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Tikal, Flores, Guatemala

Kirsty — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:47:55 +0000

Before we even arrived, the Mayan ruins, ´Tikal` had an awful lot to live up to due to our fantastically logical route planning. Having run out of time to visit the ancient city on our first stay in Flores we were forced to backtrack from Belize which meant leaving our beloved Caye Caulker not to mention paying the extortionate $35 US border crossing fee to exit, simply to return to Belize on the exact same road the very next day on the 5am bus. Still, after speaking with lots of travellers we decided we simply couldn´t miss Tikal so strapped on our backpacks (and gathered our mounds of overflowing plastic bags) and headed back to Guatemala. The journey was better than most mainly because we had had the foresight to stock up on huge amounts of banana cake before getting on although the jaw rattling speed bumps every five minutes weren´t particularly conducive to sleep which is our prefered travel pastime. We arrived mid afternoon and were secretly quite pleased to discover the recommended 4am mini bus shuttle to Tikal was fully booked and so were forced to sign up for the significantly more civilised 7am one instead.

The journey from Flores to Tikal took just over an hour which gave us just enough time to wake ourselves up. As we approached the main gate the bus slowed to a halt and on jumped a local man who asked us if we would rather pay 150qs or 100qs entrance fee. Slightly bemused everyone obviously answered 100, news which seemed to delight our new Guatemalan friend. The bus was promptly stopped and we were all ushered along a small path through dense jungle, wondering if perhaps this wasn´t the official entrance. Our pal was very animated on the walk pointing out spots he had seen jaguars and other exciting creatures in the past, non of which we saw unfortunately. We finally arrived at some sort of security hut and were told to hand over our money, quite shockingly receiving neither ticket or receipt in return and were sent on our merry way with instructions to meet in the car park six hours later.

Rambling along tree lined paths we encountered lots of howler monkeys, leonards and bugs. Not to mention rain. It was absolutely torrential for the first couple of hours which admittedly dampened our spirits somewhat. Luckily the rain cleared up by mid morning and we had a good day exploring the different sections of ruins, climbing the huge pyramids and photographing the wildlife. Unfortunately due to a slight technical oversight we later managed to delete the entire day´s pictures. So, we have no ticket, receipt or photos to prove we made the ridiculous journey all the way back to Guatemala but I can promise you we honestly did!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around Flores which is a pretty, cobble streeted, lakeside town and saying goodbye to Spanish speaking countries until next time! The following morning we dragged ourselves out of our pits and onto the 5am bus bound, once again for Belize City.

Caye Caulker, Belize

Kirsty — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:06:45 +0000

This year I received the best birthday present Amy has ever bought me (if the only birthday present Amy has ever bought me!) I was surprised with a trip off the coast of Belize to a tiny tropical island called Caye Caulker, a place originally not on our radar due to expense and our awareness that holiday time is now slipping away rapidly. The place she had booked to stay ‘Amanda’s’ doesn’t sound particularly luxurious, especially when you consider it had just two rooms, but it was very swish (in terms of travelers) coming complete with air con, kitchenette (I drank tea for the first time in weeks, at a constant rate) and swimming pool. Undoubtedly the best part about staying at Amanda’s were the animals. She had three dogs who greeted us with gusto every time we arrived home; Heffy, our fav and a big lolloping (if that’s a word?) fool; Coco, a crazy little puppy with far too much energy; and Scrumpy the old lady of the bunch. Amanda also had a particularly over wrought cat, named Frank who wasn’t given a minutes peace with the dogs (well unless you count the time he spent chilling in our room drinking the milk we had bought him of course…!)

We did lots of diving on Caye Caulker, including two of our best dives to date. The first memorable one came in the afternoon of our first day’s diving. We had been underwater about five minutes when I suddenly caught a glimpse of something big towards the surface. Obviously envisioning some huge aggressive shark, I Iooked around for Ames and discovered everyone in the group was gazing upwards. Slowly, as the shape swum deeper and deeper, I realized it was a dolphin and in fact it wasn’t alone, there were five adults and one baby. It was such a beautiful sight watching them swooping, almost dancing around in the water and they were clearly as intrigued by us as we were of them. They stayed with us for the whole of the dive and we were even more delighted once we surfaced, to learn it really is once in a lifetime to dive with dolphins in the wild, even our dive master hadn’t done so before. It brings a smile to my face, even as I type, to remember how we considered paying $120 to swim with them in Honduras!

Our second fantastic dive was the infamous Blue Hole, an underwater limestone cave with a collapsed roof, which is about two hours away from the island. At first we had planned to not bother as the long boat ride makes it ridiculously expensive, as well as lots of divers claiming the site is a bit of a let down. However (thanks mostly to the dolphins and a very persuasive Swiss diver we had made pals with) we decided to take the plunge and sign up for the trip. Only once we had paid did we discover the delightful news, our boat left at 5am. Anyway, despite the ridiculous start, once we finally arrived at the Blue Hole we were (just about) awake and ready to go. The hole is a strange dive site as there is hardly any marine life (only menacing looking sharks) as there is no coral. The only thing to really see are the huge, impressive stalactites (like the size of your house) hanging down from the side of the former cave. In fact it is thousands of metres deep and, not being able to see the bottom, once underwater it seemed just like we were flying. Everyone in our group was turning summersaults and other stupid things, behavior more acceptable when you consider we were over forty metres down and most of us were ‘suffering‘ from nitrogen narcosis (non divers: this is known as being ‘narked’. It comes from the build up of nitrogen in your blood when very far underwater. Symptoms include euphoria, giddiness and taking out your oxygen tube for ‘a laugh’. I kid you not. And you wondered why we like diving?!)

The only other day of note we had on Caye Caulker (or not, technically) was a day trip we took to Belize City on Belizean Independence Day. Arriving in the City we were shocked to discover the place was completely dead. Every shop was closed and (apart from a lot of slightly threatening looking gangster types shouting ‘ladies, hey white girls’ and drugged up/crazed beggars) there was nobody about. After the fifth shoeless person approached us demanding we give them dollars we began to feel a little out of our depth, a very rare occurrence for Ames and I! Thankfully we spotted three locals from Caye Caulker who had been on our boat, who seemed very concerned for our welfare and thus scooped us up and looked after us for the day. I’m so glad we met them as (apart from stopping us getting mugged) they also took us to see the mayor make a speech about Belize’s twenty eight years of Independence as well as the parade which we probably wouldn’t have found by ourselves. That night back safe and sound, they invited us to a BBQ at their friend’s house where we met loads more locals, ate lots of seafood, played baseball with the kids (a ridiculous game in my opinion) and partied until they kicked us out!

Lanquin, Guatemala

Amy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:05:54 +0000

Lanquin was one of those places that we hadn´t really intended to visit, in fact we´d never even heard of it, but after a reasonable number of recommendations from people we´d met, we decided to give it a go, and are thankful that we did as it turned out to be one of the highlights of the holiday.

As we weaved slowly along the mountanious unpaved road however, I began to regret the decision almost immediately. Guatemala seems to favour small ´shuttle´buses for scooting around the country, and while in theory these sound like they should be pretty luxurious (yup, we were fooled the first time too), we soon realised the truth. Cramming as many seats as could possibly fit in the back of a small minivan, along with a maniac driver and no air conditioning, led to a very crammed, knees rammed against the seat infront, extremely hot and uncomfortable seven hour journey. It should equally come as no surprise that the seven hour journey actually turned into nearly ten hours, and by the time we were dropped at our hotel we were slightly concerned that the journey would far outweigh the many exciting activites we had in store.

Choosing a hotel would usually be based of an extremely fine tuned, methodical search criteria (ok ok, tv and air conditioning are usually way up there on the list of requirements) , but this time our hands were completely tied. Having already been told that Lanquin had no ATM´s at all, we had attemped to be good travellers and get all the cash we’d need in advance. The gods were not on our side that day and we left civilisation with not much more than a few pennies and a vague concern that this perhaps wasn´t the best course of action for us to take. Not wanting to change our plans, we boarded the shuttle bus anyway, with the hope that one of the hotels would accept credit cards, but began to get concerned when the one hotel (out of the three hotels in the town, small place remember) which people had assured us took Mastercard, began to query - in Spanish - this that and the other. After a stumbling conversation in Spanglish with much pointing and hand demonstrations, we managed to convey that we did in fact wish to pay with a credit card. With that we settled in, and began to think that we had made the right decision by coming to Lanquin with no cash..who needs flimsy money when you´ve got good old Mastercard in your pocket.

The main event in Lanquin which undoubtedly makes the rickity ten hour journey worthwhile is the exploration of the underwater caves and rivers surrounding the local area, on foot, swimming, tubing, jumping, abseiling..the list goes on, and from the instant we were picked up in the morning we began to get the feeling that the day would be amazing, if not slightly strange. Being told to hop in the open back of a pick up truck by a man humming Christmas songs ’so he doesn’t forget’ is a slightly bizarre situation to find yourself in (but obviously a wonderful one too, WOOO CHRISTMAS - 2 months to go!!)

First stop, after a bum numbing ride on gravel paths (they don’t make the open back of the truck comfortable for some reason…) was a series of mosly unmapped and unexplored water caves. Equipt with one standard looking candle and clad in bikini and walking trainers (a fantastic look, I’m so disappointed we don’t have photos of that (!!) …) we clambered and scambled through, under and over a pile of rocks and cliffs, sometimes being nearly neck deep in water and at times allowing ourselves to be swept along by the gushing river, only to be told ‘quickly, grab that rock’ by Christmas Carol Man as you speed past the rock he seems to be indicating at, all the while attempting to hold the candle as high above the water as possible. On occasions, this meant reaching the candle far far above your head as you sunk under the surface, so all I saw of Kirsty a fair few times was a hand and candle protruding above the water.

Next step after we’d ventured back out into the daylight, was a spot of tubing down the river. As relaxing as it was it in no way compares to the tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos…the water was absolutely freezing, and the distinct lack of bars to serve us BeerLao and zipwires to re-enter the water was thoroughly disappointing. As tongue in cheek as that (kind of) is, we both agreed that Lanquin is a Vang Vieng in the making…and if we were to ever find ourseleves with a wad of money and not know what to do with it, this would be a good choice.

After throwing ourselves of a perfectly functioning ten meter high bridge into the cold river below, we had another surprise in store for us. Stopping midway through ‘Tis The Season to be Jolly’, our guide asked, quite innocuously, if we fancied jumping off something a little higher. Kirsty and I did the usual ’speak first think later’ thing by saying yes, while two other (some may say more sensible) English girls asked how high. It turns out we would ‘abseil’ - in the loosest sense of the word, if there was a word that adequately summed up falling down a vertical waterfall clutching pathetically onto a rope that isn’t attached to you while the guide attempts to slow your careering fall and guide you to safety then I’d use that - down to a cliff 13 meters high that jutted out over where a number of waterfalls, at the end of their cavenous adventure converged. Picture white, frothy, slightly perilous looking water and you’ve got it. Being told “careful where you jump, make sure you jump right there (as he points to a tiny area of water) not there (at which he points to an equally tiny area of water touching the other supposedly ’safe’ area) and you’ll be fine” is concerning enough, but after watching the force with which debris floated along the fast moving river, I began (not for the first time while we’ve been away I should mention) seriously doubting my sanity, but within seconds of Christmas Carol Man saying we “have to be quick, don’t have all day, but slowly, careful” I’d taken the plunge, landing what seemed like hours later in ridiculously cold water that quickly brought you to your senses enough to paddle like crazy to the side before you were taken over the next fierce looking waterfall.

After some relaxation in natural pools which were separated and formed by, natural limestone bridges (I forgot my camera that day so my pretty dismal description will have to do) we were on the way back to our hotel for a days recovery from all the aches and bumps we’d undoubtably gained on the days adventures.

Shortly before we left, after a good three nights in the hotel, and meals on site everyday, all to be put on the credit card, we realised we had a small problem. The hotel had agreed we could pay by credit card, but only Visa and only a credit card nothing else. Our problem escalated when we discovered that every credit card we’d brought with us for emergencies were Mastercard. After much deliberation and discussion, we decided we’d try to pass off a Visa debit card as a credit card. Perhaps not the most honest thing to do, but when the only other option would be to take a 7 hour round trip on the horrendous minibuses only to have to do it all again as soon as we’d paid (and to beg the bus driver to let us pay after) we figured it’d be ok. To cut a long story short, they accepted it, and feeling momentarially guildridden (as we weren’t sure the transaction would actually yield any money to the family run hotel) the staff and the family had be so loathed to help us or be nice at any moment during our stay - hospitable they weren’t - that the guilty feeling didn’t last too long as we strapped our rucksacks on and toddled off.

Antigua, Guatemala

Kirsty — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:43:26 +0000

Although this blog entry may seem like a bit of a cop out, I feel I have no choice as we simply did nothing of particular note in the two days we spent in Antigua. Apart from the delicious food (cake everywhere), pretty cobbled streets, colonial churches and multitude of backpacker bars I have very little memory of this tourist favourite. The only thing we slightly regret not doing was trecking up one of the three volcanos which tower menacingly above the town, but hey you’ve seen one volcano… you know the rest!

In our defence we only ever chose to visit Antigua for one reason, to celebrate my birthday with lots of traveller sorts and celebrate we certainly did! In fact we managed to make friends with pretty much the entire bar by the end of the evening which made for a good night all in all. Unfortunately our pèrchant for acquiring new pals backfired pretty spectacularly the next morning when we were woken up at the crack of dawn by the hotel receptionist who claimed someone had arrived to see us. Intrigued, somewhat angry and more than a little pathetic we threw clothes on over our pyjamas and trailed downstairs. We were greeted by Amy’s ‘new best friend’, Walter, a forty something Hondurian and his cousin who ludicrously maintained we had agreed they would be taking us on a personal tour of the town, bright and early the morning after the night before. Suffice to say Walter and cousin were sent packing (in the nicest possible way) and we crawled back into our pits where we remained for the duration of the day.

Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Amy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:33:13 +0000

After the kind Kiwi hospitality in the backpacker haunt in Trujilo we were once again on the road (hopefully you´re not getting bored of hearing this…only a few more weeks to go if you are), this time to a town very close to the Guatemalan border. Copan Ruinas is famed for it´s Mayan ruins, in particular it´s hieroglyphs which are apparently one of a kind, and the fine colonial architecture and narrow cobbled streets merely served as a lovely extra.

After being met at the bus station by a very lovely, albeit very chatty, young man driving a Tuk Tuk, we were that shellshocked by his sheer penchant for speaking, about all things related to the town and all things not, that we agreed to stay in his familes hotel. For the rest of our time in Copan he became our guardian, seemingly always appearing when we needed a lift, and always available in the hotel for any information we needed. Tourist Boards around the world could all do with a couple of him in their offices.

The ruins were interesting (Kirsty of course loved them, I was only semi-impressed), but it was very strange meandering round piles of (sometimes organised and rebuilt, sometimes not) of stones and imagining them in their former glory as a centre piece of an ancient Mayan city dating back to around the 5th century AD. Huge, magestic staircases towered over the regal old trees, but I´m slightly ashamed to say that we didn´t scale the steep cases. It was hot, and going up steps solely to walk back down them? Do you think I´m stupid! (rhetorical question, there´s no need to answer that thank you!) Nevertheless it was a day well spent, and such a fullfilling day called, of course, for a few cocktails

Little did we know that Honduras were playing Trinidad and Tobago in the World Cup qualifiers that night..but as the bar began to fill with football fans, we decided to make the most of it, and were soon well into the swing of things by being 100% Hondurian for one night and one night only. Suffice to say we had a fantastic time, made even better for the thrashing Trinidad and Tobago took. 4-2 to Honduras (and we were equally as enamoured with the sporadic firework displays that were set off from inside the bar over and above the rest of the town when a goal was scored - unfortunately the locals must not have expected such a win, as by goal 4 they appeared to have run out of rockets) and the Central American team has now won a firm place in our hearts, and if they ever manage to play against England then I´m not sure which side of the fence I´ll be sat on.