Semana Santa

Tuesday afternoon, Ryan and I departed Guatemala City for Puerto Barrios on Fuente Del Norte. This was an extremely long bus ride that took nearly 6 hours due to the bus driver’s love of the brake pedal. As soon as we exited the bus in Puerto Barrios, we were approached by a Guatemalan looking guy who said he was from Canada. He was looking for a place to stay the night as were we, and this guy had been here before so he directed us in the right direction. We found a hotel with rooms for Q50 per bed and then went to look for a restaurant. Using lonely planet, we found the cheapest restaurant with good food, and it was good!!! The Carribbean style rice was delicious with coriander, beans, coconut, and other spices. After dinner we walked around the city looking for something to do and ended up walking back to the hotel and calling it a night. The city was fairly humid and very quiet. The streets were all gravel and dimly lit with the only lights coming from the holding areas where the cargo containers were sitting. The next morning we went to the port thinking about taking a boat to Livingston for the day but decided against it and went to find a ride to Santa Elena in Petén.

We hopped on a mini bus to Rio Dulce for Q20, driving through what looked like semi rain forest surroundings and tons of pineapple stands on the side of the road. When we arrived in Rio Dulce it started to rain so we decided to have lunch by the river. After lunch we walked around the crowded main street for nearly an hour, waiting for another Fuente Del Norte bus heading to Santa Elena. We were forced to stand on the bus for an hour before two seats opened up and it was hot!!! This was a 5 hour bus ride through much drier land than the state of Izabal which held Rio Dulce. When we arrived in Santa Elena we found a mini bus heading to the island of Flores for a few Quetzals. The mini bus was filled with hippies and what seemed to be French nationals, on their way to Tikal, hahahha. The mini bus took us to a part of Flores that contained the economical hotels. We ended up staying in Alicia’s Guesthouse for a total of Q70 per night and it was very clean and the people were very helpful. We bought a ticket to Tikal at 6am the next morning in order to beat the crowds. We were referred to the Mirador restaurant on top of the hill on Flores for dinner. It was excellent and cheap which is what we needed. We ended up coming back here three more times over the next few days. That night we walked around the small island stopping periodically at the three night clubs to check out the night life.

The next morning we were on our way to Tikal with some Austrians that were staying in our hotel and some more French. When we arrived in Tikal Park it was nearly 9am and already hot as hell. Once we bought our tickets we decided to take the opposite route through the park than the one the crowd was taking. This route brought us to the most isolated pyramid in the park which took about 20 minutes to walk to. The path winded through dense forest before we approached our first Mayan site, which was amazing. The next four hours were hot but extremely intriguing as we contemplated the historical events that took place throughout Tikal. Ryan thought it would be a good idea to skip breakfast and leave Tikal by noon. This was not a good idea! Luckily we ran into some vendors after a few hours trekking through the park. We left the park around 12:30 and were on our way back to Flores Island for the next few days.

We spent Thursday and Friday lounging around the small island eating comida economica and taking an occasional dip in the lake. The pace of life on Flores Island was as laid back as it gets. Since no buses were running on Good Friday we waited until Saturday afternoon to catch a bus back to Guate. This bus driver was one of the most irritating people to ever walk the face of the earth. He enjoyed stopping as many times as possible and taking his time at each stop. We made it back to the city, none the less, although it took damn near 11 hours.

Volcan Agua

Sunday morning Ryan, Laura, Chati (Laura's friend), and I headed to Antigua to pick up our other Guatemalan friend, Henry and his cousin David. Once in Antigua, we found Henry and his cousin and started to Santa Maria de Jesus to find the trail head to Volcan Agua. The road up to the base of the volcano was not in suitable conditions for the little VW we were driving, so after a few close calls with rocks and loose dirt we decided to park the car on the side of the road and start our hike. While this was not the smartest thing to do, leaving the car unattended in the middle of a dirt road, we didnt have many choices. So we headed up the road to find the trail head .

Henry thought it would be best to make a b-line up the mountain. This was a bad idea, as you'll see later but it did help us find the trail after a while. So once on the trail we found out it was going to be a 5 hour hike up and another 2 or 3 down which was okay since it was only 10am. So we continued up the volcano and soon enough we were split up with Ryan and myself ahead of the group and Henry bushwhacking it straight up the mountain. The volcano has something like 14 crosses that mark the path to the crater, and at the first one we were one man down with Henry god knows where. His cousin called him on the phone and found he was a few clicks ahead of us. So I started up the path looking for Henry and eventually veered off the trail too and found myself in a large field in the middle of the forest. Walking through this field I spotted Henry and joined him while the others made their way up to where we were at. Henry and I then decided to continue and make our own path straight up the volcano. Now at first this seemed like a good idea but soon enough we were crawling in thick brush and getting tangled up in vines. Not to mention it was fairly steep. Bad idea Henry!! So after about 30 or 45 min of this we made our way out and back to the trail covered with dirt and vines.

After this is when I lost Henry and found that Ryan was quite a bit ahead. So i double timed it and about an hour later reached Ryan with his new found Guatemalan friends. I was dead tired by this time only to find that we still had 2.5 more hours to go and it was getting damn cold. The rest of the way up the volcano was very cloudy, freezing, and a bit painful I must say. Right as I reached the peak of the volcano my legs started cramping in both thighs and i collapsed. So I laid on the rocks for about 20 min and then started down since i didn't have a coat and I couldn't feel my hands from the cold. Oh, and we couldn't see jack from the summit because of the fog!!! We ran into Henry about 100 meters down from the summit and he looked like hell. So the three of us ran most of the way down the mountain and got a call from the rest of the group that the car had been broken into. Big surprise! Come to find out they didn't take anything and it was just a small window in the back that was punched out. We headed back to Antigua to eat some dinner and see the Semana Santa procession and then back to Guate.