Our first stopping point
in Central America is Guatemala as we make our way up to Mexico and beyond. After
arriving to Guatemala City airport, we headed straight for Antigua rather than
stay around as we had heard there’s not much to see. Antigua was lovely, very
much a tourist destination- it has a population of just 35,000 versus 4.5m in
Guatemala City- a bit of a different scale. It was also the first time we
realized that Guatemala was obviously very close to America as there were so
many tourists there. The influence can be seen clearly, not just in the higher
prices of items with lots of touristy businesses catering to the US dollar but
also in the t-shirts on sale on the streets- “Guat’s up” and “Guatever” were
the two that stuck as my favourites- pretty sure these weren’t being produced
for the locals to wear!
Antigua was also the
place where we began to see a huge amount of street traders plying their wares
selling anything and everything- no different from a lot of the countries we’ve
visited. However, the big difference we found, and something we hadn’t been
aware of, was that a large number of these traders are children. It’s one of
these things where first you take a picture of this wonderfully “foreign” scene
as you see a child, cute as can be trying to flog something on the street. It’s
only when you stop and look around you realize that this isn’t a child out for
an hour a week at the weekend helping her parents, this is a child who’s daily
life is to try to bring home money to feed the family. Some of these children
couldn’t have been older than six years old. As you continue to look around,
you realize that the person pushing a wheelbarrow down the street filled with
peanuts for sale might be fifteen, the person shining shoes looks to be about
twelve and a whole variety of children in traditional outfits try to sell
bracelets to tourists or simply pose for photographs for a few quetzals.
When I did some research
online, I found out that they estimate that 15% of 7-12 year olds in Guatemala
work for a living and don’t go to school at all. How any seven year old could
perform a task well enough to earn money seems amazing in its own right. This
isn’t a tourist problem either, selling to tourists is just another sales
category to them, it has just become a feature of their society. Obviously
tourists don’t help these situations by giving money to them- we heard a number
of people reasoning that they were “assisting the families by helping to put
food on the table” or “isn’t it good that they learn English by talking to tourists”-
technically that’s true and you buying a beer from a ten year old on the street
does put money in the families pocket but it also encourages the parents to
keep the children on the streets as a source of income for the family.
Just a very sad life for
them and really a road to nowhere- what happens to a cute kid selling goods to
tourists on the street? Well they’ll grow up, will be unable to write their
name, will have no education and will just be another grown up selling goods on
the street and that’s no doubt the best case scenario for them. You’d hope that
someone in the country has plans to try to fix this cycle as you’d imagine it
will only continue to get worse.
Well that’s not the
cheeriest opening I’ve ever written so …….. anyone for chocolate?!
I thought that’d cheer
you up- one afternoon we attended a chocolate making course called “From the
bean to the bar” where we got to make our own chocolate bars right from the
cocoa beans. Actually really fascinating as it also involved talking about the
beginning of chocolate (the Mayans used to drink hot chocolate), the
development of chocolate (the conquering Spaniards return home and made hot
chocolate for the King but added vanilla, cinnamon and a few other ingredients
to change the taste (i.e. improve it) and make it worthy of a King)) to
chocolate today (Henri Nestlé was the first person to make chocolate into bar
form for consumption). But in between all the learning we got to spend time
making actually chocolate- crushing the cocoa beans with pestle and mortar,
grinding them, heating them and adding our own ingredients to make our own
chocolate- nice little reward for ourselves.
Between all that, we
also did a half-day tour up one of the local volcanoes- this is a very active
area for volcanoes with at least three active ones around. We went up, Pacaya,
who’s last eruption was in March 2014, not a long period of dormancy but enough
to allow us to go up the top and to even toast a few marshmallows in some of
the steam vents near the top- as a delicacy volcanic melted marshmallows are
right up there near the top of our list, liquefied insides while toasting the
outside- bliss. Easily makes the hike up worthwhile!
So after enjoying the
delights that Antigua had to offer we hopped on a shuttle bus to Lanquin. Every
country you visit, you find a different take on the best way to get around. Obviously
in countries with not much public transport you end up relying on tourist
transfers (if available)- that is where we ended up in Guatemala and they are
really handy as they effectively take you from your hostel in one town to your
hostel in another town. Cuts out interaction with locals but certainly makes
movement within the country easier if not faster. Per Google maps, the trip
from Antigua to Lanquin is 230km and by car will take just over 4 hours. By
shuttlebus, the scheduled time is 6 to 8 hours. It took us nine and half! The
amusing part of all of these trips is the acceptance that you’re unlikely to
get there on time- the fact that they offer a 2 hour variance for arrival time
is hilarious, the fact that they then missed their “worst case scenario” by
another hour and a half reaches into the realms of absurdity. I suppose, when
your driver pulls over to get the bus washed, while running so far behind schedule,
kind of sums up their level of urgency! As if to say, “I mightn’t get you there
on time but I will get you there in a nice clean bus”!
Our main motivation for
heading to Lanquin was to do a day trip to Semuc Champey. As tours go, this one
has rough and ready written all over it and when that’s the case, start as you
mean to go on. With that in mind, the tour guide turned up with a van with an
open back- twenty in the group so seventeen of us end up standing in the back
of the van as we set off on the hour long trip- “OK, we must have booked the
backpacker trip”! Such home comforts were never considered necessary for us as
we were well aware that there would be no comforts where we were heading- our
first stop of the day was to the caves of Semuc Champey. These caves are famous
because in any developed country they could not possibly be a tourist
attraction! In Guatemala, the rules are a bit more lax and as such tourists
flock to explore the caves. Before you go inside, the guide handed us each out
a candle, kindly lit it and told us not to get it wet, as it had to last us the
next two hours. Sounds easy!
Off we go into the caves
and within twenty feet, our feet are wet but candles are still comfortably dry.
No problem so far- just an hour and fifty nine minutes to go! Five minutes
later, we began to realize that keeping this candle dry was going to be like a
challenge from The Amazing Race- the depth of the water escalated fast and soon
you’re left without a choice but to swim through the cave, one armed obviously,
as you’ve a lit candle in the other hand! Such a bizarre site to see a long
line of tourists (although you mostly just see candles!) swimming along through
the caves looking for the next ladder or rope to climb or maybe just a rock to
stand on- health and safety requirements were left in the back of the van!
At no point did the
guide ask if people could swim or required life jackets- besides informing us
that the candles weren’t waterproof, his guiding basically ended with “follow
me”! But as with all these things, the manicness of the situation was half the
fun so as long as you didn’t kick a rock too hard or fall too far behind the
group then you would have had the most amazing time. We certainly did and for
the record- no our candles did not stay dry- we did pretty well until the point
where we came to a tunnel and one by one we were told to slide down through it
into a black hole where we couldn’t see what was beyond it- the answer? A few
foot drop into a big pool of water and a certain dunking for us and the poor
candle! It was a valiant effort on our part but I think it was a test that
everyone fails!
After we got back to
some natural light and dried ourselves off, we walked to the pools of Semuc
Champey- beautiful turquoise pools on a number of different levels with little
waterfalls flowing between them. Really gorgeous. You’re also able to do a twenty-minute
hike up a hill to get a view down over them which is really nice but not much
can compete with swimming in such nice water. Just a great day out.
After a day like that, it’s
really nice to come back and have a hot (or warm) shower to relax but as is the
joy of travelling, we’ve hit a bit of a bad patch when it comes to facilities!
All of the accommodation we stayed in Northern Colombia didn’t even bother including
a second tap on the sinks or showers (i.e. a hot tap)- sure I suppose what’s
the point in making empty promises! Its funny the little privileges you miss
like a hot shower when you turn on the hot tap (if available!) or being able to
throw toilet paper in the toilet rather then in a bin next to the toilet (ideally
with a lid on it), maybe having shower curtains that don’t allow the entire
bathroom to look like a scene from the titanic or as my wife points out, there
hasn’t been proper lighting in a room we’ve stayed in six months- oh the woes
we have while travelling!
Our favourite Guatemalan
quirk though was saved for the ATMs- it’s always a challenge to find ATMs that
work. We’ve had no trouble in most countries, Brazil’s ATM’s were particularly
fussy- only one of the main banks accepted my card- yes, all expenses are
coming from my card. My wife has this marriage thing down pat! Anyway, back to
Guatemala and their ATMs. The first three ATMs we tried all brought up an error
saying “the chip on your card cannot be read, please try again later”. Getting
frustrated we tried another ATM as having no cash would make travelling that
bit more difficult. The fourth ATM brought up the same message but had a
different sequence so when we took out the card, a message popped up saying “Please
enter your PIN”- it was then we realized that all of the ATMs we tried were
showing an incorrect English message on their screens! So the chip in our card
is fine but the English of whoever made the ATMs in Guatemala is slightly off!
Our final Guatemalan
stop was to Flores. It is a small island connected to the mainland by road and
the main stopping point for those wishing to visit Tikal. Flores itself is a
nice place, easy to walk around and with plenty of taxiboats ready and able to
find you a beach to bring you to. Most people who visit here only have eyes for
Tikal but it is a nice spot in its own right. The aforementioned Tikal is the first
set of Mayan ruins that we visited but we have a long list on our to do list
for Mexico so this’ll be a good trial run. From talking to various people, each
set of Mayan ruins all have certain things that make them “must see”. Tikal’s
main selling point is the scale of the monuments and the ability to climb up
them and get amazing views from them over the jungle or down to other
monuments.
A bit of trivia for you-
Tikal featured in the first star wars movie! There’s a shot over the jungle
featuring two of the temples (similar to the photo to the side but with no
aliens in it). Not a big star wars person and it was released in 1977 but I
have verified that this is correct. No idea how George Lucas decided on
Guatemala all those years ago but there you go.
We had a really cool day
out in Tikal and it was good to dip our toes into Mayan culture and their
history. The temples are amazing. Really big and well preserved. There’s a lot
of renovation going on but we got the impression that this was constant- either
polishing up temples that have already been restored or trying to recover other
temples which have been taken over by the jungle many years ago- the site was
abandoned in the tenth century. Well worth a visit but as to where it stands in
the pantheon of Mayan ruins, we’ll have to get back to you on that.
Our route:
Fly to Guatemala city, straight
to Antigua, bus to Lanquin (day trip to Semuc Champey), bus to Flores (day trip
to Tikal), bus to Belize
Our bus arrived to
Belize City and from there we took a boat directly to an island called Caye
Caulker for four nights. Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye are both islands where
majority of tourists head towards- Caye Caulker is much smaller and less
developed so that was our choice. It’s a lovely sandy island where the only
motorized vehicles are golf carts! The other transport options are by bike or using
your own two feet- the B&B we stayed at had free bikes so that was how we
rolled for the few days.
