Guatemala Day 4

Our night in "El Recreo" was uneventful, except for the freezing cold showers! Our white-water rafting tour was to meet at 8:00 this morning and our hotel breakfast (traditional buffet) was at 7:00 so we made it, bags packed and stashed in the office by 7:30. I couldn't eat any of it because of my previous experience with guatemalan breakfast foods...so I snacked on some fruit. Kylee grabbed some cold cereal but then was told that she would have to pay extra for it so she took toast and beans instead. We were slowly but surely running out of Q's (quetzal) and are totally in the back country. It didn't help that when I went to pay for the night it was 440Q! (about $57) Unbelievable. I thought it was going to be 140Q (which is what it should have been) but no. So now we are getting close to being out of money and there are no ATM's anywhere. Anyway...so we were ready to go by 8:00 but no one was there for us until 9:00 - which is typical, but it still makes us worry that we are in the wrong place or wrong day or something. Our tour guide was a Guatemalan who grew up in California so his English was perfect (yeah!) Part of our rafting group was a family of Guatemalans who grew up in the states. The dad was a politician in Guatemala so he kept his family in the US to keep them safe. He eventually got out of politics because of the corruption and his inability to change it, then brought his family back to Guatemala 2 years ago. His sons and their nice, fresh american wives. Lucky girls. :) The youngest is 23 I think. They all spoke great English except for the Dad. Our whole entire group was 14 native guatemalans and then the family of 8 that I just told you about, and me and kylee. We separated into the English speakers (white) and the spanish speakers (dark) We were outnumbered.



I wish I had a better picture of our big group. One group was red and the other group was yellow. We split into 6 boats, me and Kylee with 2 of the family members (a son and his american wife from Boston) and 2 guides, 1 that spoke english.


The guy on the back spoke English. I suspect the girl did too...but she didn't say ONE word the whole trip. She didn't do anything either. In fact, if she wasn't in the picture, I wouldn't have even remembered she was there!

We got along really well and made a great team so our 6 hours on the river was pretty fun. We went down class 2, 3, 4 and 4-plus rapids.







I don't know what that means, but I know that the 4-plus was the most fun. At one point we got stuck between 2 rocks horizontally. It was exciting because my side (right, front) was on the down side of the raft and I was afraid when we jostled loose it would just flip right over me. It didn't help that our guide looked a little nervous. BUT, we jostled loose and then sailed right out of it.

The other scary part was when we got stuck on a rock RIGHT before a huge current that they called "the tornado." Once again we were afraid that we would get loose and then tumble head over heels. Our guide was talking loud and clear telling us we had to back pedal the second we hit the current so that we didn't flip. Once again we sailed right out of it. It made me wonder why he was so worried, it just seemed so smooth. I really wonder what would happen if you just held onto the raft for dear life and didn't paddle at all. Next time I'll try that...I mean, HALF of our orientation speech was about what to do if you fall out of the boat or if it flips. We were so prepared and then NOTHING. :)

Don't get me wrong, we were wet. Totally soaked. Our feet looked like this the whole time:



Especially me and Ricardo because we were in front. You know how when we are skiing and the front of the boat has a wave come over the bow? That's how it was everytime we hit a rapid. Soaked. We had absolutely perfect weather though, it was sunny and warm, but not too hot. We dried pretty quickly and then got soaked again. There were calm parts of the river that we just floated and chit-chatted with our new friends and there was a part where we had to get out so that our guides could machete through a tree that had fallen in the way of the rock-n-roll rapids on the day before. The scenery was out of a postcard and we floated by little houses in the middle of NOWHERE.



There were 3 bridges crossing the river that were rope and boards. We saw 2 guys backpacking rice bags on the edge of the river and when they got to their family on the other side they tossed down their bags and built a raft out of driftwood so they could get across. All the kids and their wives had come down to greet them. It seemed so totally primitive I couldn't believe it.





Kylee and I have these funky sunburns so we were trying to stay covered up...but rafting and sunburns don't mix. Oh well! Our new friends were so nice, they live in Guatemala City and gave us their phone number and said that if Kylee ever needs anything - a chauffer, a friend, a place to stay, whatever...to give them a call. (I don't know what it is with chauffers - EVERY lower-middle class family has one. They couldn't believe WE didn't. Heavens, we wouldn't want our poor children stuck with public transport...did I mention Kylee rides the bus to school, 40 minutes away?) Anyway, they were really nice.



One of the sisters had a daughter when she was 19 and her boyfriend was killed in car accident so her parents have been helping her raise her daughter for the past 13 years. She was very nice and very cute - but she scared me by inviting Kylee to hang out with her and her friends at nightclubs...little drinking, partying...no big. Yep, 13 years old. Anyway, we were glad they were there...6 hours on the river with no food or drink, you kind of want to like who you're stuck with! Yes, we were starving and thirsty by the time we stopped but we all lived. It was kind of a good plan because by the time they served us "lunch" it didn't matter what it was, it was delicious. It was chicken salad sandwiches guat style. (mayo and ketchup mixed in who knows what) served on bread with shredded carrots and sliced tomato. Yum. :) We were too hungry to care that the mayo mixture had been out in the sun all day and was swarming with flies...(we tried not to think about how stupid we were when we woke up that night s-i-c-k!)

We rode the pickup truck over dirt roads (standing up in the back) an hour back to our cabins where we picked up our suitcases, said goodbye to our new friends, exchanged phone numbers, and then caught a ride back to our new lodging - El Retiro. We are hoping and praying we don't share our beds with the spider and bugs tonight but I think it's inevitable. The couple next door killed a huge spider and we trapped a cockroach in our bathroom because both of us were too chicken to smash it. Ugh and Yuck.

For dinner we walked down to Champey Resaurant in town and Kylee had pancakes with bananas and I had Nachos...again. This time they actually resembled Nachos a little bit except instead of giving me a pile of chips they gave me 6 chips laid out in a row with a pile of stuff on each individual one. How is it that everyone has a different idea for Nachos? For dessert we had chocolate covered cinnamon bears melted and smashed together in a big lump. They've been in my backpack for 4 days now. Still going strong.

Guatemala, bottom to top! Day 2 & 3

Day 2:
Panajachel, Guatemala

We woke up this morning at 8:00. Our first day to sleep in! Our beds were so hard that we didn't sleep much but it felt good to just lay there and be. We got ready for the day and went to the free breakfast buffet at the hotel. It was typical Guatemalan style with a couple of attempts at American style. There was an omelet chef but his ingredients were sauteed onions, sauteed tomatoes, sliced american cheese cut into little strips, and ham. I suspect that the ham was actually balogne but who knows... And the wierdest thing, they had green and red salsa on the side but it was steaming HOT. Not spicey, just hot. They had fruit, which is always good, and frijoles, fried bananas, queso (white pourous stuff that is NOT cheese), corn flakes and granola (not our granola)





I still can't eat anything associated with a Guatemalan breakfast because of my last bout with food poisoning, in fact just looking at it makes me feel seriously nauseated. Especially the queso. I wish it wasn't so.

Then we hit the road to make our reservations for tomorrow (shuttle to Cabon) and to get on a boat. There's a big market in Chichicastenango but we wanted to stay far away from that. It's only w days a week and tomorrow is one of those days - it will be REALLY crowded. We wanted to go to the little island in the middle of the lake (it's a big lake) but we were told that it is private. :( Of course a guy on the street latched onto us right away and wanted to arrange our transportation. He wanted us to do a boat tour with 2 stops, Santiago and San Pedro for 350Q. We just about did it and then I felt like it was too expensive so we were going to go back to the hotel and ask them. Of course the guy came running back and said we could go just to San Pedro for 25Q per person, each way. That's 100 Q total instead of 350 Q per person. That's a big difference!



It was a beautiful boat ride for 30 minutes and then we were at San Pedro. We were immediately approached by a tour guide but didn't know what we wanted to do. First we asked about renting scooters. He gave us a motorcycle but it was too scary.


This is the motorcycle. You shift by lifting up a jagged metal bar with your foot. We were in flip-flops and swimsuits... Ouch! I rode up and down the street but Kylee refused to get on with me :) Smart girl.

Then we tried bikes. We rented them for 2 hours...but 5 minutes down the street, Kylee was done. And by done I mean turned around and heading back to the guy that rented them to us. It WAS hot and the streets were really steep. We got half our money back ($6.50 US) So then we decided to do a horse ride to the beach. 1 hour to the beach, 1 hour at the beach, and 1 hour back. $225Q. (less than $20 apiece) We waited, then we followed a little boy through town and around many corners to rural San Pedro






This is where we started out trip.


I thought this Spanish school in the middle of nowhere was pretty cool. Can you imagine showing up to your first day of classes here?

Amazingly, they put us on 2 very pretty horses. Kylee was in heaven. Our trip to the beach was a really cool trail. We went on back roads for the first part and then up and down trails through the mountains. It was so pretty, and totally inaccessible by car. Plus, our horses were good, they would canter and run so it was fun.


Kylee's horse was faster than mine. If a car came by, he would chase it. Mine wanted to be in the middle of the road all the time so I had to talk him into moving to the side and not getting run over.


This is why you think twice about swimming in the lake. It is a laundry, bathroom, and trash can. But it's also big and very inviting so what the heck.

The "beach" was funny. They said it was the best beach around, beautiful black sand on a stretch of the lake. Well, it was and it wasn't. The black sand was coarse and the beach was dirty and a little bit crowded.



Plus, we stuck out like a white thumb. But we were hot and it was sunny so we headed to the water. As we got closer, it was so WINDY that suddenly we weren't so quick to get in the water.




It was chilly and we were missing our towels and beach chairs and sunbrella's! Luckily we had our books so we planted it in the sand and read for an hour. We had a great ride back and were really glad we had done it. We both felt like we sunblocked really well but as we waited for our return boat to Panajachel we realized we were fried. Shoulders, necks, tops of legs...ouch!




This necklace sunburn stayed for our entire trip. No matter what we did witht he sunblock...it was always there! One of the Guatemalan tour guides told us that was the only safe jewelry to wear. :)

We got back to Panajachel hungry as usual...showered and dressed then went out to eat. Oh man, we tried a restaurant by the lake and really wanted a plate of nachos. Nachos are pretty common, but they always use a liquid cheese. It's weird. Anyway, we explained that we wanted nachos with chicken and beans and salsa and guacamole and everything. We thought he had the right idea, but what we got was a few chips, fried chicken, a spoonfull of beans, that nasty rectangle of queso, and guacamole. ugh. Two whole plates of it! So, we ate the chips with the quacamole, picked at the chicken and that was it. Wouldn't have been so bad but then they charged us 200Q!! ($25) Outrageous, but what can you do. Still hungry, we went shopping. We are collecting bracelets so we got one in San Pedro and one in Panajachel. Then we looked at tennis shoes but no one has Kylee's size (10) There is so much street food that we experimented. A taco here, some fried corn there...it was fun!


Everyone has told Kylee not to eat the street food so she is really paranoid. I ate more than she did. At one place we ordered a chicken quesadilla on a flour tortilla. The lady gave us a flour tortilla, smeared it with sour cream and hot sauce, a little liquid cheese, and then stuck a big old leg of chicken in it - on the bone. In my broken spanish I asked her to cut the meat off the bone so she cut it off and then stuck the bone back in it! Oh well, it was still pretty yummy. The meat was really good.

Kylee and I get "talked at" a lot when we are out. The guatemalan boys like my tall almost-blonde-again daughter. This time, one guy was following us and saying stuff then I heard him say "hey, I have good ganja, really, good stuff. Ganja for you" I couldn't believe he was offering us pot while I was with my daughter! I turned around and said "hey, su esta diece ses! Su es muy joven, sheesh!" which I hope meant "hey, she is 16 years old! She is very young so back off!" He left real quick. It was funny. The boys around here are short so they are always shocked to hear how young Kylee is. In fact, our horse guide was could not believe that she was a teenager. He assumed we were just friends travelling together. When I told him she was sixteen he didn't believe me. Finally he said I am one year older but she is muy muy alto! (very very tall) It was funny. When his dad was getting the horses saddled up for us he had to adjust the straps longer because he didn't usually get such "muy grande chicas." Love it.

Anyway, it was such a beautiful night that when we got back to the hotel we grabbed our books and our headlamps and went out to the hammocks overlooking the lake. I'm sure we looked like dorky Americans. It was perfect.


Me at 6:00am waiting for the shuttle to come pick us up. We were sad to leave Jardin de la Lago. :(


Day 3
Lanquin

We were in the bus all day today! It was supposed to be 6-7 hours but it was 10. We hit traffic and got a flat tire.


This is us in the "bus." It's really just a van. We were the last ones in so we didn't even get to sit by each other. No A/C but the windows are usually open and there's a good breeze.

It wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be but man was it long. I do enjoy driving through Guatemala though. It is so cool and just really pretty. The little towns are usually dirty and squallid but they are in some fantastic scenery. The people are so different. I love how the women ALWAYS have their children with them. Whether they're working, or shopping or walking through town, they are always with their babies. Alot of times they are strapped on, even the big ones. I don't know how they do it. I think that their lifestyle really emphasized the family unit. It's not about the parents working, it's about the family working.




There's a child in there. They're walking home from a restaurant where she works. Ouch.

Anyway, we arrived in Lanquin at 4pm and checked into El Recreo. No hot water, lots of bugs. We reserved a room in El Retiro (the OTHER hotel) for tomorrow night and they are on opposite sides of town. Opposite sides of the hilly, muddy, long town. In fact if it were on a map it would look like: El Recreo, mud hill mud hill, Town, mud hill mud hill, El Retiro.


Now picture little smashed frogs with their guts on the road. Gross.

El Retiro is prettier but they are both impossible to make reservations at. I think they have something against telephones. They are really really rural, kind of like cabins next to each other.



We took a picture of the bathroom feeling sorry for ourselves that it wasn't the Ritz-Carlton. Little did we know that soon we would look at that picture longing to have one that we didn't have to share with 20 other people. And hot water?...only as a distant memory!


This is dinner. It is a "grilled cheese sandwich" Not quite what we expected, but when you're hungry, it works.


We ordered a Mango shake but didn't realize that it would be WARM! It didn't taste bad, but it was REALLY creamy.


This is Kylee tucked in for the night...it wasn't cold, but she was afraid of mosquito's!

Tomorrow we are white water rafting on the Cahabon River. We are very excited! The next day we are touring some caves and going to Semuc Champey. Woo hoo!

Guatemala, bottom to top! Day 1

Most of you know that Kylee has been in Guatemala for the Semester going to high school in Guatemala City and living with a very nice family that we met through a family in our ward.



This is Estrid, Mama, Kylee and Heather. Estrid and Kylee share a room:





This is Louis and Sariah. They belong to Estrid's sister and live a couple miles away but they stay with their grandparents a lot because their mom works long hours at the hospital. When I stay with Kylee they laugh at my futile attempts at spanish and then try to help me understand by talking really slow and di-st-i-nc-t. They don't realize that as long as it's spanish, it doestn't matter how they say it...I'm not going to get it. Better off with charades.


This is in Antigua at one of the ruins. They are pretty cool. That's Kylee, Estrid, Heather, and Mama. And yes, my 16 year old is a giant, even when she's slouching.

As luck would have it, Kylee had the week of April 26th through May 4th off of school. A little thing called Semana Santa (Holy Week.) This is a very serious celebration in Central America. Thank heavens we don't have it in the States or I would have to call it "Holy Cow, Can You PLEASE Go Back to School" Week. Yep, no work...no school. I was worried about Kylee having nothing to do for a week (except party with her school friends) so I took the opportunity to go entertain her. I planned our trip to start in southern Guatemala and work our way to the far north while seeing all that we could in between.



This is going to be long, it's a travellogue. I wrote it as we travelled.

Day 1 - Antigua & Pacaya Volcano

This is central park in Antigua. You can see the volcano Acatenango in the background.

Today we got up at 4:00 so that we could be in Antigua at 6:00 for a tour/hike up Pacaya Volcano. Guatemala is full of volcanos. Literally. It seems like everywhere you look, boom, there's a volcano. To me, they are especially cool when they are active. The active ones have smoke poofing out of them like a factory. They also make the occasional loud boom. It is fascinating.

I wanted to see lava. Bad. So I booked us a tour up Pacaya. We met our van at 6:00 (lucky because we never solidified our reservations and were just lucky enough to slip in) and left our bags at the office...always a little scary...then squeezed into a 12 passenger van with 12 other people. Worse than an airplane it is so tight. The hour it takes to get to the base is bumpy and windey so you have to pay attention or you will be laying on the person next to you. The drivers drive fast and the traffic in Guatemala is CRAZY. Seriously CRAZY.

At the base of the mountain, we bought walking sticks for 5Q each ( .70 us) and boy were we glad.



The walk is occasionally steep and the rocks are loose. We had a woman in our group that was older (58) and a smoker. She lasted about 10 minutes before she opted for a "taxi" which was really a horse guided by a young boy. They follow the groups and wait for someone to wuss out. Thank heavens too...we would have been really really slow if she tried walking. Our path went through pretty greenery and past a lot of farmland. The view around every corner was amazing. There is a sister volcano called "Acatenango" (I think) that was like a postcard.



Pacaya last erupted in 2006. When you get about half way up the trail, it is all lava rock. Once we got there, you can't take the horses any further so we had to slow down. The most surprising thing about the lava rock was the sound and feel of it. It feels hollow, like you are walking on fake rocks. It was cool. Kylee kept asking if she could just sit and wait for me. Her little face was all red and sweaty and she was not having a good time.



I kept telling her it would be worth it. It is probably the only time in her life she will be on an active volcano and see real live lava. She pushed through it and made it! Dirt trail + horses = dirty and sweaty. Seriously dirty and seriously sweaty. In spite of the very pleasant breeze and beautiful weather. And it really was beautiful. Once we got to the lava flow it got really really windy. The lava was flowing out of the side of the mountain like someone had punched a hole in the side to let it out.



It was so amazing to see! As we got closer and closer the air got really really warm and then hot. When the wind blew our direction it blew toxic fumes from the lava. I think those fumes could actually kill you. You can't see them, but they are so so strong that you can't actually breath them. You have to take short shallow breaths until the wind blows some fresh air your way. It makes you cough and singes your nose hairs. I got close enough to throw a rock on the lava but it was so hot that my legs were burning and my necklace was burning my neck! Crazy!

I had to try several times to hit the lava because first of all, the rocks are really light, and second of all, they are burning hot. I had to find rocks that were not facing the direct heat and then throw them very quickly. When a rock hit the lava it floated on top because the lava was so thick. It was so cool to see. The rock just floated over the top like a log in a stream.

Check out my hair blowing in the wind. You can't see how hot it is right here, but it is HOT.

She's hiding it, but she is super excited.

We hiked down the volcano at a slow pace because old smoker woman was without a taxi. Kylee and I had to purchase water at a little hut on the side of the path because my daughter who in her words "hardly ever drinks" drank the entire camelback full of water by the time she got to the lava. :) Lesson learned, haha. Luckily, some guatemalans had a little booth set up selling water and snacks for this very reason. The water is cheap and plentiful, thank heavens, and we also purchased little apple cookies because by this time it was noon and we hadn't eaten anything. We were hungry! As we chatted with some of the other hikers, we talked to a girl that was in one of the Jesus processions in Antigua (that's what they call them) and had her wallet stolen. She said 2 little girls squished in on each side of her and sliced the bottom of her backpack with a knife, then stole her wallet. Huh? Note to self...be more careful.


This is a Jesus Procession. Those are real flowers decorating the walkway for the procession to walk on. A big truck follows behind and picks up all the smashed flowers. Such a waste!

After the hike, we rode the van back to Antigua and were determined to get food. We had to pick up our suitcases first and they were at the travel agency/hotel office. We had just decided to find a hotel with a swimming pool and stay the night, thus skipping our planned trip to Lake Atitlan and instead head straight to Coban in the morning when the van dropped us all off in the middle of the city and we had no idea where we were or where our suitcases were. Kylee paid 3Q to use a public bathroom (.50 US) and then we exchanged some of our money at a crowded bank and started walking down the street to where we were told our tour agency was. We got there safely and were just pulling our suitcases out of the office when a lady came up to us and told us our "bus" was here. Our bus? Apparently Astrid had made plans for us to go straight to Lake Atitlan and the "bus" was waiting for us. Kylee and I looked at each other like "hmmm, what are we going to do?" The little guatemalan lady was quite anxious for us to pay for the "bus" - which I told you was really a 12 passenger van AND we didn't want to get back in one! But we looked in it an there were only 5 other people in it so we said what the heck, let's go to Atitlan! You have to appreciate the timing of everything and see what a miracle it was that we ever even went to Atitlan. SO glad we did!

Know how we thought we had just 5 other passengers? We picked a few more up on the way. Yep, all 13 of us in a 12 passenger van for a 3 hour ride. And there is me and Kylee in our dirt covered clothing and sweaty, dirty hair. We had dirt rings around our ankles and eyes. It was pretty. It was especially nice when we picked up the smokers (I think people smoke more in foreign countries...not that there's anything wrong with that...) and the DOG! Yep, a big slobbery dog. It was fine though, not as bad as we expected. We just sat there and read our books.

When we got to Atitlan (that's the name of the lake, the actual city is Panajachel) We didn't have a hotel so we looked at a couple of billboards and decided to try one. A guatemalan tour operator grabbed us the minute we got off the bus and wanted to arrange our transportation so we let him grab a "tuk tuk" for us.



This is a tuk tuk. The inside of this thing looks like a scooter, handlebars and hand brakes and all.

When the tuk tuk driver realized we were debating about a hotel, he jumped in and suggested a hotel that was "very nice, on the lake" so we got in the tuk tuk and gave the driver 15Q (almost $2) ...and he drove us around the corner. LITERALLY around the corner - about 10 steps. So funny. But he was right, we loved the place and it was $10 cheaper than the other places we were looking at and included breakfast. It cost $64 per night which is expensive for Guatemala, but compared to the States it is a steal. Our room was quaint and comfortable and all we cared about was the fact that it had a shower! A shower! Woo hoo!! When we were all clean, we went out to the hammocks and relaxed by the lake.





We thought it was funny that our room had an actual "key" just like the olden days, so we took a picture. After our 3rd or 4th hotel with the same key, it became normal and we began to wonder why we took this picture...

It was an absolutely incredible view. The hotel is Jardines del Lago which is gardens by the lake and it really was. Every time we go outside I can't believe the place!





We were starving so we went exploring. Down the street and around the corner was a huge market place so we chose a restaurant at random. We were so lucky. Yum. I have to say though, chips are weird, thick and deep fried and tortillas are thick and made from corn. Don't bother asking for a flour tortilla, they will look at you like you are a foreigner, which you are, and like you're crazy, which you might be. I have found that their guacamole is always good and salsa is always a 50-50 chance of getting straight hot sauce, like tabasco. Salsa dulce is ketchup and it is WAY sweeter than our American ketchup.


This is their idea of nachos. Yes, it has liquid cheese on it.

While we were shopping we decided to start collecting bracelets. It is not unusual for the Guatamalans to have bracelets all the way up their arm, so to fit in, we decided to pick one out in every city we visited. In Panajachel we got one for Antigua and Panajachel. We had a blast shopping and went to bed exhausted.