Chichicastenango

Thursday 2nd August

This morning started fairly early, as we had to be on the bus at 6am. I managed to skype mum (minus the audio - shame it doesn't work with her for some reason) before leaving, which was nice. We took a bus to Chichicastenango, a market town in Guatemala. The market takes place on Sundays and Thursdays and is the largest in Central America. When we arrived we went straight for breakfast, which involved some hilarious conversations led by Ernesto!

Ernesto led us around the market, and pointed out a church that we might have visited, had it not been closed for renovations. People were selling flowers on its steps instead. The market was quite busy and Natasha, Rose and I decided to stick together, for fear of getting lost. Ernesto had also made us nervous with the advice he had given us about avoiding having our things stolen or our bags slashed. We wandered around the market and at first we were wondering how on earth we were going to pass the next few hours there, as everything started to look the same pretty quickly. Textiles, clothing, jewellery, bags - all things I love to buy, but since I've bought so much of it on other trips I don't feel inclined to bring back a heap of stuff in the same way as I have on other trips. I did manage to find one or two nice things though. Natasha spent a good half an hour choosing between different colours in order to select two cushion things stuff with cinammon cloves. Apparently you put a warm container on there and it releases the smell, or something. I'm not entirely sure, but they were pretty and cinammon is one of my absolute favourite smells. I also got a few Christmas decoration, and yes, I succumbed to the jewellery and bought two bracelets. Haha. You had to bargain for everything, which I don't really like doing, but I think I got good prices for everything.

We were back on the bus by 2pm and the drive back to Antigua took about two and a half hours. We arranged to go for an early tea, since we're on a 4am bus tomorrow morning. We went back to the place we went to on our first night, since everyone was craving the fillet mignon steaks they had had. I had my nicest meal so far - grilled vegetable wrap with cheese, and chips. The wrap was gorgeous. I also tried a drink called Roja de Jamaica, which is a juice made from the hibiscus flower. It was quite nice.

  We got some snacks for the bus on the way home, and then went straight back to the hotel. Our groups is shrinking tomorrow. Una is going home, as her tour has ended, and Ernesto is only going with us as far as the border because we get a new guide for the rest of the trip, so we will be saying goodbye to him and his girlfriend tomorrow as well. From now on it will be just Natasha, Rose, Jeremy and I until we reach Costa Rica. A teeny tiny group.

Panajachel

Wednesday 1st August

We met for breakfast at 8am this morning and then all went down to the lake to take a boat from Panajachel at one side to Santiago at the other - an 18km journey. I think Ernesto said the lake was something like 125 square miles. The views were beautiful. There are three volcanoes around the edge of Lake Atitlan, the highest reaching about 3500m.

When we arrived there we met our three guides. Two were 14, and one was 11, all boys. Apparently they've been doing it for seven years! A lovely old lady demonstrated how the locals wear their hats, and I also placed an order for a couple of special pens, to collect on our way back. My group has already figured out I'm a stationery fiend. I couldn't resist getting my own teacher pen for less than a pound though!



  
The boys took us through the streets of Santiago. There were market stalls, and first we went to a house where a ritual was taking place. Maya and Catholic religion is all mixed together here. In the ritual, there was an icon called Maximon - a wooden doll dressed with dozens of ties, and two hats, one of which is loaned to any sick people who come to visit it. The doll is given alcohol and cigarettes, and people offer money and add ties around its neck. They then ask for all sorts of things - health, good business, better exam results, love, you name it. I think this can explain it better than I can, plus pictures, if you're interested, as I didn't take any (there was a charge): http://www.mayadiscovery.com/mayan-culture/dailylife/cult-maximon.asp

We also visited a large church next to a fairground, and the boys explained some of the history and meaning behind some of the iconography there. Behind the church was the place where a missionary who did a lot of important work in Santiago was assassinated. Afterwards we wandered through the streets again and everyone got gorgeous ice creams - topped with melted chocolate and nuts. YUM.

We walked back to the boat, got back on the boat and most of us dozed on the ride back to Panajachel. After that I felt really tired, so I decided to skip lunch and have a sleep instead. Best laid plans... I ended up on skype for an hour and a half, and then just as I was finished Natasha came back to the room and we had a mammoth three hour chat before tea.

Tea was delicious tonight. Ernesto took us to a Chinese place so I had an actual Chinese dumpling for starters (those of you who know me well will know that Chinese dumplings are my absolute favourite) followed by vegetables and noodles, and dragon fruit for dessert. Beautiful. We walked back in the rain (rain! Didn't think I would need my cardigan or my raincoat at all but have been wearing both this evening) and l had an early night.

Antigua to Panajachel

Tuesday 31st July 2012

I woke up before my alarm AGAIN this morning. How strange. I wish it was this easy to wake up on a morning at home. I'm getting bitten a lot on my legs here - must remember to use plenty of mosquito repellant from now on.

I had to pack up all of my stuff this morning ready for moving on. The nice thing is that since we're coming back to Antigua in a few days, we can leave our big backpacks at the hotel and only have to take enough stuff with us for two nights. I'm already glad to be rid of the thing; goodness knows how the others in my group must feel, as some of them have been travelling for eight months.

I went out for breakfast by myself to - you guessed it - Bagel Barn. I didn't take my netbook with me this time, to deliberately avoid wasting too much time on wifi. I enjoyed another of their Guate Guate bagels, and then went to Catedral de San Jose. For a few pence I got to wander round the ruined part that was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1700s, just a century after it was built.

Just opposite the street was the Museo de Arte Colonial. It was quite nice - mostly religious paintings, sculptures and furniture from the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. After that I wandered down to another small park called the Parque La Union, before visiting the Convent Las Capuchinas. It was home to nuns in the 1700s until the massive earthquake that also destroyed the cathedral. You can see the tiny compartments the nuns used to live in, as well as some artwork and lovely grounds.

 

On the way back to the hotel I was running out of time for lunch. I ended up getting nutella crepes - a bit naughty but bloomin' gorgeous. I met up with the other guys and we piled into a mini bus, to be joined by some others (including a rather grouchy Canadian couple who kept us entertained with their moaning) for a few hours until we arrived in Panajachel.

Panajachel is on the edge of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It doesn't seem to consist of much - just a few streets with tons of stalls all selling similar things: textiles, embroidered clothing in the local style, jewellry, bags. I'm doing well to resist so far. I had a bit of a wander down to the lake and up and down the main street and soon it was time to meet everyone for tea.

We went to a Uraguayan restaurant and my meal was a bit underwhelming to say the least - horrible tortillas with not enough cheese and tomatoes. Oh well - not every meal can be spectacular I suppose! We went straight back to the hotel and then I abused the free wifi while chatting to a local until quite late.

Antigua, day two

Monday 30th July 2012

I woke up at around 3:30am this morning and was wide awake from then on - oh dear. I got up at 5am to be ready for 6, including packing up all my stuff so that I could switch rooms; I'm sharing with Natasha from now on until practically the end of the trip. We all got into a mini bus not long after 6am, and after picking up a few others it stopped at a coffee shop so we could get drinks for breakfast. Cinammon tea, yum. It went nicely with the oatmeal and raisin cookies that Ernesto had got us.


After having breakfast we got onto a different bus - a yellow American school bus - and it took us an hour and a half (ish) to drive to the bottom of Volcan Pacaya. We then spent more than an hour and a half climbing up it. The path was cobbled to start off with but as we climbed higher it turned to ash, like black sand. Men with horses followed us the whole way up, trying to entice us into riding instead of hiking up. They called the horses "natural taxis" and when we asked one of them what their horse was called he replied, "Toyota." Haha. There were plenty of rest stops along the way and we got views of Volcan de Agua and the surrounding valleys on the way up. It was really beautiful. At first there were trees and plants on the way up, as if we were walking through woods, but as we climbed higher the landscape became sparse until eventually it was just an expanse of black sand with rocks dotted about.

You can't go all the way to the top - apparently it's too hot. Sometimes, when the volcano's been active, you can see lava and you have to be careful where you walk because the soles of your shoes can melt, especially if they're flimsy. I think someone said the volcano last erupted two years ago, so there wasn't any lava. Where we stopped there were holes in the rocks like small caves, and you could feel warm air coming out. The guides gave everyone sticks and marshmallows to toast. We had time for photos and a bit of a rest and then went back down the way we had come.

I managed to sleep on the bus journey back to the hotel, despite the cobbles. We went straight out for lunch to a place where you could choose one main and two side orders from a huge selection of different dishes. For some reason, as a vegetarian they said that I could choose FIVE side orders to go with my main, corn tamales. I think they were afraid I would starve without meat! I only took three sides in the end, as the portions were enormous - mini mountains of different sorts of mixed vegetables. I didn't even eat the tamales in the end, there was so much. We definitely needed a good feed after all that hiking.

On the way back to the hotel Ernesto took us to the Choco Museo - a chocolate museum. We got to try cacao beans, which are used to make chocolate - chocolate in its purest form, and very bitter. Natasha and I had cinammon chocolate drinks where you had to mix cacao beans, cinnamon, chocolate sauce and warm milk yourself. Gorgeous. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and went our separate ways for the afternoon. I headed straight out again with the intention of seeing a few parts of Antigua I hadn't been to yet. Instead I went to Bagel Barn first, had a gorgeous strawberry smoothie and proceeded to waste an hour or so on free wifi. By the time I'd done it was just past 5pm, and I realised that most of the museums and things shut at 5. Oops. I wandered round a few shops and then went back to the hotel a bit early before meeting everyone to go out for tea.

Ernesto took us to a place called the Rainbow Cafe this evenin, and I had Israeli falafal with houmous and warm pitta bread. YUM. Quite tired from the early morning start, we all went straight back to the hotel afterwards. Trekking up an active volcano takes it out of you!

Antigua, day one

Sunday 29th July 2012

I woke up quite early this morning; before my 7:30am alarm. Must be the jet lag. I was awake a little through the night, too. I battled against the language barrier again to get some tea and toast from the hotel, and then headed out to explore.

Parque central

I went to the Parque Central first, Antigua's main square. At 10:15am there were already quite a few locals there, sitting on benches around the fountain. Musicians were setting up to play, and horses and carriages waited around the edge to give peope rides. A few street peddlers approached me trying to sell textiles, jewellery and flutes, but none of them were pushy about it. There was a service going on at the Catedral de San Jose, which takes up one side of the square. Apparently there are ruins round the back of it that you can explore, as most of the catedral was destroyed in 1773 when it was only a little over 100 years old. Will have to go back tomorrow.

All of the streets here are cobbled, and the buildings are painted different colours. It was easy not to get lost because everything's built on a grid system. The city is surrounded by three volcanes: Agua, Acatenana and Fuego. (I briefly wondered if one of them was errupting this morning when I heard loud banging outside, but it must've been some fireworks. Haha.)

After wandering round quite a while, past a handicraft market, the Arch of Santa Catalina and the church of La Mercad, I decided to change some money at the bank. Even though most tourist places will (according to the guide book) accept US dollars, all of the prices are in the Guatemalan quetzal.

 

I walked back to the hotel to drop of some stuff and collect my netbook, then went to a cool little place called the Bagel Barn - mostly because of the free wifi. I realised that the wifi means I can message people through What's App on my phone too, yay. Gorgeous bagel - called guate guate, with egg, cheese and black beans and a bit of guacamole. It also came with a strawberry smoothie and a cup of tea - perfect. While I updated my blog I got chatting to an American called Corey; a really friendly guy who's been travelling for months and to most of the places I'm going to be visiting, so he was telling me lots about it and showing me some of his photos.
We decided to go up to Cerro de la Cruz together, via my hotel to drop off my netbook. (Thankfully it was on the way.) While I was there I briefly met two of the girls from my group, Rose and Una (from Australia and Ireland respectively) and my tour guide for Guatemala, Ernesto.

I headed back out and walked up the hill with Corey at a leisurely pace. The weather has been just perfect today - sunny and warm (shorts and t shirt weather) but not too hot for me. It was nice chatting on the way up, and when we got to the top the view was beautiful. There were lots of Guatemalan families there as well as some tourists, and a few of the locals wanted their picture taken with Corey just because he's black and over six feet tall.

We said bye after walking back down the hill, and I went back to my hotel as I only had an hour or so before my group meeting. I saw Ernesto and Rose again and also met Jeremy, another Aussie, before having a quick shower - my feet were so dusty from Cerro de la Cruz. We had the group meeting, where I also met Natasha, another Aussie who will be my roommate from tomorrow. There was also a German couple - don't know their names yet or if they're travelling with us for very long. Ernesto's really funny, and everyone seems really nice. We went out for tea together - I had yummy spinach and cheese quesadillas - and then a few drinks at an Irish bar before some of us went home for the night.