Karin's Guatemala-trip
2nd Dec 20062 weeks trip to Mexico, Tikal & Belize So, after having a big goodbye-party at the house with all foreign & Guatemalan friends and some of te teachers from school, me, Maria and Jenny set of towards San Christobal de las casas, Mexico. The shuttle left 4am, and arrived to San Christobal around 4pm, 12 hours!! It was a long trip, but we were prepared, and hadn`t slept at all during the night (a good reason to keep the party going just a bit longer..=) so we slept like babies in the shuttle always all the way to our destination. Arrived in San Christobal, and realized that it was cold..close to freezing! Apparently a cold front had just struck this part of Mexico..yey! We hurried up to find a nice and cheap hostel, put on all of our warm sweaters, and then went out to explore the beautiful city of San Christobal. It reminded me a bit of Antigua, with its cobbled stoned streets, old ruins and little shops & cafes all over the place. Ate some nice, Mexican food, that led to some not so nie food poisoning later that night. Luckily it only lasted that night, but we spent the next day sleeping. Unfortunately the door to our room wouldnt close, so we had cold air sipping in all night. Slept with all my warm clothes on and 2 warm blankets, and was still shaking from the cold! So, that evening woke up without any more signs of food poisoning, but with the flu. Nose running, head aching..yeah, you know the symphtoms. So also that night was spent in bed. The next, and last, day - I finally felt better, and we set of to do some shopping. The market in San Christobal was huge! A lot of stuff they were selling was similar to the things you could find in Guateala, but they also had their special things - ponchos, wool sweaters, jewlery made out of beans, seeds etc. It was fun to see! In the afternoon we took a bus to a close by little village, extremely poor and not very nice, but famous for its beautiful church. The outside wasn`t anything special, but when we entered the church we were pretty stunned. There were candles EVERYWHERE! Ive never seen so many lit candles in one place before I think..it was very beautiful! The floor was covered in grass, and people were sitting in small groups with a whole bunch of candles in front of them, different coloured candles for different purposes - health, joy, wealth, family etc. There were candles for all kinds of problems! For example, one dark purple candle is to be lit if you think that your neighbour is jealous of you, and might do something to hurt you. One other thing that was very special for this church (although it exists in several other churches in Mexico) is that people believe that the way to chase away evul spirits from inside of you is to "burp" them out. So people were sitting around their lit candles, praying out lous, drinking coke and rum and burping..interesting! That night there was a big bonfire & BBQ at the hostel, really nice! We met a lot of nice people, all with their own traveling-stories. Later we went out to a club where there was a band playing, all sorts of music - from Maná and Juanes to Coldplay and Beatles. The singer had a great voice! The next morning we left for Palenque, situated a couple of hundred miles east of San Christobal, famous for its maya ruins & beautful waterfalls. We visited two of the falls, and then the ruins. It was very interesting to see all the temples and trying to imagine what it looked like a couple of hundred years ago, when it was not an archeological site, but a city. We spent that night in Palenque, and the next day continued our trip. We passed the boarder to Guatemala again, had to pay waaay to much taxes (as a said before the police here are terrible corrupted, and the system ore or less caotic. Thats why the police at the boarders can charge you as much as they want to. Sometimes they dont charge anything, other times it can be up to 300quetzales (300kr, or about $35) this is kind of pissing me of, had a long discussion with the boarder police after seeing the man before me in line pass without paying anything, and then they charged me 300quetzales. Anyways, it didnt lead anywhere, and I didnt feel like 300q was worth going to jail for, so I just payed it. After a couple of hours more in the bus we arrived to Flores, a cute little island (well, kind of island..it is connected to the mainland only by a small strip of land) Walking around the island takes about 20 minutes in total, but even though its so small there are a lot of things going on! A lot of cosy little shops and restaurants with excellent food, almost all of them with a magnificant view of the lake. What is better than watching the sunset while eating a delicious (and cheap!!) meal (the seafood here was probably the best I`ve ever had!) and sipping on a sangria? It was great! The morning after we got there we went on an extremely early morning tour to Tikal, the most famous archeological Mayan site in the world I would say, with temples rising high above the trees of the jungle. At 3.30am (!!) we dragged ourself out to the waiting shuttle that took us to Tikal. We had to make a 30 minutes walk through the jungle in absolute darkness, quite an experience! We couldnt see anything, but all around us we could hear the "howler monkeys" grouching, and throwing themselves from tree to tree. Finally, after a long, dark walk, we arrived to the highest temple of Tikal. We climbed to the top (quite an effort I must say!) and sat down to await the sunrise. This was probably one of the coolest experiences Ive ever had, as the sun slowly rose above the treetops of the jungle, temples appeared all around us, and the air filled with sounds from the animals waking up in the jungle. It was absolutely amazing! After watching the sun rise, we continued our tour through Tikal. We had a really good guide, who gave us information about all the temples - what they had been for, how the life was for the mayans when they lived there etc. It was really interesting! Tikal is huge, and you need more than a day to see all the temples, so we just saw the most important ones. Ofcourse we climbed them all as well (phuuuuh!) The temples were beautiful! All built in their own, inique style. After lunch it was time for us to return to Flores, all exhausted, but content. When we came back to Flores the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, and we decided to take a nap on the roof top of the hotel. Thats one of the things I love about this place, almost every hotel or hostel has a rooftop, from where you get a beautiful view of the city (and the lake as well, in this case!) That night we went out with some guys that we met in the hotel, had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed some live music (a band from Mexico was playing at the restaurant) The next morning we packed our stuff, once again, and set of towards our next and ast destination - Belize! However, I don`t have time writing about that now, it will have to wait until tomorrow. (I hope you are not going to die of curiosity, hehe) sooo...hasta luego!
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