JJ's Travelogue

After Lanquin and Samuc Champey, I traveled to Rio Dulce. This is a town / lake / river that’s meant to be pretty. And it is, when you get away from the town itself. A lot of the rich bigwigs from the city have weekend houses out here – our captain pointed out a few (the owner of Gallo beer has several large boats – and he lives alone..)
There aren’t any decent places to stay in town, they’re all a boat ride away. Which sounds nice, but once you’re there, it means you’re trapped. You can’t even go for a walk, since it’s all marsh beyond the boardwalks connecting the few buildings. You have to take a boat to get anywhere, which costs money and is a pain. As a result, the lodges can soak you for food. I happened to stay at one that was Swiss-owned, so it attracted a lot of Germans. Not that I have anything against the German people, but I do find their language grating.

So I got out of there the next day, along with a few other folks I had traveled with. First, we visited a natural hot spring waterfall. Crazy! There is a large natural pool with a cool river flowing through it. And from above, a very strong, very hot waterfall of sulfuric spring water pouring down. Twas nice.
Trying to come back into town, we waited for a bus for a while before I finally flagged down a passing truck. They graciously peeled back the top cover, and we all climbed aboard the feed bags. Much better than being crammed into a packed bus, and cheaper too. I’d like to travel in the back of trucks much more. You do get pretty dusty, but the view is unparalleled.

After that, it was a long boat ride up the river through the gorge to the town of Livingston, where I am currently holing up. This town is only accessible by boat. Which is pretty incredible when you look around and see all the huge things that could only have come in by boat – roads, walls, water towers, cars, etc.
I was feeling a bit lonely and down (more on that later) when who should I run into walking down the street than Marisol, my dear friend from Spanish school! Oh, that was such a blessing. It really made my week. She was on her way from Belize to El Salvador to go surfing, and had stopped here for the night. We had a nice time catching up and such.

Livingston feels much more Carribean than Guatemalan. Mainly because it’s populated by Garifuna, so they’re black and have a completely different culture and language than the Mayans. The Garifuna have an interesting history – they were slaves that got run from one island to another in the 18th century. But they’ve gone from only 2,000 survivors in 1797 to 50,000 in New York City alone today. There are also strongholds in L.A., New Orleans, even London. Most live on the Carribean coast of Honduras, with a bit in Belize, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Their language is a unique blend of Arawak, French, Yuroba, Banti, and Swahili, owing to their mixed heritage. Their dugu (religion) is similar to Haitian voodoo, and death is seen as a freeing of the spirit; a celebration involving dancing, drinking and music. Punta is the name of their style of music. It’s very up, fast, and rhythmic. At dinner the other night, a group of musicians suddenly set up and regaled us all with some fierce rhythms. Congas, turtle and conch shells, maraccas, with chanting too. Locals wandering by stopped to dance. Kids taking turns showing off their moves. Here is a bit of it I recorded on the iPhone. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me! I would love to see some Punta Rock, but the clubs that supposedly usually present it have been dark.

I can see that it would be a nice relaxing town if the weather were better, but it’s been raining off and on (mostly on) for three straight days now. I’ve been trying to arrange transport to the Bay Islands in Honduras, with little luck. I might have to take a whole series of local buses, which I’m dreading. Plus, the weather is meant to be similar over there, which doesn’t bode well for snorkeling and diving, the main activities on the Bay Islands. If any of you have been to Honduras, I’d love to hear recommendations of where else to go.

Went on a couple of great tours from El Retiro.
The first was to a cave known for it’s bats. You go in an hour before dusk, and watch them leaving by the thousands to go feed. It’s quite a sight. Literally hundreds of thousands of them whizzing past your head. They’re mostly silent, other than the whoosh of air. Despite waving my arms around, I only got lightly smacked once. Those things have got great echolocation.
The kid guide told us that the cave is 30 km deep, and has only the one entrance. It was the French who first explored it in the 50′s, and they could only go 20km before running out of oxygen! We only went about 500m in, which was good enough. Apparently the guano is 2 to 3 metres thick on the ground deep in the cave.
Amazing formations from the flow of water. Huge chambers, weird shapes.  Our guide dug into a crevice and pulled out an enormous spider for us to see. The only other animals living in there are opposums.
I was surprised how warm it was in the cave – I’d say at least 73 degrees F. It was difficult to get photos of all of this, but hopefully you can tell. The river exiting the cave is a beautiful blue-green from the limestone, apparently.
The cave (which used to be fairly white inside) is now blackened from all the Mayan sacrifices through the years. Today they no longer sacrifice animals, but they do still hold ritual burnings.

Here is a video of the bats flying overhead

The next day I went on a day-long adventure that was a definite highlight of my trip thus far. There was so much in one day.. First, a bouncing in a pickup 10km down the road to Semuc Champey. Then a rope swing into the river, whereupon my sandals came flying off. Struggling to catch them in the current and toss them onto shore then get myself back onto shore, whence I discovered I had been swept 100m downstream!
Only then did the real adventure begin. I wish I had brought my camera, since I do have a nice waterproof case for it.. but we were told to only bring our footwear, bathing suit, and a headlamp if we had it; otherwise we were given candles. [Here is a photo I found on the web, since I don't have any of my own!]
We spent the next couple of hours obediently following our hot guide through crazy situations – through crevices lit by candlelight, pools of unknown depths and contents, past nesting bats.. many times having to swim for 50 ft or so, the pools were so deep. It’s freaky to be walking along and have the ground drop out from under you, suddenly having to tread water to keep breathing! But I didn’t have time to be scared, we kept moving. Climbing up and down ropes with waterfalls pouring over our heads.. the whole thing was so dangerous and thrilling. In any developed nation, we would have been wearing helmets and signed our lives away.. but not here! I was happy to discover that my headlamp is in fact waterproof, since it definitely took a soaking throughout the day.
I kept thinking how some days it is so annoying to be bipedal. To be so top-heavy when scooting around on unsure footing.

After emerging from the caves and replenishing our hungry bodies, we took a hike up a mountain to overlook the famous emerald pools. Along the way, we were given an opportunity to jump from a 9m bridge into the river. I abstained, but took photos for others. The hike was nice, it was good to get some real excercise. We then had a couple of hours free to swim and play in the pools. Limestone is an amazing thing. In this place, the river splits in half. Half of it chunnels underground for 500m, you can watch it disappear into the earth. Meanwhile, the other half continues above ground and has formed beautiful blue-green natural pools. Some people climbed a tree about 30′ up and jumped into the pools. Not me..
Later, our guide fixed a rope ladder to a rock and we descended (through a waterfall, natch) to see where the bottom half of the river finally exited the dark chasm and rejoined with the rest of itself.

After walking back down, we donned inner tubes and went tubing down the river. I only wish it had been sunny and warmer – we were all a bit cold all day. But I definitely reccommend the trip as a highlight of Guatemala. Here is a blog entry that gives a nice take on the pools, and another with good photos.

WordPress is being dense today with the captions, so I’ll just explain the photos below here:
The first shot is of cacao (that chocolate is made from). I had no idea how large it was. It also doesn’t taste like chocolate.
The next shot is an overview of the pools. The other half of the river is running under all of this.
The third shot is of the river entering the chasm, and the fourth shot is of it exiting. How terrifying would it be to get swept into that. Apparently the Discovery Channel sent cameras down the passage, but gave up after all four of them came out broken.
The fifth shot is of our hot guide.
Finally, the last one is of the rope ladder through the waterfall. We had a similar situation inside the caves, only it was just a rope, no ladder.

I’ve been feeling like I’ve been talking to a brick wall, what with the dearth of comments.

Of course, maybe it’s because you want to comment, but don’t see an obvious link to with the new theme. Until I figure out how to get a more obvious comment link on the main page, just click on the title of a given post. This will take you to a page specific to that post, where you can leave a comment on the bottom.
OR:
The numbers under the dates on the left indicate how many comments there are for a given post (most of them are ’0′). Click that number and you can read the comments, or leave one of your own.

Cheers.

Just finished my first couple of days of really traveling on my own, and it went well. It was planes, trains, and automobiles, so to speak.
A local bus from Tikal to the nearest town (Santa Elena). Wandered around this crappy industrial town trying to find the bus station. Was given five different directions by five different people. Finally just hopped in a tuk-tuk. Turns out the one bus a day to Cobán was leaving in 15 minutes, but I needed cash. There was an ATM at the station, but it was broken.. because it’s Sunday, or something. No problem, negotiated with another cabbie to run me down to the bank downtown. Got cash, made the bus. I wanted to go to Lanquín, but couldn’t make it in one day. So I made it as far as Cobán, the capital of this region.

The driver and his buddies were doing coke up front, which they didn’t do a very good job of hiding. Lots of locals getting on and off, I was the only gringo. We made the same river crossing as with Alex.
Of course the bus dropped me somewhere out of town, and I was immediately swarmed by touts. Just give me a moment to breathe and get my bearings! I find it difficult to divine between the real information these guys can provide and their own agenda to separate me from my money. Particularly when it’s cold, dark, and raining, as it was on this particular day! Anyway, I got into a wonderfully ancient car (from the 50′s, complete with rusting out floorboards and dozens of wires hanging down from the dash) and had him drop me in the center of town, where gathered myself. Found a cheap local hotel, and all was right with the world.

We´re really up in the cloudforest here. They say it rains 13 months out of the year here. The kids grow up with webbing between their fingers and toes. They call the eternal soft rain “chipi-chipi“.
The architecture in Cobán has hints of Europe, because of the Germans who settled here around the turn of the last century. They owned most of the coffee fincas. Then the U.S. made Guatemala kick them out during WWII, since most of them were Nazi sympathizers. But their legacy lives on.
Although I should be feeling crappy (alone in a foreign industrial small town in the rain), my spirits are high. Perhaps it´s because the weather reminds me of Seattle or London. Maybe it’s the fresh air, or the holiday decorations going up. Perhaps it’s happiness born of pride - i’ve been handling things with the right attitude – no expectations, taking everything in stride, laughing and smiling at the crazy situations. And I’m happy to be on my own.

It’s nice to be back with Mayans. They’re truly beautiful people. I like their clothes, their faces. Although they initially stare, they warm up quickly when you greet them.
I stumbled upon a religious ritual going on outside a church in town, which was neat.
You can smell the cardamom walking down the street. It’s grown mostly for export to the middle east.

After one night in Cobán, I made it to where I really wanted to be, Lanquin. The ride down here was a perfect example of local transportation – at one point, I counted 21 people crammed into this microbus/minivan. 23, if you include the babes on laps.
This area is known for it’s caves and natural river pools, and for the backpacker’s haven of El Retiro, a very chilled out eco-lodge on the river. The cabañas are thatched-roof affairs replete with hammocks. Unfortunately they’re also duplexes with simple bamboo walls between, so I can hear every groan and grunt by my neighbors. I like this place, but it is so stereotypical. Tons of dreadlocks, but not a person of color to be found. Hippy food served at big communal tables. Eco-toilets that don’t use any water – instead, you sprinkle lime ash on your shit. [It actually works!] I’m trying my best to talk to people and not feel old. I think going on some of the tours will help break the ice.

This area has an illustrious past in relation to the 36-year civil war. There were four massacres in 1982 alone in this region. One one occassion, a couple hundred protesters massed in town. The army simply mowed them down with their machine guns. Women, children, innocent farmers. The really appalling thing is that the day before, the army had prepared a mass grave with bulldozers… so it was premeditated genocide. In the past few years, locals have exhumed several of the mass graves that pepper the hillsides and reburied some of the 4,400 victims from the municipality.  It boils the blood to think that most of these perpetrators are living free. Despite 8 years of investigations, only 3 very junior conscripts have been jailed, and the officers who directed the campaign remain free. Not surprisingly, when ex-military dictator Rios Montt attempted to land his helicopter here during the 2003 election campaign, he was forced to retreat back to Guatemala City under a hail of rocks.