Guatemala
Sunday 08/08
Tikal
Up at 4:30! to catch a bus to the ruins of Tikal. It is a huge, spectacular Mayan city, which in its heyday was home to over 900.000 people. Some of it has been excavated, but a lot is still barely discernible under the thick jungle. The ruins are huge and complex, and we have to hike through dense jungle to get from one temple to the next..
Photo: C. Gardner
A cacophony of noises surrounds us - so many birds, crickets as noisy as dental drills. We spot some spider monkeys, and we hear some howler monkeys, but never see them - their call is strange and unearthly: it makes me think of someting from Stephen King or The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Monday 08/09
Lake Atitlan
Panajachel is a bustling little market village on the edge of Lake Atitlan, nestled in the middle of an old volcano crater. Nobody knows how deep the lake really is; some locals claim it goes down forever.
Photo: C. Gardner
The people here greet us with beautiful smiling faces and warm hello's. We wander through the markets all afternoon, gawking and bargaining.
Market girls in Panajachel
Tuesday 08/10
We charter a boat to visit some of the other small villages around the crater. Each is named after its patron saint, and along one side of the lake, there is a row of 12 villages named after the 12 apostles. Our first stop is San Antonio. Theirs is the patron saint of weaving, so here they weave gorgeous cloth and are committed to preserving their traditional dress. it is a tiny village with dirt roads; unitl a few years ago, there were no roads leading into the village (and no ferry!) so they had to hike 8 miles up the side of the crater to reach the main road to take their cloth to market.
A woman in Santiago shows us her traditional headdress.
In each of the villages, children offer to let us take their picture: they run up and strike a pose, shouting "Photo? Photo? One quetzales!" which we cheerfully pay them.
San Antonio
Wedensday 08/11
Antigua
Antigua is a Spanish colonial city surrounded by volcanic peaks. It has cobblestone streets laid out in a grid, with huge Catholic churches everywhere: they range from relatively nice, to crumbling abandoned ruins. The buildings along the streets are high, brightly-painted walls with enormous wooden gates, behind which everything happens. It has an very old, European flavour, which the city has preserved by prohibiting any modern signs from hanging in the streets.
On arrival in town, all 13 of us, with all our luggage, pile into the back of a little Toyota pickup truck for our "taxi" ride to the hotel - outrageously dangerous!
Onward to Honduras...