Living it good in Livingston

Livingston is a Caribbean island planted in mainland Guatemala. You can only reach here by boat, and the vibe is nothing like the rest of the country. If you come here, make sure to have a tapado - the extremely tasty coconut fish stew.

Rio Dulce - how sweet it is...

After days of non-stop travel from Lago Atitlan through Coban, Lanquin, Semuc Champey and back through Coban, we arrived in Rio Dulce, on Lago Izabel absolutely exhausted. We splurged our first night in a yachtie hangout called Bruno's in town (not worth the money, except for the very cheap drinks at happy hour...), and then moved to the Tortugal resort further up river, which was absolutely worth the money. Views over the Rio Dulce, free kayaks, and friendly staff. We took a bus out one day to Finca Paraiso (Paradise Plantation), where they have a natural hot spring waterfall with water so hot it's almost painful. The hottest shower you'll find in Guatemala, guaranteed. What a beautiful place. After two days of luxury at Tortugal, though, we took the colectivo lancha (public mini boat) down the Rio Dulce river to the harbor town of Livingston. Livingston is more Caribbean than Guatemalan, with the dominant culture being Garifuna, a mixture of ex-slaves and native Carib peoples that settled here hundreds of years ago. It was so nice to see the ocean again!

Cliff diving in the mountains? Semuc Champey

From Coban, it's a beautiful mountain drive in a mini-chicken bus to get to Lanquin, the town nearest the national park of Semuc Champey. The road weaves up through the mountains, and the jungle gets denser and lusher, and greener as you go. You can peer down into misty green valley with tiny villages of palapa houses with thatched palm rooves, or you can peer up into the endless highland jungle mountains which disappear into the mist. Our chicken bus actually had a chicken this time, too - large rooster held between an indigenous woman's legs in the seat in front of us.
At Languin, we switched transport to a pickup truck. Not just the luggage, but the tourists as well are shoved into the bed of the truck. It's standing-room only, and you feel as if you're on some sort of amusement park ride as you go up and down through the hills, except that there are no safety restraints, only a the small pipe railing to clutch on to.
We stayed at the hostel Las Marias near the park, though we'd recommend anyone to continue a bit further up the the hill to the red hostel even nearer the park. It's cleaner, the people are nicer, and you actually have choices as to what food to eat. That being said, we survived the mosquitos and the over-priced vegetarian dinner (with no form of protein to speak of), and really enjoyed the pools, the raging river, cliff diving into deep, clear pools (OK, Erik was jumping off high rocks, not cliffs...), etc. It's a very beautiful, special place, though even as remote as it is, it was still relatively crowded thanks to a Lonely Planet write up! We spent a half day there and then headed back to Copan and then on to Rio Dulce...

Coban and away...

From Lago Atitlan we decided to head towards Semuc Chempay, deep in the jungle highlands of Guatemala, where you can explore caves and swim in a series of translucent pools of green and turquoise, poised on a natural land bridge over a raging mountain river. To get there, we had to pass through, and spend the night in Coban. Nothing much to comment on here, as we only spent the night here, but the Don Pedro of Posada Don Pedro was very kind and helpful, as were his staff...

Lago Atitlan - hippies vs. hedonists

We'd researched Lago Atitlan a bit. It's a large and ancient volcanic lake, reputed to be more than 300m deep, though no one seems to know for sure. Each little community around the lake has its own character. Panajachel is for short-term tourists, San Pedro La Laguna is for the party-hearty crowd as well as longer-term tourists, and San Marcos is a calmer scene, dominated by new-age hippies studying yoga, meditation, and many other holistic healing arts. After Xela and Antigua, we wanted to get away from noise and crowds and tourists (like ourselves), so we opted for San Marcos and spent the first (and only) night in Hotel Quetzal, which was affordable and perfectly adequate. After one afternoon in the town, though, we realized that there was absolutely NOTHING to do there if you didn't wish to to study cristals, pyramid healing or throat chanting. We had what has still to date been our WORST meal of the trip at some foreigner-run cafe with the word "lemon" in the name. A meal that was inedible, expensive, AND which we waited over an hour and a half for...
The next day we were off to San Pedro la Laguna, and never looked back. We found a good school to study Spanish, La Cooperativa, which was run by the teachers themselves, so they received the money, rather than some rich, anonymous owner. A week of one-on-one tutelage, 4 hours/day for 5 days was $75, which seemed a good deal. To top it off, they had an apartment we could rent - a real apartment, with full kitchen, bath and a terrace overlooking the lake for only $11/day. We took it immediately, and were so happy we did. We bought the delicious coffee grown on the volcanos surrounding the lake, and drank it on the terrace in the morning, watching the sun rise. (Yes, we're getting up that early every day now...) Talor went to the market and made many great meals. We were even able to have some friends over for dinner - Yan and Veronique from Montreal, who we ended up hanging out with and climbing a mountain with over the next few days.
The Spanish classes were very helpful, and lasted only the morning, leaving our afternoons free to explore, kayak, hike, etc. (Erik hiked up the volcano San Pedro, and complained about his sore legs for a week afterwards...) San Pedro is a party town, but that lager-lout atmosphere is kept to the area just around the port. Further inland, things calmed down and most people you encountered were there much longer term. We very much enjoyed our stay and highly recommend San Pedro as well as the Cooperativo, if anyone reading this plans a trip to Lago Atitlan.

The oddity of Antigua

The trip from Xela (Quetzaltenango) to Antigua was a simple bus ride. Simple except for the highway construction on the mountain pass, which delayed us twice for over a half hour each time, where the highway had been reduced to only one lane of traffic. We wondered to ourselves if this construction wasn't part of a master plan by the locals to sell tortillas, breads, juices and sodas to the stranded travelers, as they would come through the bus 2 or 3 at a time, shouting out their offerings. The home-made cakes and foods were very nice, to be honest and fair! We did also have to change buses to a chicken bus in Chimaltenango, which was fine until about halfway to Antigua, when the bus became so full that Erik had another man quite litterally sitting in his lap.
Still, we got there fine, and found a decent hotel option in Refugio II, which had cheap (for Antigua), comfortable rooms. We could see the sun rise over the city from our window, and the sun set over the nearby volcanos from the roof deck in the evening. We also found a remarkable family-run eatery on the next small street over, "Las Mixtas", which offered cheap beer, coffee, and a $1.50, 3-course lunch special!
Luckily we were able to meet up with Sofi and Andrew in Antigua as well. (Our 3rd such meeting, as we'd spent several fun nights in San Cristobal as well...) They were studying Spanish there and had a friend working in a local non-profit relief organization, so we got a bit of the local insight into things.
Antigua is an odd town, for Guatemala. In the city center, the omnipresent Guatemalan power lines disappear, replaced by elderly western tourists with cameras and safari clothing. The street dogs seem to disappear as well, which worried us a little. (The dogs we did see were very well taken care of...) It is very, very clean, and yet most of the old cathedrals are in ruins from the many earthquakes they've had. Once the capital was moved from Antigua to Guatemala City, they didn't have the support or the funds to keep so many churches up and running. It's nice that they didn't totally demolish them, either, so you have catholic ruins all over the city.
We joined Sofi and Andrew in studying Spanish for a few days, and were able to see one of Antigua's famous religious processions associated with Semana Santa (which really are VERY impressive.) We did manage to get out before the true madness began and the prices sky-rocketed, though. Off to Lago Atitlan...

Getting into Guatemala

We finally made it out of Mexico. The trip to the border was without incident. On the Guatemalan side, the only option for travel outside of VERY expensive private shuttles were the "chicken buses" - beautifully restored and painted American school buses. Very nice to look at, but a bit less to ride. They stop anywhere someone raises their arm to them to pick up or drop off passengers, and they'll keep piling people in until the suspension gives out. (And then keep driving...) At one point we spied our backpacks being hurried away from the top of the bus, and ran out only to find that we needed to change buses. (No one bothered to tell us, though they knew to transfer the bags. We'd asked before getting on if the bus was direct to Quetzaltenango - "Xela" for short, and were told it was.)

Once in Xela, we wandered for a while, dodging traffic, sucking in fumes and dust while looking for a hotel. There was not much on offer, so we took the most economical option, which was 50 Quetzales/night - about $7 or so for the two of us. Despite finding some really good street food, such as the huge open-air breakfasts on the central square, the noise, dust and pollution were too much for us, and we moved on after only 2 nights. Originally we planned to go next to Lago Atitlan and then to Antigua, but were warned of the impending "Semana Santa" (holy week) madness in Antigua the following week. Thus we changed our plans and did the geographically non-sensical route of Xela-Antigua-Lago Atitlan, which means passing over the same mountain pass 3 times...

Leaving Mexico, finally!

Hey Y´áll, just wanted to post a quick update...

After 35 days in Mexico, we are finally leaving tomorrow, crossing into Guatemala. When we first arrived, it was for the sole intention of using it as a base to go to Cuba, but after abandoning that plan with a heavy heart, I am so glad we decided to stay and explore. Cancun, Puerto Morelos, Tulum, Valladolid, Merida, Campeche and last, but not least San Cristobal, which is hands down my favorite... a nice mix of old and new, traditional and modern, hippie granola types intermingling harmoniously with Mayans in gorgeous traditional attire. It also has a great mercado, fantastic coffee, whole wheat bread, cool music venues, lots of interesting side streets to explore, and of course, more friendly and kind locals.

After a month of travel, came down with what Erik diagnosed as NDD (Noodle Deprivation Disorder). Although the food here is tasty, got tired of pork or chicken tacos, huaraches, and tortas, and was really missing a big bowl of noodles. Found a Chinese restaurant, but the food was pre-made and looked like what you would get at a food court in an airport. So took a pass on it, but was really happy to find a cute Indian/Thai/Vietnamese restaurant. Decided to have a splurge night and ordered a shrimp/papaya salad (tasty and refreshing), hummus (a bit bland), tofu curry (a little sweet, but not bad) and finally Pad Thai. It was like no other Pad Thai I ever had. The noodles were not the rice noodles and they were overcooked, mushy and had no flavor until I added just about every condiment on the table. A huge lesson learned here... when travelling, eat local food!

Celebrated my birthday this past Sunday with Erik, and our friends, Sofi and Andrew. Started out with Erik surprising me with a necklace that has a gorgeous amber sun pendant. Went to visit a couple of local villages (San Juan Chamula & Zincantan) during the day, coffee and cake in the late afternoon, then Sofi and Andrew treated me to a show at a local theater that told the story of an ancient Mayan battle between Palenque and Tonina. We capped off the day with a "ghetto" party in our room with Andrew DJíng and plenty of tequila, beer and Coca Light. It was so much fun!

Tomorrow, we are heading to Guatemala. We are loosely planning on going to Quezaltenango, Antigua, Lake Atitlan, and possibly even Tikal. Any takers? Huh? Anyone? We´d love to see you so give a shout if you´re interested! Once we find a place we like, we´ll settle in and study Spanish, which is still really bad. And we´ll post photos (promise) so stay tuned...