Guatemala

Border crossing, as I found out in this and all the other examples is not an easy task for me. I always have problems and I mean always. Belize to Guatemala border crossing is fairly straight forward, well for me it was not. As usually I forgot that there is a special fee to be paid (about $20) when leaving Belize. I found that I’m out cash when I was at the border town, and for some reason, none of the border towns have any banks or ATMs. So, I tried to negotiate with money changers. I wanted to get 17 B. $ for 5 euros, they only laughed at me. Then one of them offered me $5 for my sunglasses. My sunglasses, the only ones I have left, the ones I bought for $65! I got really mad; I told them that there are 2 professions which attract the lowest of all, and these are taxi drivers and moneychangers, in that order. But I after I met them, they became the first on that list. I went back and opened my emergency stack of cash. I gave the girl (who did not want to help me with anything because she was afraid to be fired) $100 bill +22 B $ (eleven American $). She gave me back 142 American dollars. I quickly left, thinking to myself that I just earned $30. And yes I did, however, what I did not know is that I had to pay it back, both to border officials and the moneychangers.

I took a bus to small village called El Remate. It was close to another Mayan site I wanted to see, the famous Tikal. I spent several nights on the tree bungalow in the jungles overlooking the lake. Sounds very romantic and it was, except for one little factor – I did not sleep for 2 nights I was there. Apparently the jungle monkeys and the proximity of 1001 village roosters give a concers every night without days off. It was terrible. I wanted to find a rooster and eat it, like I ate iguana, to at least satisfy my revenge. But nobody would fry a rooster for me; I had to settle for a chicken and a “Gallo” (pronounced gah-yo) which means rooster in Spanish. The amount of ads Gallo has in Guatemala made seem like the brand actual owns Gutaemala. To my surprise, as I found out later, it practically does. Well, it was a good beer anyways.

Tikal
I hitchhiked my way to Tikal (about 30 km) on a motorcycle, a pickup truck and my favorite on huge beer truck sitting on top of Gallo I entered Tikal reserve. Obviously I did not want to pay here too, so went to the jungle hoping to go around the entrance. Well I succeeded; the only problem was that, it is the biggest Mayan site known to man, so there was another guard checking the ticket. I played it dump and said that I lost the ticket, he sent me back… I don’t like going back, so I went back and went deeper in the jungle after an hour I found a footpath. I complemented myself on being so smart and went on, after another hour I was exhausted and was not sure where I was. Finally, I made it to a small complex of ruins and I could not believe my eyes. After another 30 min I at last found the main complex with pyramids. The site was humongous, I knew it was big, but man, that big. It seemed bigger than the Central Park. In fact it is 550 sq km!!! Only the center area is 16 sq km. Well it seems like the end of Tikal story but wait there is more. I climbed on some pyramids (without Coke, I probably would not be able to make it) and realized that was it. No sleep, bumpy rides, going trough the jungle and climbing on the pyramids completely warned me out. So went back, passed through the gate and I also changed my shirt so that the guard would not recognize me and you know what he did! He whistled back at me, a speeded it up. There was a track passing by so I climbed on it, then I saw a police car following this truck. Two main thoughts ran trough my mind: 1. what is prison like in Guatemala, probably not pretty and 2. How to say “penalty” in Spanish. Well, I successfully made it to the parking lot. I desperately wanted to get out but I could not there was another obstacle: they also were checking tickets on exit. That was too much for me, I went into the jungle again. Going around the check point through the forest took me another 45 min. I got on the road hoping to catch a ride. I got one soon after, when I was getting in the car the was a police truck pulling over and stopped right after the car which stopped to pick me up. I was terrified. The truck was following us for some time than went ahead, I was not sure if that was it or not. I was sitting in a car looking out of the window waiting for a SWAT team to arrive. Well, they did not, however, when we getting out the reserve there was another check point, where they were asking the tickets and the parking ticket, I pretended to be asleep, not very successfully however, but I made it. 45 min later I was at my village by the lake still looking behind my shoulder, waiting for the police to grab me. That was very stupid of my but I could not help it. Now I know what it is like to be on a run; couple of days like that and I would turn myself in.

Antigua
I was pretty tired and disappointed of that village so I decided to go to Antigua. Everybody told me that was a idiotic idea because I would not be able to get a room on “Semana Santa” (Holy Week). But I went anyways, and I was glad I did. It was Sunday morning I quickly found a room and wanted to go to bed because that night ride on a bus was pretty rough. I had bruises on my arms and hands in places where I was holding to my seat. So, instead I watched the procession, I did not know that there would be another 20 or more for the whole week. In any case Antigua was fun. I found myself an Antiguan family with 3 meals a day and a bed, plus a Spanish teacher for the next week, all for $120. I was really nice week. And when I just recovered, mentally and physically, I’ve decided to climb a volcano. It was one of the few active volcanoes in Central America; called “Pacaya”. Well, it was tiring but very rewording, when I saw the lava squirting from the top of the mountain I thought that we’d take pictures and go back (American way of thinking) but we kept on climbing. That was about 2 hours and 2.8 km uphill when my shoes began to melt and it began to be unbearably hot. I saw lava through the cracks under my feet. We still did not stop. I kept on thinking that something like that would never be allowed “in civilized” countries. But then again I saw people climbing steep stairs of Mayan pyramids with little babies and even infants. Not only they could’ve killed themselves but also there is a good chance of creating a “snow ball effect” and a lot of people cold get hurt. We only stopped when pieces of melted lava were falling down in front of us, this was when I saw a crazy lady cooking marsh melons with her kids on “open lava”. She gave me some to try, it was so unbelievable that I forgot to take a picture.

Lago de Atitlan
After my classes were done (did not make a lot of progress, oh well) I went to lake Atitlan, a very famous place in Guatemala. It is as everybody says, exceptionally beautiful. It is so beautiful, that the whites (gringos) pushed the very few remaining indigoes Mayan people from its shores up on its hills. The towns around the lake are occupied by mostly European descent people (some Americans too) who either own the hotels and the land or just live there. The true population had to settle themselves aside from the lake there their ancestors lived for centuries and only occasionally come to bath and wash their cloths in the lake. There was little or almost no interaction between the visitors and the village people. I went to San Marcos, a hippy-yoga-enlightened place for white crazies. I ran out of that place, the very next day, without even paying for my hotel. I went to San Pedro. The same was here but the whites were crazy in a different way, they were ganja-smoking mushroom-eating, psychogenic-full-moon-parting-rave-dancers, with a large portion (over 50%) of Israelis. Although it was cheap (15 quetzals=$2 for a night) I left next morning, hated the American girls who lived next door.