Pictures Galore

I'd like to thank you all for the great responses I got on this blog. It was fun to do and even more fun to get the feedback.

Here are the pictures from this trip. This was mostly a people photography trip, hence the abundance of pics in the people album. I did however got a few other topics captured.

Until the next trip, hasta luego!

Eran 

 
People 

Misc

Urban Views

Nature

Archeology

Animals

Of Markets, Capitals and Endings

Chichicastenango
 
Chichicastenango boasts the largest market in Guatemala. The town is in the mountains, about 2 hours from Lago Atitlan and villagers from all over the area come there twice a week to hawk their wares. This includes both things for locals such as vegetables, chickens, and clothing, as well as tourist oriented merchandise such as colorful pillow cases, blankets, masks and what-not.
 
Turkeys for sale:

 
Local indian skirt style:

 
"Skirt Alley" boasts skirts in the local style:

 
While these seem to be for the benefits of tourists:

 

 

The market takes over the entire main square in front of the church, as well as many adjoining streets.  The stairs of the church are full of "florists" selling their fresh flowers:
 
 
All locals know that pictures are worth money. Indeed, when asked if her photo could be taken one woman replied "10 quetzales" without even thinking about it. Cindy Crawford in her heyday did not receive so much for a single picture. I quickly turned to the next woman and negotiated her down from 5 to Q3:
  
  
The streets are full of locals buying and selling and a few tourists here and there. The colors are simply amazing:

 
There are also some strange characters walking about.
 
"Negotiate prices you must, young skywalker. Teach you how I will, hem:"
  
 
Guatemalan Workout
 
To get to Chichi from the lake we took a guatemalan chicken bus. These buses are 20 or 30 year old US buses (sometimes old school buses) were the usual two-kids-per-bench are replaced with as-many-as-can-fit-but-no-less-than-three-per-bench sitting arrangements:
 
 
Getting back, we caught a bus that was already full. Needless to say I could not fit with any other two people together on a bench. I ended up standing for the 30 minute ride to the next bus change. Buses zoom along the mountain roads to get as quickly as possible from one place to the next. Turns are taken as fast as possible and road bumps are only slowly negotiated with the front wheels (since that's where the driver is). After 30 minutes of this my hands, arms and shoulders were aching from the strain of holding on.
 
By the end of the ride I've invented a new sport. In spinning you sit on a bike that goes nowhere and cycle to the music. In Chicken-Bus-Standing(TM) you stand between two poles that pull you left and right, forward and back while you have to maintain your firm grip on them and not fall. From time to time, the ground will rise up quickly to simulate a road bump.
 
The easier version of this sport will have a screen in front of you showing you turns coming up in the road.

Antigua

Antigua is situated in a valley flanked by three volcanoes on one side and other mountains on the other. It is the old (Antigua means antique) capital of Guatemala. The spanish settled in it and built it up with many churches and fine houses. In 1773 a huge earthquake devastated the city and the capital was moved to Guatemala City.
 

Below is the main volcano, directly south of the city:

 
 
Antigua still looks something like after an earthquake. The streets have all been cobbled and low houses flunk the streets in what looks like a European city, but many streets have the remains of old crumbling churches with collapsed roofs but still-standing walls.


There's a lively scene in Antigua - many fine restaurants, places to hang out, a wonderful main plaza where you can sip coffee from the Cafe Condessa (countess cafe) express and relax. Many locals in traditional dress line the streets and walk through the plaza selling tourist stuff.

 

 

We walked a bit through the market in Antigua and saw both the tourist shops and the locals' market where I bought a better watch than the humidity-meter one for 20 Quetzales (under $3). We also went into a clothing museum where they showed us different traditional dress from different villages in Guatemala and also how they are made - the back loom (which is strapped to the back for support) and the full loom.

All in all it's a pleasant town and a nice place to hang out if you have time for it. Our total stay there was 3 nights, before and after Lago Atitlan.

Antigua is also home of the elusive and extremely rare Guatemalan Giraffe. It is only here that it can be found, mostly in wood form:

It seems local artists have heard of the great success of the wooden giraffes sold in Africa and decided to create a local version. The only drawback is that there is no real giraffe that can be copied and so some artistic freedom is exercised by the locals when creating the giraffes.
 
All Good Things Must End
 
And so does this blog. I will send out one more post with links to many many more pictures, but as far as stories are concerned I am now back at home and can create a Sunnyvale blog. I hope you enjoyed the stories and pictures as much as I enjoyed writing and taking them.
 
Eran

Magical Lago De Atitlan

We interrupt the planned Antigua story to bring you this Lago De Atitlan special report. Antigua will be blogged later this week.


The Picture Version
You have to come and see it. Here is why:

Girl in Jaibalito. It seems women hide their mouths when smiling and girls seem to pick that up. I don't know the reason for hiding the mouth, although most women have very few teeth left:


 
The fact that we stopped in Jaibalito (total 1500 people) to take photos and were giving candy to the kids made it through the village amazingly fast. These kids sought us out:

 
This one too but by then we were out of candy:

 
The cloud cover uses the volcano for support:

It is unclear why clouds seek out volcano tops but most volcanoes we've seen were hiding behind a cloud or two.
 
Following mom everywhere:

 
Waiting for the boat to come:

 
Evening approaching between the two volcanoes:

 
Corn fields overlooking the lake:
 
 
Two men talking, view reflected in store's window:

 
Old man wearing original clothing. Most men today dress in western clothing:

 
Sitting on the front doorstep, talking to the neighbors:

 
Selling fruit:

 
Morning fishing in the lake:
 
 

The Wordy Version
80,000 years ago, the ground erupted and threw volcanic material all the way from Florida to Panama. The hole that was left soon became Lake Atitlan. This is a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains with two or three large volcanoes dominating the scenes. Around the lake are Mayan villages, each with its own character, people and clothing. Each village has fields growing on the nearby mountains. The fields are rectangular for some definition of rectangular where there are four "straight" lines that meet at "right" angles.



Puzzle of the day: Can you tell how many fields there are in the above picture? Post you answer as a reply to this blog. First prize - your name to be mentioned in the next blog.

The Wordier Version

We are staying in San Pedro, the village named after the volcano on the side of which it is built. When we wake up in the morning and open the window what we see are corn fields, some other buildings and a huge volcano looming over the town.

On the other side of the lake, across from San Pedro, is a mountain range that's called Cabeza Indigena (Indian Head or Indian Nose). To see why - check out the following photo:



We've visited a number of villages around the lake:

* Panajachel is the main 'city', hosting many of the tourist shops.

* Jaibalito  is one of the smallest and least toured. The kids (and adults) were really fascinated to see us.

* San Marcos is home to the holistic and alternative medicine crowd. Here you can get anything from Swedish massage to reiki treatment to a yoga class to internet, all in a wholesome environment.

* San Pedro is known for a few things: Its cheap prices, its tourist hangouts at night and its local growing of coffee and marijuana. It's simply impossible to walk down the street (on the tourist levels down by the docks) without smelling it wafting out of windows.

San Pedro Stories

We started our stay climbing up into the village. The center of town and where most locals actually live is above the lower levels that are more devoted to tourist. The men are mostly dressed in modern clothes, but the women dress traditionally. Most people don't mind having their photo taken, and with the digital camera I can turn it around and show them the picture immediately. They seem to really love this, and we saw a lot of happy faces.

Children have learned the trick though. They walk around you saying "photo, photo" and once you shoot them, they ask for money. To avoid that, we bought a number of caramelos (candies) and negotiated pictures for candies. Apparently taking candies from camera-toting-strangers is ok in these parts.

Of the Buying of Threads

We found a town at the top that sells lustrinas - embroidery threads. Since mom (HI MOM!) asked for a few if I find them, we went into the store and asked for the price. Each costs 1.30 Quetzals (roughly 20 cents). I then told them to give me 4 from each color they had (about 50) and everything stopped while they digested what I just said. I had to show them again saying "cuatro", "cuatro", "cuatro" to get them to start taking out the threads.

The mother and two children manning the store started working on my order, checking in the "back" for missing threads and getting everything on the table. Then we weeded out the duplicates and agreed that this was indeed it.

Here is the happy family with the catch-of-the-day:



Next we got to the Math.
 
Since the elders of San Pedro do not remember such a big order since the days the Spanish came to Guatemala, this took a bit of time. It was apparent that education levels differed greatly between the generations. The two kids started counting threads and eventually decided on 181. The kid then tried to multiply on the calculator he had, except he did not know what the decimal point was for and he kept getting wrong numbers (Q523, Q235, etc.)

The mother was more pragmatic. Multiplication is for gringos. She divided the threads into 20-thread groups then counted money instead of threads. For example:

Q1.30, Q2.60, Q3.90, etc.

Each 20 thread group was 26 and then she and the kids added them up.

After I added 20 more threads we got to 201 threads at which point she decided to check the multiplication option. Translating from the speaking to the math goes like this:

Doscientos Uno (two hundred and one) has two digits. "2" and "1".

So the math is: 21 x 1.30, right?

We finally got this straightened out and paid the bill.

Evolution of the Restaurant Concept

In the evening, we ate at D'Noz, a local place targeted at tourist. It has movies or live performances at night. We got in early enough to grab a place, order dinner and enjoy it while a duo from Mexico played all the typical guitar-totting favorites like pink floyd, the eagles, eric clapton, etc.

The place was packed with happy tourists, busy employees and playful dogs running around getting attention from everyone.

Then we noticed an interesting phenomenon. Once in a while, a local girl or woman in traditional clothes and with a basket on her head would come in. The girl was selling Pitaya (a local fruit) and the woman was carrying a huge chocolate cake cut up into gigantic pieces. They would proceed from table to table and ask if anyone wants pitaya or chocolate cake.

During the show, the woman came in and after her regular circle around the room went to one of the singers and bothered him in the middle of a song. He eventually stopped and a announced to everyone that there's chocolate cake if anyone is interested.

Enough for today. Next time: Antigua and the market in Chichicastenango.
 

Tikal (oh yes - and Flores), Coban and Semuc Champey

Tikal and Flores

Leaving Livingston, we took a boat back to Rio Dulce then a bus to Flores. Flores is an island in lake Peten Itza, connected to the mainland and its sister city of Santa Elena by a 500m long bridge. The whole island is a 10 minute walk across and it is packed with tourist places and hotels though a few locals do live there.

Flores's main function is to serve as a jumping point to Tikal, the lost city of the Maya (one of many lost cities - they seemed to have been going through cultural amnesia during the first millenium).

We took the 5am bus to get there at opening time. Tikal is huge and takes a long time to see. The first site that greeted us getting off the bus is this:



Note that while this looks very similar to some ancient drawings and carvings of vultures, it is not a statue. It seems that when the sun starts to rise, the local vultures stand on the trees, open their wings wide and welcome the sun. They seem to be drying the night's dew off of them.

We took a guide to show us the site. He walked us through the main attractions, and showed us the local wildlife. At this point I should describe Tikal to you:

Tikal was first inhabited around 300BC. The local Maya people became a bigger civilization sometime in the early centuries AD, forming a large kingdom with ties to the toltec tribes in central Mexico. They created huge 'pyramids', ceremonial centers, that were used in holidays by the king and priests. The place is huge, a full city, though the population lived elsewhere in wooden houses that did not survive to this day.

I will spare you the litany of kings and wars that the guide spewed on us. What is important is what the area looks like now. The whole place is a tropical jungle. Seen from the air, or from the top of Templo IV, you see tropical rain forest with an ancient building poping out in some places:



Walking into the park, you start walking in a narrow trail under the tree canopy. After 15 minutes you come upon a strange hill, covered in moss and grass with a right-angle side. Only after walking around it do you realize this is a temple. The whole place looks like this. Most buildings are still covered, or else only the front has been exposed. You walk through the park and see many such strange hills.

True to its jungly nature, the place is full of wildlife. The list we say includes: toucans, tarantulas, spider monkeys, and exotic peacocks among others. The park has many more, including howler monkeys and jaguars but neither showed itself.

This is a baby tarantula, as t our guide put it:


The place is impressive for both its sheer size and its location. We went out for lunch, then went back in and caught glimpses of it in the rain. Below is a picture of a temple in the most densly built area:



Coban and Semuc Champey

The day after, we took the tourist 'bus' to Coban, a town situated at 1300m above sea level. For reference, Tikal and Flores are at about sea level. The ride was beatiful. Once we left the urban area surrounding Flores, the bus started climbing into the mountains. Everything around was green since there's ample rain in the whole region.

As we drove, the road started climbing up and endless mountains surrounded us. Villages were sprinkled along the road every once in a while. A village is any number of 1-20 "houses" literally built along the road. The villages have many fields of corn (mostly). In the lowlands, these are simply behind or next to the house. In the mountain regions, it's the same except that "behind" or "next to" might be up a steep vertical mountain side. This does not seem to matter much to the Mayans. They simply tend their vertical fields on whatever terrain they happen to fall. It's common to see mountains with one patch covered by forest and the other by a corn field.



It seems terraces were never invented in this region, though given the abundance of rain they might not have been necessary.

Along the way, especially near villages, you can meet any of the following animals playing in the middle of the road: chickens, dogs, cows, children. Our driver was going 100-120km /hr the whole way, so a system of avoiding collision had to be developed. Whenever rounding a curve or nearing a village or just spotting one of the "obstacles" along the road, he'd honk his horn once or twice. It seems everyone here has been conditioned to move off the road when a honk sounds. The only exception was one chicken that was pecking in the middle of the road. When the honk sounded, it moved off then came back to peck one more time. The driver narrowly avoided it, then turned to me and said "la cena" - dinner :)

Coban is a center for coffee and cardamom (hel) growth in the region, though we saw little of both. We took a tour the day after to go to a local beauty spot - Semuc Champey. This is a 2 hour ride through dirt rodes and down 1000m vertical meters to get to the spot.

The place is a gorgeous set of turqoise pools, feeding water to each other in a series of little waterfalls. Or at least, that's the book's description of the place. We came in after the heavy rains that have been falling the past few days. Our description is as follows:

The place is a gorgeous set of MUDDY-WATER pools, feeding MUD to each other in a series of little waterfalls.



The area is famous due to the pools and the reason for their existence. The local river, a strong one, flows into the ground at the spot where the pools start, then comes out 200m later. The pools are fed from a side stream of the main river and are basically situated on top of a stone bridge over the river.

This is where the water flows underground:


Tune in next time for - Antigua (=the ancient), fabled city of many churches.

Livingston - Home of the Garifuna

In transit to Livingston

We took a boat Monday morning from Rio Dulce to Livingston. Livingston sits on the Caribbean sea, right where the rio dulce pours its sweet water out to sea.

The ride takes about 2 hours and goes through the river and a number of adjacent lakes. The view is breathtaking with lots of birds, water lilies and a forest that grows vertically from the river's edge up a few hundred feet. You barely see the actual mountains - only green vegetation. 

 

Notice the forest climbing up: 
 

It seems very "tranquilo" living on the river: 
 

The watch I'm carrying - a $5 watch from walmart that I picked up instead of carrying a more expensive one - is designated as water resident to 156 feet. Somewhere between Rio Dulce and Livingston it became clear that it has a special built in feature - a humidity sensor. They way it works is like this: you look at the watch and see water condensation on the inside of the screen, hiding the time from you. The amount of water is directly dependent on the humidity. Who'd have thought?

Livingston Lessons to Learn

We got to Livingston and quickly got situated in a hotel with hammocks outside the rooms. We quickly discovered the need for a verb for lying in a hammock. Our Belgian friend, Jean, says the conjugations go something like this:
I hammock
WE hammock
YOU are in my hammock and need to leave now.

We spent the first day touring the main road. It starts at the river port, climbs up on a hill and comes down half a km later on the Caribbean. We booked a tour for the day after then went hammocking.

The locals are a mix between indigenous indians, mestizos - mixed spanish and indians, and the Garifuna - descendents of black slaves who's ship was lost at sea and they intermingled with the local population.

The heat is oppressive and showers are very welcome here. You know how in the more sophisticated showers you can set the temperature of the water with the cold and hot faucets, then use a third faucet to shut off the flow while keeping the temperature where you like it? The locals have invented a much simpler system that needs only one faucet to work the whole thing. It works like this:

There's only cold water. The outside temperature moves from scolding hot to just mildly warm with a nice breeze. All you have to do is pick the time of day (temperature) when you want to shower. For example, if you wait till too late at night, the guy hammocking a floor above the shower will comment that that was a nice scream you uttered when you got under the cold water flow.

A 1001 Marias - Tom Clancy Eat Your Heart Out

We closed the day with dinner at Maria's Tilingo Lingo restaurant. We got there by chance - we walked till the pacific end of main street, then looked around and there her place was. Maria can cook anything from local food, indian curry, chinese cuisine to Israeli Shackshuka. We decided we want to eat there and asked her to tell us her story. Here's the abridged version:

Born and bred in mexico. Met her first husband in her home town while visiting. He asked her to marry her on the second day and she accepted on the third. He was from India so they moved there.

After two years of marriage and with a 6-month old kid, Maria decided she's had enough of her mother-in-law not accepting her and escaped India with her kid.

Back in Mexico, Maria met husband number 2 - a Sri Lankan this time, and had a second kid. While there, her natural affinity for detective work asserted itself and she found some evidence on a number of crooked police officers. Running for her life, she crossed the border to Guatemala where she's lived ever since.

Think it's over? No way! While living in Livingston, Maria identifies an American tourist as a wanted murdered. She gets some evidence, sets a plan in place, gets the FBI involved and helps them catch the guy.

That's all we had time for - she had to go back to cook.

Truth? Who cares. It was the best dinner entertainment we've had in a long time.


The Next Day

We took the tour of Livingston in the morning. Once you leave the main area, it's a jungle (or at least tropical vegetation) with small houses, more like shacks, sprinkled all over the place. All around were fruit trees, including coconuts, cacao and more. If there wasn't a lot of trash thrown in certain places it would have been perfect.
The walk was nice and included seeing the church and cemetery, walking between the huts to climb the local hill and see Honduras and Belize in the background, a short kayak ride through a river to the beach, then walking to a natural pool formed by a waterfall. Police accompanied us throughout the journey to keep us safe. The most exciting thing that happened was that I discovered the two logs making a bridge across a small stream were rotten when I actually broke one walking on it.

Below you can see Jean demonstrating the use of the verb "to hammock" on our lunch break during the tour: 

 

A parrot crosses the road, goes into a restaurant and says...

Getting back, we hammocked for a bit, showered once more, then went back to Maria's. Today she promised she would make us some Tapado - a local soup made with fish, coconut milk and bananas. It was surprisingly good.

These kids came by just as our food arrived and I just had to take a picture. 
 

Then, while we're watching incredulously, a parrot crosses the street (walking), goes to the restaurant's doorway, climbs the step, then climbs the door post and perches on top. Walking across the street, it passed a cat that did not attack it simply because we just fed it a bone. It turns out the parrot lives in the house nearby and just came to visit. When the waiter picked it up, it sat there for a sec, then flew away across the street.

That's it for Livingston. Next stop - Flores and Tikal, capital of the ancient Mayan civilization in the area.

Official Kickoff or Karma Guides This Trip

It's only been two days, and already my karma is going from good to bad and back again. Seems like this is going to be an interesting trip.

The Muchilla - Bad Karma Says Hello

We stayed the night at guatemala city (yechhhh) yesterday. I used a metal cable and a lock to lock my muchilla to the hotel room's sink (the only immovable fixture - I swear). I then went to tour the city and was so tired I slept on a bench in one of the parks. The key apparently decided it likes the place and left me for good.

So there we were - one muchila, one bathroom sink and a cable and lock holding them both together. I was pretty sure they won't let me take the sink on the bus. After using a plier I got from the hotel manager to try and cut the tiny lock away without success, I figured I might as well try cutting the cable. It's shameful how quickly it came apart...

Travel - Good Karma Raises Its Head

Now that the trip has finally started, let me give you some background.

Guatemala is a country of roughtly 8 million people, many of them pure Maya or of Mayan decent. The country itself looks something like this: take a profile of an old greek statue's neck and face. Make the base of the neck wide, narrowing towards the chin. Make it grow a long beard. Keep the nose long and pointy. Now turn it over on its head.
What you get is Guatemala - Guatemala city is somewhere below the upside-down ear.

I am travelling with Idit (she's doing the 'she said' version of the trip). Our goal is to climb up from Guatemala city through the back of the head to the neck, then decend and go explore the areas leading to the nose. Clear, right?

We started our trip officially early this morning on a bus going towards our first stop - Quirigua. Transport was supposed to be a problem since there's no direct bus there, but surprisingly enough we rarely waited. We had rides or local 'taxis' waiting just for us in most places where we had to change.

The local taxi is a minivan that despite what commercials say about being able to carry 7 or maybe even 9 people - can actually carry closer to 20. Really. These taxis travel between towns and stop wherever someone flags them on the main road in the middle of nowhere. The driver ALWAYS stop. The going philosophy is that there's always room for one more if you're part of a bigger group waiting, well, they'll just break you into manageable groups of 1 person. People scrunch up 6 to a sit, sideways, standing up, etc. The operator (not the driver) will even keep the sliding door open and hang on outside so long as he can fit one more person. There's always room, right?

Quirigua itself is an archeological site in the middle of a huge banana plantation. It's the site of a minor city about 1400 years old, and has a number of stallae (see picture for definition) up to 10.5 meter high sprinkled all over the park. Just like guatemala, the king shown on the stallae has a beard which is uncommon in Mayan culture. 

 

Going back to the main road, we got a ride from one of the local cars. I got to stand up in the back of the open van so I count it a great day :) 

 

The Waitress as a Representative of Chaos - Karma Down the Drain Again

We're now in Rio Dulce - a town on a river that widens into a lake then spills into the pacific. Our aim was to get to Livingston on the pacific - an enclave of locals of carrebean ancestry (i.e. Jamaica, mun). We decided that before taking the long ride, we'll grab some lunch. The time was 2p. We got into the lonely-planet's "best restaurant in Rio Dulce" and sat for 20 minutes before we figured the waitress was not going to come. So we got the menu, then went up to order at the counter. Then we waited and waited and waited. Twice, we went to ask that our drinks at least come soooooon since we were both parched. After 30 hour, the drinks finally made it. No food.

20 minutes later, the waitress finally figured out something was wrong (probably the evil eye I was throwing her way, or maybe just the hungry puppy looks) and came by to ask if we're waiting for food. She only needed a slight reminder before realizing she forgot our order.

And so, full up and happy(ier) we got up at 4pm and left to find a boat to Livingston. But lo and behold - all rides were gone for the day. We are forced to wait until tomorrow morning to continue.

So far bad karma is in the lead, but we found a bungalow in a hotel on the river - the only way to and from the hotel is via a boat ride. The heat is oppresive but the jungle all around is really gorgeous.

Mañana - Livingston and the carrebeans.

And remember - you can post comments using the links at the bottom - no need for a blogger account - you can select 'anonymous'. Make my day and post!

Bye,

Eran

Travel Rantings

I'm touring Guatemala City waiting for my friend's flight to arrive. Lonely planet, in one of the 5 best things to do in Guatemala City, lists 'leave'. So I'll use some of the time to randomly rant:

Each flight is different. While they all tend to blend into the boring long-time-waiting-for-flight, long-time-on-flight, bad sleep and censored movies, still - each fight you experience something new. Add to that the continuously changing security measures to protect us passengers, and it can really be bizzare.

Today, I've learned new things about what is allowed and what isn't on a plane. So - a lighter is not allowed in the checked baggage. Apparently it might be a terrorist in disguise. Taking the lighter with you onto the plane, however, is quite ok. no problem whatsover.

The other weird thing is that aerosole cans are now prohibited. Completely. Can´t take them aboard and can´t check them in. Considering I´m flying into a malaria-infested country and my musquito repellent is in the form of an aerosole can, it's not helping me a lot that it is now owned by luis, the friendly Taca Airlines clerk.

So remember - no more deodorants, shaving cream or any other hygenic article. I wonder if gillette helped design this guideline to make people buy these things again when they land.