Sunday, July 31, 2011

Tikal, Guatemala

The next morning we woke up in time to explore the property a bit. Casa de Don David is located next to a lake near El Remate, 15 minutes outside of Tikal itself. There are some cute fruit trees and all the rooms are well air-conditioned, which turned out to be really important, as it was much much hotter in El Peten than in Antigua.

After a hot breakfast, we were picked up by our driver and our guide for the day, Samuel. We made a quick stop to buy our entrance tickets (about 20 USD per person) and then we were on our way.

We started out over by Complex Q (and the matching Complex R). Pretty much every place we stopped, Samuel asked us if we wanted to climb up to take a look, and we said yes. At the top of the Complex Q pyramid, we had our first glimpse of some howler monkeys, but they were too far away to get any good photos.


We wondered why Complex R and Complex Q were so similar, and Samuel told us that each set of twin pyramids was built at 20 year intervals to mark the end of a "k'atun", a unit of time in the Mayan calendar. These particular pyramids were built in the late 6th century.

At first we were really psyched to see these coati running around, but we soon realized they were really common.


From there we hiked up towards Temple IV, the highest point in Tikal. This is the view from the top of Temple IV, with Temples I, II, III, and V visible in the distance:


There were some people working on replicating of the original carved lintels that had been inside of the temples, and Samuel persuaded them to let me (and my camera) take a peek:


It was a hot day and we were a bit tired from all the climbing already so we stopped at some picnic benches after descending from Temple IV for a snack and some cold drinks (amazingly there was a guy there selling drinks, and even more amazingly, they were not a total ripoff).

Afterwards we looped by Complex N and saw some of the giant underground caves that the Mayans had used to store food and water, and then went to climb "El Mundo Perdido", aka the Lost World. Samuel explained to us that it was the oldest part of Tikal, and had been built in the 4th century.

Nearby he showed us a series of seven temples which were built for astronomical observation purposes; when viewed from a nearby platform, the first would line up with the sun at the winter solstice, the middle one at the spring and fall equinoxes, and the last at the summer solstice.

Next we attempted our highest climb yet; Temple V.


The climb was not so bad despite the wooden stairs being a little rickety, but it was a little scary to look down from the top.


After catching our breaths again at the bottom, we headed for the famous Great Plaza. On the way we spotted some spider monkeys at close range:



The Great Plaza and its temples (I & II) are probably the best known structures at Tikal. Samuel told us we could climb up Temple II, so we went up and were able get some nice shots of Temple I.


That was pretty much the end of the guided part of our tour; from there he set us loose in the North Acropolis and we wandered around exploring by ourselves for an hour or so. It was amazing that there weren't more tourists; I think the whole day we ran across maybe ten small groups of other people. We guessed that the rest had been scared away by the reports of gang violence on the Mexican border, and enjoyed the peace and quiet immensely.

On the way out we spotted some toucans; one living inside a tree trunk, and this one just hanging out on a branch:


We got back to our lodge in mid-afternoon, and were eager to shower, change, and just lounge around in our hammocks for the rest of the day while we waited for the heat to subside. For dinner we had beef shortribs and some delicious fresh juices (mango and watermelon), and of course eventually we ended up playing some Settlers.

We'd had a good time with Samuel the previous day, so we asked him to take us to another site the next day called Yaxha. It's most famous for being the site of Survivor Guatemala, but also has several impressive ruins and borders a lake.

This is one of the temple pyramids at Yaxha:


I think we were all a bit tired from the previous day's excursion, and certainly Yaxha is not as impressive as Tikal, so we mostly just wandered around, occasionally climbing some ruins and spotting monkeys and other wildlife.

There was a large ballcourt near the entrance, which prompted Samuel to explain the Mayan ball game to us. The players were not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or feet, but were expected to put the ball through stone rings to score points. The games were sometimes played as part of rituals and could even involve human sacrifice (we were unclear if it was the winners or the losers who would be sacrificed).

After leaving Yaxha, we proceeded on to the Belizean border. We had arranged for Samuel and our driver to take us all the way to our lodge near San Ignacio, so they coached us through the border crossing. First, we had to pay an entrance tax to Belize. Then, we got our passports and unloaded all our luggage from the van. We crossed the border on foot with our luggage, so they could inspect it if they liked (they didn't bother), and then we reloaded the van on the other side. Samuel cautioned us not to speak to him in English while we were crossing; I wasn't clear on the rationale but it seemed there was some hostility between the English-speaking Belizeans and the Spanish-speaking Guatemalans.

The border crossing took a good half hour, and it was really hot, but otherwise everything went smoothly. There were tons of guys trying to help us exchange money on both side of the border, but they were pretty good at going away once we refused.

It was less than twenty minutes from the border to the town of San Ignacio. We stopped there briefly to get some Belizean dollars from an ATM (roughly 2:1 vs the USD). We had booked two nights at the Table Rock Jungle Lodge, and distance-wise it was only about three miles from San Ignacio, but unfortunately it was down a really nasty dirt road. I think it took us another 20-30 minutes of very bumpy driving to get there, so we were quite exhausted when we finally arrived.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Antigua, Guatemala

In late May, D and I went on a trip with a bunch of college friends to Central America. I've been delinquent about posting trip notes, so I've probably forgotten some stuff, but I'm going to try to remember as much as I can.

The eight of us set out from SFO on Thursday night. We transferred through San Salvador early the next morning (the airport was nicer than I expected) and then arrived in Guatemala City around 9:30am. It took a few minutes for us to get oriented, find an ATM, and find a shuttle driver, but eventually we were on our way to Antigua via shuttle bus. The fixed price was quite reasonable; 10 USD per person for an hour-long drive.

The Guatemalan quetzal seems to be pegged to the US dollar in the high 7s, but a lot of locals would use 8 to do calculations, so it turned out not to be a bad thing to have brought some US cash.

We arrived in Antigua before noon and checked into our hotel, the Posada de Don Rodrigo. It was located centrally and was quite nice, with a couple of courtyards, traditional decor, helpful staff, and even some free internet terminals (and very weak free wi-fi).

After we got settled in we headed out for lunch. We decided on Fondo del Calle Real, which was recommended by several tourbooks as having good traditional Guatemalan food. I ordered a combo plate which came with a pupusa, chili relleno, fresh cheese, beans, plaintains, rice, and salad. It was pretty good; I especially liked the plaintains and the pupusa. Others ordered various meat stews which they did not like as much. So much for tour books.

For dessert we picked up some chocolate bread from Dona Luisa Xicotencatl bakery, and then hung out munching on it in the Parque Central; a cute square bordered by a cathedral and lots of shops, with some benches and fountains.

Later we visited the Cathedral de Santiago, a ruined church from the 1770s. It was rather peaceful walking around inside the high walls with no ceilings.


For dinner, we ate at our hotel, which was pretty pricey by Guatemalan standards, but the food was better than at lunch.

The next day we were up bright and early for our Lake Atitlan tour. We were picked up by our driver and driven several hours to one of the villages bordering the lake, where we met our tour guide, Lee Beal.

Lee and his wife Elaine fed us some delicious tropical fruits (the mangoes were especially tasty) and then hooked us up with some kayaks so we could explore the lake.



We kayaked for about an hour, and then got cleaned up and proceeded onward by boat. We stopped in the village of Santiago first for some lunch (delicious fried chicken plates for about 5 USD) and then to hunt down the current home of Maximon, a local Mayan god. Maximon is a very interesting kind of god; his worshippers offer him cigarettes, alcohol, and money, in addition to prayers, and his effigy appears to smoke continuously. I didn't take a photo because it would have cost us 10 quetzels, but I did find this photo online:


We got back on the boat in order to get to a smaller, more peaceful village named San Juan. There we visited a women's weaving cooperative where we were given a weaving demonstration.


The quality of the material and the work were quite good, so many of us bought souvenirs to take home. I myself bought a large shawl which was dyed in bright blues, greens, and purples.

From there it was another short boat ride and then a 30-45 hike back to Lee's place, where we were picked up by our van driver and taken back to Antigua.

For dinner we decided against trying to find more Guatemalan food; instead we ate at a panini place called Tartine's. We had a much better experience there than at either of the restaurants we'd eaten at the previous day; there was a nice roof deck and the food was tasty. Some of the neighboring tables seemed to be annoyed that we were talking and laughing, and kept looking at us oddly (they were all couples), but the staff were perfectly nice so we didn't let that ruin our evening.

For dessert, we returned to Fondo del Calle Real to try "traditional Guatemalan desserts". We ordered four of five of them, and they were all terrible. Sigh.

On our last day in Antigua, we had a late afternoon flight to Flores, so we decided to fit in a Pacaya volcano hike in the morning. Unfortunately the volcano had just erupted the previous year and no actual lava flow had been visible since then, but it was a good workout and we certainly saw a lot of ash and could feel the pockets of hot air near the top of the volcano.

On the way down we ran into this cow, which was very much not amused by us. Our guide Jose finally chased it away with a stick so we could proceed.


As we were walking down, I noticed that an older Asian man was wearing a baseball cap with a Taiwan flag on it, so I asked him in Chinese if he was from Taiwan. He said he was but had been living in Guatemala for over 20 years. We had a nice chat (later he discovered D and I spoke Taiwanese and he was even more excited) and at the bottom he ran to his car to get us some pineapple cakes. I was quite amused.

We got back to Antigua in plenty of time to shower, pack, and check out, and even had time to grab a proper lunch before heading to the airport. Again we went with the non-local food; we had some sandwiches and pasta at Dona Luisa Xicotencatl, the place we'd been buying bread from, as it was just down the street from our hotel.

After checking in for our short flight, we sat around playing games for awhile, and then headed to our gate. There we were informed that our flight would be delayed 1.5 hours, but we were immediately given vouchers for free meals, which turned out to include our choice of sandwich, drink, and dessert. I was quite impressed with TACA's handling of the situation, actually.

Nevertheless, when we finally arrived in Flores, we were quite exhausted, so we were happy to see the shuttle driver from Casa de Don David (our lodge in El Remate) was still there waiting for us. Upon arrival David immediately showed us to our rooms and told us we could figure out registration at breakfast. Nice.

 

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