4.30am on Thursday we woke up to go on a boat tour of the nature reserve. Our guide arrived at 5.15am and had to go wake the hotel operator to come and unlock the gate to let us out. We walked through town to the dock and hopped aboard a small punt with two others and our guide took us on a trip for about an hour through mangrove swamps and canals and lagoons. It was quite pretty as the sun rose but we didn’t see much wildlife apart from cattle egrets and moor hens. I did catch a brief glimpse of a woodpecker which had a bright red head but it didn’t hang around long.


After the tour of the Mangrove swamp we headed to the hotel and back to bed for a couple of hours. Sarah hit the pool and I walked across to the beach to go for a swim. Quite a challenge to get over the sand as it was so hot that even the sand being flicked up by my thongs was burning my feet. Had a quick swim in the Pacific ocean which was refreshing and ran back to the hotel which then required a swim in the pool to cool off. Check out from the hotel was at 1pm and we had a wait until 4pm for the bus to take us to Antigua.
Transport to get out of Monterrico is fairly limited with no buses coming to the area. We didn’t want to go through the stuffing around we had with several minivans required to get back to Esquitla so the only option available was a once-a-day “shuttle” to take us all the way to Antigua. We had spent some time looking at options the previous day and despite some of the hotels claiming to have a 1pm and 3pm service, 4pm was all that there was.
We relaxed in the hammocks at the hotel for a couple of hours after booking out and went to the pickup point good and early as there was no way we wanted to miss out getting a seat on the bus.
The bus arrived on time and everyone piled on. After the roof was stacked with backpacks a few minutes later, we were heading out of town.

Finally leaving hell!

That’s right! Sounds like an idyllic seaside paradise doesn’t it. Even the photos look nice but they don’t capture the stifling heat and dust. The dog-poo and rubbish through the sand on the beach. The groups of dogs and pigs eating rubbish in the streets.

Our theme song for Monterrico was “Hotel California”, you can check out any time you want / but you can never leave…

Lets just say it fell far far far far short of our expectations and I would recommend visitors to Guatemala to not go there, and leave it at that!

[/rant]

Arrival in Antigua was early evening, too late to book a bus to Honduras to see the ruins at Copan. We checked in to the hotel we had stayed in previously in Antigua and went out for dinner.

Early next morning we did the round of travel agents and couldn’t find any shuttles going the 7 hour trip to Honduras that day. They usually leave at 4am so we were facing another night in Antigua and a ’wasted’ day. Time is getting a little short now to fit in all our plans as we are flying out of Mexico City on the 16th and have a fair bit of distance to cover.
We decided to scrap the side trip to Honduras as I would love to spend a week in Belize and do scuba diving so that will give us a few more days to play with. Having made the decision it was back to the travel agent to book a shuttle to Flores in northern Guatemala. They left daily at 4am and we were able to find one leaving 1pm.
After booking out of the hotel we had a coffee at the good old Bagel Barn and waited for the bus.
The agent had told me it was a 6 hour trip (Sarah thought he said 8) but in the end including the time it took to get Guatemala city it took 12! Was around 600km with lots of stops. It was a very long and tedious journey and as the day progressed into the night it became obvious we wouldn’t be arriving at 8-9pm as expected in time to find a hotel, but after midnight when all accommodation would be closed! On top of this, the old man sitting next to me was saying how dangerous the town was where we would be dropped off and we should get a taxi because of the bad people around! The bus station was in Santa Elena on the side of a lake. Flores is an island in the lake joined to Santa Elena by a causeway. Needless to say as we pulled into the dark town at 1.30am we were quite nervous. As we stepped of the bus there were to our relief a couple of taxi drivers waiting. I grabbed one and he drove us through some scarey looking streets and across the causeway to Flores. On the island there were lots of people out on the streets (being all hallows eve) and a police presence around so we felt a bit safer. He taxi driver stopped at a hotel and was able to raise someone to come and let us in. Needless to say we took the room and went straight to bed.

Friday was a rest day. Slept in, had a relaxing walk around the island which is quite small and has nice cobblestone streets like Antigua. Very quiet with many restaurant and hotels.
Was able to check our email from the hotel room picking up an unsecured WiFi network through the bathroom window or more comfortably from the hotel roof with a great view over the lake.

Monday was fairly uneventful and relaxing, spent some time at a café for brunch updating the blog and had a walk around town. We had dinner on Sunday night at a nearby restaurant called Picasso which was run by a German guy and had a hearty looking German menu. Sarah had a big Pork Snitzel and I had Lemon Chicken. Nice food accompanied by his two large dogs which lived in the restaurant. They hung around the tables in case anyone dropped stuff. Sarah became quite fond of Pirate who looked mostly Collie and had a black patch around one eye.

It had become quite windy around midday and remained so the rest of the day and night with the lake covered in little white-capped waves and the corregated-iron roof of our balcony noisily threatening to blow away.
Tuesday morning we packed our bags early and walked down to the nearby dock where we found a boat about to leave for Santiago Atitlan, the next village around the lake. We needed to get a bus south to the coast and thought we could get one from there. The boat dock was only just above the waterline and with the waves being whipped up by the wind we had to run along the slippery dock out to the boat to try avoid getting wet feet. Sarah was successful, I wasn’t! We boarded the boat and the man that took our money tried to make us put our packs on the floor at the front of the boat. I had a feeling they would get soaked there by the swell and we took them with us midway down the boat. As soon as we left the dock and started slowly making our way around the lake, the waves were splashing over the bow and water was spraying over the first several rows of people. (Us included) I sheltered behind my Backpack which had a rain cover on it until a plastic tarp was strung across the opening to give some protection. If our packs had been out the front they would have been sitting in water completely drenched. (Which the ticket guy must have known would happen! Bastard!!) After half an hour of ploughing through the waves and only thinking we were going to sink a couple of times, we came into a more sheltered bay and arrived at Santiago Atitlan.

The town was quite pretty on the hillside with lots more trees than San Pedro. Hopping off the boat we were greeted by a Tuk-Tuk driver and negotiated a 10Q trip to the bus station at the top of the hill. This was fortuitous as we arrived just in time to get a bus heading for Guatemala City via Escuintla where we would need to change to another bus. Perfect as we had expected to need to get three buses to get there.

We got a good seat on the bus and settled in for the three hour trip. First part of the trip was getting around the lake to the town of San Lucas Toliman skirting another Volcano and then the road turned south out of the mountains. The climate changed abruptly and dramatically.

Suddenly we could have been in Vanuatu or some other tropical island with the humidity and temperature increasing and the scenery changing to farms of sugarcane and Coconut palms. We were reminded of Vanuatu by the “living fences” along the road and in the farms. Some kind of tree that they use branches of for fence posts which take root, sprout and grow into another tree.

We passed through a few small towns and as we approached Escuintla we pulled our packs down from the bus rack and got prepared to leave via the back door. It was lucky we did because the bus barely stopped. Sarah had hopped out the back and had her backpack and the bus started up again as I was getting mine to pass out to her. Was a bit of a scramble to get off while the bus was going!

This is where the day which had been going quite well, took a turn for the worse. It was stinking hot, the town was dusty and dirty and we were being hassled from every side by people trying to get us to come in their minivans. We looked for a bus to take us south to San Jose but couldn’t find any and no-one we asked about buses was any help. After a while we saw the Golden Arches beckoning up the road and decided an air-conditioned respite was needed. After some wedges with cheese-sauce (aka McQueso Salsa, traditional Guatemalan meal.) and a McFlurry we reluctantly went back out into the scalding sun. After some more time and no sign of any buses we took up the offer of one of the minivan drivers who was going in that direction. We asked to go to Iztapa, which according to Lonely Planet was where we would have to take a boat across the river and then another bus the final 30km to Monterrico. We eventually arrived, after being transferred twice to progressively smaller and more dilapidated minivans, at the start of a relatively new looking bridge and are still discussing the merits of buying a several year old, 2nd hand copy of Lonely Planet. On the other side of the bridge we had a few minutes wait for another van which took us the final leg of the journey.
Arriving in Monterrico we had a 10 minute walk up the main street to the beach. We didn’t really know where to stay but had the name of one place Silvie’s more recent Lonely Planet edition had recommended.
A small girl who had been following us for a while asking if we needed a hotel showed us the way along the beach which was black coarse volcanic sand. We arrived at “Johnny’s on the Beach” which had a nice deck and restaurant on the beach. We were taken to look at a room but it was quite expensive at 150Q a night and smelt funny so we continued to another hotel called the “Brisas Del Mar” which was still pricey at 120Q a night but had a nice pool and the best bathroom we had seen so far on the trip.

After a swim in the pool and a cold shower we felt much better. The front of the hotel had a restaurant with a large seating area above so we lay in the hammocks for a while and enjoyed the sea breeze.
Monterrico has one paved main street which we walked along to look for a restaurant for dinner. They were all little family run comidores, empty and dark with little to temp customers to come in. Presumably the town is busier on weekends with the Guatemala City crowd because it was completely dead on a Tuesday night. We looked at the menu at one place and decided to move on and passing by again a few minutes later the owner had switched the lights out and put up the chairs, at 6.40pm they had given up on getting any customers! The place we did eat at was nothing special. Sarah had fried chicken and I had a steak. Very basic but tasty although it was served with an uninspired raw onion, tomato and cucumber salad.

Next morning (Wednesday) we walked through the town to see if there were any places to get a Coffee. A 10 minute walk down the main street took us to a dock where boats waited to take people for tours on the canals and lagoons of the nature reserve which Montericco is known for. We had been invited to come on a boat tour a few times (maybe 50 or so?) since we arrived in town and were thinking of going on one early the next morning. The small girl who followed us to the hotel had a friend who did tours who had been showing up at the hotel every few hours to make sure we hadn’t decided to go with another operator.

Walking back through town we found out from a “tourist information booth” tour operator where the Turtle Hatchery was. The hatchery is the main thing Monterrico is known for and the only reason we had come here in the first place. Sarah loves Turtles! 200 meters from the main road we came to the hatchery and found some baby leatherback turtles swimming around in an enclosure next to a fenced sand patch which they had recently hatched out of. There was a sign saying that they released the babies on the beach at 5.30pm and for a 10Q donation you could release one yourself.

We walked back along the beach to Johnny’s and had a coffee along with a quite nice breakfast (I had eggs poached in tomato salsa and Sarah had an omelet with ham and cheese) before going back to the hotel and spending the day between the swimming pool and the hammocks on the deck keeping out of the hot sun. A little before 5.30pm we walked back to the Tortuga (Turtle Hatchery) and paid our 10Q for a baby turtle and went down to the beach to wait. Down at the surf line we made the mistake of turning our back on the ocean and were swamped by a large wave which stole our thongs (that’s the footwear aka flip-flops for the non-Aussies) so we had a fun time chasing them down the coast for a few minutes trying to get them back.



The turtle people showed up with a large plastic tub of day-old leatherback turtles. Down on the beach a large crowd of people arrived and we exchanged our previously purchased ticket for a turtle and placed them down on the sand. The remainder of the tub was emptied out and the sand was a mass of little black turtles struggling towards the waves. As the lead turtles made it to the waves some boys picked up the stragglers and put them closer to the water’s edge. We felt a bit sorry for the little babies as they might have been struggling around in the black tub all day since they hatched!
















We walked back to Johhny’s for dinner along the beach.

Monday 27th 4am.
Woke at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Persevered until 4am but we went to bed at 8.30pm and there is a Rooster next door that has been crowing for quite a while and doesn’t sound like he’s going to shut up any time soon. There are a few around the town and they are taking it in turns. Took over from the dogs a little after midnight….

So we got up at 6am on Sunday morning to finish packing our bags in Xela. Left our little apartment for the last time at 7am and walked to Parque Central to McDonalds for breakfast. The breakfast burritos are surprisingly good and we also needed to split a 100 Quetzal note for the bus trip. Took a taxi to the bus station “Terminal Minerva” on the outskirts of town and got on a bus. The bus was one of the “Pullman” buses which are more expensive than the standard “Chicken buses” but the seats were more comfortable and the trip was quite fast as it wasn’t stopping at every little town to pick up and drop off people. The bus was headed to Guatemala City along the Introamericano Highway so we got off at a junction after a couple of hours and took another bus heading south to Panajachel on the shore of Lake Atitlan. After half an hour we came into the town and everyone got off and so did we, not realising that it was the town of Salcaja and we still had 8 km to go to Panajachel! Realising our mistake we took a break in the nearby Pollo Campero (KFC clone, didn‘t eat there just bought a drink to use their loos.) Consulting our trusty “Lonely Planet” we discovered that there wasn’t much to see in the town although the nearby Cathedral which we could see across the town square had a procession of priests attending on Sunday mornings. We walked across the square but found our way blocked by market stalls and decided it wasn’t worth the difficulty negotiating the crowded market with our backpacks on. Found another bus on the other side of the square and departed for Panajachel.



Shortly after leaving town we came of the top of the ridge and while descending the steep road down the side of the cliff (!) had an incredible view of Lake Atitlan. It’s quite large with little towns dotted around the edge and several volcanos dominating the skyline.




Arriving in Pana we had a 20 minute walk from the bus stop to the lakeside where we planned to catch a boat to San Pedro on the other side of the lake. Found someone who would take us and took a seat in the boat after being told it would be 25 minute wait.



The boat was a reasonable size with a dozen comfortable car seats strapped in so we weren’t optimistic that the boat would be leaving before finding a few more passengers. We were entertained by some children who had been swimming in the lake who kept climbing onto the front of the boat to stare at us. Half an hour later the boat guy came back with a couple of American guys who were heading to another lakeside village. He asked us again to pay (we said no when he asked earlier as we didn’t want to be waiting hours for the boat to fill. Once you hand over the money there’s no backing out.) and assured us the boat was leaving right now before heading back up the hill with our money to tout for more passengers. 15 minutes later we were finally underway after being asked to move to a less glamorous boat with hard wooden seats for the journey.


The trip across the lake was spectacular. The land beside the lake was steep slopes running up to high ridges and these slopes were dotted with houses and corn fields. There were some quite luxurious houses on the waters edge and we passed a couple of cute villages accessible only by boat. The Americans were dropped off at their village and a short time later we arrived in San Pedro.



We were greeted on the dock by a tout who said he worked for the municipality and offered to take us to some nearby hotels. He told us about three different ones and quoted rates which seemed quite high and when he started on some pressure tactics (“we had better go now because they will get booked out” Yeah right, on a Sunday afternoon in low season!) we ditched him and walked up the hill alone.
After a while we came to the San Francisco Hotel which was in Lonely Planet as having a great view of the lake. Francisco the owner showed us a few rooms and we took one on the top floor. The rates were 50% less than what the tout had claimed and we got a discount for two nights so it was only 50Q (about $8AUD) a night for a room with bathroom and the most incredible view .







The dawn is coming and the lake is silver with twinkling lights of the villages around the edge. The sky is clear but the tops of the volcanos and ridges have caught some wisps of cloud in places. I can see a small boat heading across the lake from the dock below and the hear the sounds of the town waking and birds are twittering in the trees. (and the roosters are still going too) Very peaceful.



Heaps more photos on Facebook.

Lake Atitlan

After three buses (would have been two but we got off one a town too early) and a boat, we have arrived at the town of San Pedro on lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlan is a beautiful ancient caldera surrounded by mountains and 4 or so Volcanos.

We are currently in a restaurant/cafe overlooking the lake having a beer and waiting for someone to come take our order. Tried the restuarant just up the hill first becasue they had WiFi available but they said they were closed for a private function so I am using their WiFi from here. *evil*

25/10/08 Sabado (Saturday)
After eggs on stale bread and fried up salami ( I didn’t have any but Damo said the salami was ok) (well the Salami just looks like the ham and the ham looks like Devon, so it was more like some type of thing that resembled Ham than Salami that Damo fried) we were off to meet Silvie to go to the markets at Totonicapan.
Totonicpan about 2hrs away by bus is a pretty town with an extremely busy market. We bought a long sleave top and a piece of weaved fabric that has some fabulous bright colours.
For lunch we had our usual Saturday food of delicious Tamales, this time Silvie came over and we sadly said goodbye after lunch.
We are off early tomorrow and had to pack the bags and we will be off again.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

24/10/08 Viernes (Friday) Today I woke up excited like it was the last day of term at high school. OK, Spanish school was very beneficial but I’m just so excited to start travelling around. Spanish is hard and very challenging. I’m glad for the experience but I’m happy to get moving. I had an exam and only got 60% and that was with the teacher helping, Damian got 85% but disclosed to me that they studied each section in great detail before answering the question. I get the feeling that the exam is more to mark the teachers on how they teach than giving the student a ranking. We all went out to dinner for Tacos which were average, we then went out for a few drinkies after and that was fun.

We met with my teacher Alma at the cemetery gates at 2.30pm for a walk around the graveyard. November the first is a big day for remembering deceased relatives with many families have picnics in the cemetery along with music and dancing. Big fiesta time. There were quite a lot of workmen sprucing up the grounds and a few vaults were being repainted for the big day. That’s right, Vaults. Some quite large with underground chambers for the bodies. Most were above ground in various styles.





Saw a couple of pyramids and one looked like it was modelled on the Greek Parthenon.








Past all the vaults we came to the poor section which was full of people who couldn’t afford a big vault or hadn’t been able to keep up the rent on them. These were graves more like the norm in Australia but with piles of rubbish and grass clippings strewn between them being a dump for the “proper” cemetery.

Excursion after school was to “Los Vahos” which was an hour walk over the hill from Xela. Quite a nice walk with a good view over the city and and across to Baul which had been climbed the weekend before.












Sarah hadn’t felt like coming on the walk so it was just Silvie (student), Domingo (teacher) and myself. “Los Vahos” was a rather rustic building housing thermal sauna/steam bath rooms. We had a large room with a couple of day-beds to change in which led on to a small room with a cold shower and another doorway to a very small sauna room. Lots of heat and steam and the hot tiles had eucalyptus leaves spread on them which certainly helped to clear the nose!


Couldn’t spend more than 15 minutes in the sauna and felt very relaxed when we emerged.
During the walk back to Xela it looked like we were going to be caught in the rain but despite seeing the rain-clouds bearing down the valley in the last of the daylight we managed to avoid getting wet.

We decided to go climb the nearby hill of Baul which we could see the top of from our apartment. Wasn’t very far to the base through the outer suburbs of Xela. We found a path running through the forest and headed up the slope. There were a few other families on the walk and after an hours climb we got to the lookout.

On the walk up on the muddy path we were suprised to see quite a few of what looked like Wichetty Grubs crawling along the dirt?!

Warning, bad Steve Irwin impression!



There was a great view of Xela from the top of the hill.

SPIDER-GOAT

Saturday we went to the Museum next to central park. Lots of different displays of Mayan artifacts and indigenous plants and animals. There were also lots of (badly) preserved stuffed animals and animal (including human) foetuses in Jars. The highlight was Spider-Goat who had two bodies and 8 legs.

Spider-Goat, Spider-Goat,
does whatever a spider ….. Can.

No school on Friday!

Instead of school today we had an excursion to the town of Almolonga which is an agricultural town 6 km from Xela. We had been through it a couple of times on the bus on the way to Zunil but hadn’t stopped there. The town was a hive of activity centred around the church and marketplace. There were huge piles of vegetables for sale which were grown in the fields around the town.



We had a walk around and then headed downhill towards “Los Banos” which are more hot springs feeding bath-houses. It was a half hour walk through green fields to get there where we hired a couple of rooms at one of the many establishments. (There were 8 of us in the group, 4 students and 4 teachers.)






The rooms were quite large with a big concrete tub recessed in the floor with a hot and cold tap. The water was very hot and we had to add quite a bit of cold to the tub to make it bearable. It was very relaxing in the tub and supposedly the water has health benefits being high in Sulfur. We spent an hour or so soaking and took the bus back to Xela.

Earthquake!!!

Nothing much really but we just experienced our first earth-quake. We are having lunch at a cafe and the room started shaking. Silvie who is with us barely blinked an eye as she lived in Burundi in Africa for a while and they had lots. Nothing to worry about apparently!

Online News report.

Last Sunday I woke up with a sore throat but didn’t think much of it. (4 am start, didn’t get much sleep, climbing a volcano all day...) Feeling poorly on Sunday night and on Monday morning it was apparent that I had a nasty cold. Monday afternoon we stopped off at the “Farmaci” on the way home to get some cold and flue tablets or throat lozenges. The woman behind the counter/cage (most of the small shops have the staff and all products locked behind bars. The bigger ones just have security guards with shotguns) offered a range of strange unidentifiable liquids when I requested something for a sore throat. We asked if they had any tablets and I was offered something with the brand name of “Speedy” (Amphetamines anyone?). We just took some Vitamin C tablets and tried a larger chemist instead. They had some throat lozenges available which came in a box of 100 but they sold them by the strip! Must have needed a prescription of some kind or maybe a controlled substance because they asked for a name to put down on the hand written receipt.

Climbing the Volcano

Sunday morning we woke up at 4am (Very difficult!) and walked to the nearby Parque Bolivar just before 5am to meet our lift for a trip to the Volcano Santa Maria. On Friday during our break from class, Sarah and I had gone for a walk around the block and stopped in at one of the travel agents to look at tours. Back at school we talked about it with another student, Silvie and she was keen to come as well so we headed back after class and booked in with a group. There are many Volcanos around this part of Guatemala, I was hoping to climb Volcan Tajumolco which is a two day trip and is the highest mountain in Central America (4211m). The guy we spoke to said there hadn’t been any trips there for a couple of months as there were problems with access through a village and it was too dangerous!! But he said maybe next week it would be ok….. Right! Might pick another one.

Santa Maria is close to Xela and has a great view of the area. It is dormant, last erupting in 1902 but has an active vent forming a new volcano next to it which can be viewed from the top. The walk up takes 4 hours and is a difficult climb but we were game.

So we got to the meeting point and there was a taxi waiting with our guide. A 20 minute drive took us out of the dark city which looked very different under the cover of darkness, piles of garbage on the street corners awaiting collection and the street dogs scavenging through them.

Arriving at the end of the road we alighted and met with the others who were coming on the walk. There were 10 of us in the group from all over the world, UK, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Israel, USA and of course Australia. It was 5.30am as we started off and we could see the Volcano silloetted against the sky with some cloud sitting around the top. Hopefully when we get up there it will be clear. It didn’t look too difficult from there. (Naïve fools!) Starting altitude, 2500m.

The road ended and we followed a cow path up the hillside for a while between fields of Corn until the fields gave way to woodland. It wasn’t difficult going and as the sun came up, we felt some achievement as the valley behind us was getting more distant. After an hour or so we stopped for a break just short of the slopes of the volcano, having conquered merely the foothills. The group was split into two so the slow folks wouldn’t hold back the speedy ones. Guess which group we were in!
While we were having a break we were greeted by a couple of mutts which we named scab-dog #1 and scab-dog #2. They were quite good natured and obviously saw us as a source of food. They were from the village below and were very fit considering they followed the first group to the top of the volcano and then joined us for the trip back to the village. Probably their daily routine!

The speedy group quickly disappeared into the distance and after another half an hour climbing apparently Sarah and I were holding back the slow group so they ditched us as well. The path was quite steep and was stepped. We were up well over 3000m at this stage and with the thin air and steep path it was quite hard going. My pulse was at 140bpm and Sarah thought hers was higher so we were taking it fairly slow with frequent breaks. After what seemed like an eternity climbing higher and higher the trees thinned out and we could finally see the top of the mountain. By this stage we were completely surrounded by cloud so no view of the valley but the mist blowing through the trees was pretty cool and spooky.

Finally at almost 10am, we dragged ourselves on to the top of the mountain to join the others who were taking a well earned break. Surprisingly the slow group had only beaten us by 15 minutes! It had taken us 4 hours and 20 minutes to walk almost 8km climbing to a height of 3770m AND THERE WAS NO VIEW! We had a bit of a rest and took some pictures of the clouds. The fast group and most of the slow group took off back down the mountain with us following shortly thereafter.










The trip down was easier but still took 3.5 hours to get back. After a while everyone’s knees were screaming so although we weren’t taking frequent breaks it was still slow going. As we neared the village we passed people working the fields. I was impressed with the progress of a couple of men we had passed at 6.15am who were ploughing a field by hand and were still at it!
The trip back through the fields took forever as we were all exhausted. Sarah got cranky with me at one stage when I pointed out that we were being outpaced by an old man using an axe as a walking stick and carrying a heavy load of wood on his back.
Finally we arrived back at where we started at 1.20pm. Almost 8 hours, walking 16 km from 2500m to 3770m and back and we were absolutely spent. The taxi trip back into the city was a quiet one and we walked from the park painfully back to the apartment, did very little the rest of the afternoon and went to bed at 7pm.

Woke the next day very sore but with quite a feeling of achievement.

Second week in Xela

Saturday 11th October.
During this week apart from school we had a trip on Tuesday to the nearby town of Salcaja, renowned for having the church of San Jacinto which is the oldest Catholic Church in Central America, built in 1496. It was relatively drab on the outside but had some interesting decorations on the front like bunches of Bananas! The Spanish giving thanks for the bounty of the New World I suppose. Inside was quite nice with lots of wooden beams and a beautiful altar.












On Thursday we went to another nearby town called Zunil (founded in 1529) which is an agricultural town in a valley. It was raining and the river running through looked quite high and muddy. On the flats by the river were fields of crops. We crossed the river and walked up the hill into the town. First stop was a co-op which sold traditional clothing and fabric made by the local women. One thing we noticed about Zunil was the women and girls were predominantly wearing the colourful traditional clothing. Very different to Xela.




Up the hill a little way was the large church which dominated the town. We had a look inside and noted more mannequins including another glass Jesus-in-coffin display. This one had piles of money inside to accompany Jesus to the afterlife.




Walking further up the hill we were taken to see “San Simon” which we had read as being referred to as a cult. The Lonely Planet describes him as a “local Mayan hero venerated as a saint by the local people“. Every year they have a festival of San Simon and he moves to a new house. The house we visited was up a muddy little path and we were taken into a dark room lit only by candles at the feet of another mannequin sitting in a chair dressed in colourful clothing wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses! We were charged 5 Quetzal each (90cents) to enter and another 10 to take photos. It was dark and kind of creepy inside so we didn’t stay long. Outside I noticed a woman setting up a new fire to make offerings. There were the coals of the previous one beside her and I could see the remains of a chicken. The new fire had some eggs arranged among the kindling and she had a number of cigars ready to go on as well!



Saturday morning we headed back to Zunil and took a van another 8 km into the hills to go to “Fuentes Georginas“, which is the “prettiest, most popular natural spa in Guatemala” according to Lonely Planet.
www.lasfuentesgeorginas.com






It was a beautiful place. A little waterfall running down into a steaming pool surrounded with tropical vegetation. There were three pools, the first one with the little hot waterfall running into it. This pool was the first one Sarah and I got in and it was VERY hot. Like a bath that you dip your foot in and have to take it out. Oddly enough in the couple of hours we were there we were the only ones to go swimming in there! Everyone else just stuck their feet in and then went to the cooler pools. From the hot pool the water ran into two other small pools which were cooler. Very relaxing to wander between the pools with a cold shower in between with water from the creek.










More pictures from the trip so far on Facebook.