Following my last note, I traveled for a week and a half from Flores, to El Remate and Poptun in the Peten (Northern Guatemala) to Coban in the central part and east to Lanquin, Cahabon, El Estor and Rio Dulce. After which, I returned to my recent Guatemalan home, San Pedro, for holidays with some friends and my last week and a half in the country.
El Remate is another sleepy town on Lake Peten on the opposite side from my previous home for a week San Andres. I stayed there for two nights and went canoeing in the lake for 4 hours the first day. During my canoe trip I came across an injured duck who was more the happy to let me pick him up and pose for some cool fotos with me. Tried to help him but he was pretty helpless. Then I put him back in the lake and a Guatemalan came by and scooped him up and took him home for dinner.
From my open-air bungalow in El Remate, I arose at 5am and headed to Tikal. The ruins at Tikal are awesome. I highly recommend them and am positive that this is the coolest thing I have seen in Guatemala. There are many building structures over a huge area of the jungle which include 3 pyramids of more the 40 mtrs in height and one of more than 60. The aforementioned, rise above the rainforest and after climbing several hundred steps to the top, provide a view I can´t really describe adequately. Also, I got to see my beloved monkeys swinging around in the trees. But unfortunately missed out on seeing a Tucan.
From El Remate and Tikal I headed to Poptun where I stayed at a place called Finca Ixabol which has a pretty interesting history complete with the Guatemalan army murdering one of the owners and possible CIA involvement. But now it is just an overpriced summer camp for grown ups. I was a little bit disappointed actually although I did have a lot of fun there. Food is served family style so it is a good place to meet people from all over the world.
At the Finca, I went on a caving trip that was really cool. A two hour hike in the jungle each way to and from the cave and then two hours in the cave or more appropriately in the river. The cave was formed by an underground river. We climbed and swam about 2 kilometers into the cave to reach a waterfall. At which point, we jumped off the rocks into total darkness. The sensation was similar to what it must feel like to jump into a black hole but in reality it was just a 6 or 7 meter jump.
On the way out of the cave we heard a loud shriek and all turned to see that this chick from England smashed her head on a stalagtite and had fallen back on her ¨bum and hand¨ and had blood pouring down here face. She was pretty tough. Didn´t even get too scared about the blood which was considerable. And of course, the guide didn´t have any first aid type stuff to help out. This is Guatemala. So we just did the appropriate thing and leisurely stopped for lunch and then did the 2 hr hike back.
From Poptun, I headed to Coban which is a town of about 20,000 people in central Guatemala. On a map it looks like it is about 3 hours away from Poptun at the most but do to the lack of roads in this part of Guate I had to do a big circular route to get there which took 9 hours.
While in Coban it came to my attention that the first game of the two game soccer championship of professional soccer in Guatemala was being played in the city. Half jokingly, I asked if there were any tickets left and was surprised to here the response, ¨of course¨. So I headed over to the ¨stadium¨ five minutes before the game and got a ticket for $4 US. The stadium did not have any seats, only needed to find a spot on the hills around the stadium. There were 15,000 people at the game in a city of only about 20,000. Coban, a huge underdog, won the game 3-0 against Muncipal from Guat City. And the place was roaring. Also, there were 2 fights in the game and three ejections.
I met up with 4 cool people in Coban that were heading to Lanquin. So the five of us joined up to see Semuc Champey another beautiful spot in Guatemala. It is also the location of a river that goes underground and above the river are huge natural baths for swimming. The site is squeezed in amongst the mountains of central Guatemala. It was really stunning. I climbed dangerously close to the underground river while two Guatemalan women flailed there arms and yelled words of discouragement at me. I talked to them a bit later, and it turns out one of there friends died in the exact spot I was screwing around in.
From Lanquin, three of us tried to head to El Estor which is supposed to be ¨really hard to get to from Cahabon¨. But we were sure we could do it. 17 hours later, after sitting on the side of the road in Cahabon trying to find a ride on the dirt path that leads to El Estor, we caught a truck at 3am for the 4 hour trip. As a friend said, ¨ït was an experience.¨
In El Estor, I visited a 20 meter hot waterfall which reachs a very cold river passing below. The hot water comes from two natural springs a couple hundred meters from the site of the fall that the security guard was nice enough to show me while telling me stories about hot tourists chicks skinny dipping there.
From El Estor I headed to Rio Dulce and caught a bus back to San Pedro for the holidays. But first, I hit McDonalds for my first fastfood experience since leaving the States way back in October. Upon my arrival back in SP, I was thrilled to see that my friends had also returned and I would have some people to share the holidays with.
Christmas in San Pedro was pretty low key. I woke up to notice that a rash on my left leg had spread considerably and I have a bad case of poison ivy. My left leg is basically covered and I have some spots on my other leg, my arms, and my side. Really charming stuff.
One more week and I am off to Panama and Peru.
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