quite nostalgic at times.
As well as coffee the main other crop is maize that is regard by the Mayas as sacred. They believe that man was created from the maize plant. Maize is grown EVERYWHERE and always available as a meal on the street.
It is not the same sweet corn we have at home but with some chilli, salt and mayonnaise it passes with a hungry stomach.
Anyway we have had two weeks in Antigua. Moira had an excellent teacher and has caught up with me. Now we hear two different things and don't know which interpretation is correct, it is more confusing than ever!!! My fortnight was a bit like a very expensive textbook and I was a little disappointed with the experience.
We stayed with a family in order to practise speaking. It turns out that our family actually was the ex-wife and children of the director of the language school and one of the sons taught at the school. We spent a fortnight trying to work out who was who and what was going on. I think they have so many students passing through that it is no longer interesting and when we were not fluent or easy to the ear there was no real interest to try and make conversation. A pity, but some insight into family life here.
We stayed with a single mother, a few years older than us, with her two sons, one recently separated and the other 34 and single who would appear to have taken on the father/husband figure, also a daughter(officially grand-daughter). This appears to be a fairly typical result of "machismo" here with many men having multiple partners and sometimes 15 odd children and more.
While here we managed to catch up on a few Cuban movies. In fact the cinemas here are just rooms set up with video machines so it is like a sitting room where you can have a drink or meal and watch a video.
Cinemaya was our home on four occasions. We finally saw "Buena Vista Social Club" - really enjoyed it, brought back lots of memories.
Also saw Fresas y Chocolat, Che and Bitter Sugar. Moira cried for two days after the latter movie! It was harrowing and a side of Cuba that we did not experience. We wondered if we should or could have been a little more "sensitive" although it is a difficult situation really and you have to be true to yourself. Anyway she is now back to the romance novels and having some more good therapeutic "howls"!!
Another Guatemalan phenomenon that we only became aware of in Antigua was los bombas! Moira would get up in the morning and ask what were the noises early in the AM. It would appear that it is customary for fire works, actually bangers, to be let off for your birthday and this happens at all times of the day, but particularly in the morning.
They like those big ones and EVERY day these things go off, near or far!!
The most interesting use of fireworks to date is where they attach fireworks to a dancer in some of their folkloric dances and set them off, on the stage, and attached to the dancer!! Then they have to extinguish the fires! We wondered about audience indemnity as these things shoot out all over the place and the westerners in the audience hop around like crazy to avoid the sparks. We were at the back of the audience so could be amused!
Up in the highlands at one of the Mayan towns they liked to explode these crackers on the steps of their church, but they put them into a metal cylinder for the added noise and excitement! We can assure you the result is impressive. All you boys would remember the good old days of blowing up letter boxes!!
Can't help but wonder how many accidents they have as there are always crowds around! They do all those things that we were not allowed to do with fireworks as kids!!
Thank Jenny for passing on Jan’s e-mail but I can't answer yet due to the problems here.
Love to all
Jane
Index..
Moira, 18th August.
At the moment we are preparing to leave Guatemala and head off to Honduras (a 4am start). Jane was reading about the wonderful life threatening diseases we can catch from insects. I don't know if we will spend too much time there.
We have had a lovely 4 days around Lake Atitilan that is surrounded by volcanos. We arrived in Panajachel from Chichicastenango (our further Mayan cultural experience). The worst part of it all was paying probably 10 times as much as the locals for the boat rides across the lake to various towns.
The following day we decided to do some exercise and walked to San Antonio that is approximately 11km up and down hoping to have a lovely lunch at our destination. San Antonio does not cater for tourists expecting to sit down by the lake and enjoy a leisurely lunch. We had to wait until we went back to Panajachel.
From Panajachel we went to San Pedro via Santiago Atitilan (much to our displeasure). Various hawkers chase up passengers for various destinations across the lake.
We were told that the ferry was going to San Pedro and it didn't so we had to catch another ferry to San Pedro.
At San Pedro we were greeted by a man keen to be our guide up the volcano or the mountain on the other side of the town. We opted for the mountain as the volcano looked steeper. In actual fact the mountain was steeper although we had half the time to walk it compare to the volcano.
We are both suffering from sore thighs.
Keep well chat to you soon.
Moira
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