Esteli : first impressions

LOVE IT!!!! I feel very good about this place. The climate, for a start, is lovely... all warm during the day, with glorious clear blue sky and then warm enough for a summer dress yet cool enough not to be bitten by bitey things in the night.

The local connections. Esteli is twinned with Sheffield. Freedom Road in Walkley is twinned with Cale Libertad in the Monte Sinai barrio of Esteli, a social housing project. The two streets and a third Freedom Road in Australia celebrate their connection with simultaneous street parties at least once a year and have swapped letters, recipes and family news by Internet. Last year, I saw a fabulous concert in Walkley’s community centre by a well established Nicaraguan musician and his English wife, a classically trained musician who has been living in a small agricultural community just outside Esteli for the last 5 years and whose life is now here, and entirely different from what she might have projected 7 years ago!

The setting. Esteli is up from the b*stard hot dry low plain leading in form Leon. The journey up in the bus was great. The bus was full of young UNAN students who board weekly in Leon and then have to face hot crowded 3, 4, 5, 6 hour commutes home at weekends to Esteli and the communities surrounding it. I sat next to a trainee medic, from an extended family of medics. Like UK medical students, she said that she doesn’t have much time to go out partying during the week.

So, Esteli lies up from the B*stard hot plain and in the foothills of the Selva Negra, Black Forest, mountains, apparently named by German settlers for the similarity to their own Black Forest back home. The town slopes off to each side, so peripheral streets give views out to the relatively green hills and farmlands and forest reserves beyond town.

Our accommodation and a great ‘coincidence’. We dropped in first to a Peace Corps stronghold (the town has a long political history of NGO and Internacionalista involvement from the War). Bill went off exploring other hostals and came back suggeting one run by an English woman. An unusual choice for us, as we tend to favour locally owned places. Hot, tired, grubby we walked in and dumped our bags. My attention was vaguely taken with a young woman on the sofa.

Sure enough. It was Hannah, the musician from Limon/Walkley concert. It was a beautiful coincidence, the more so, since she was simply visiting the hostal to see a friend, and because I had lost her email address, from our conversation in Walkley. She now has a young child, Roxanna.

Hostal and cafe Luz are the initiative of Janey, who came to Nicaragua’s Miraflor reserve as a volunteer, loved it and has come back to stay. She also is now raising her child here. Profits from the businesses go into local grassroots projects, and Janey hasa great sense of what interested travellers will want to know about Esteli town and the local surrounds. She is well networked into an ecotourism, homestay project set in the Miraflor reserve and enthusiastic to share information with visitors to help them access exactly what they are interested in, rather than leaving people simply taking a standard package.

I am hoping to milk a cow.

Tortugas and Las Peñitas

20th - 22nd February.



The waves roll in from the wide, blue Pacific, tumbling over into surging lines of foaming water before crashing into the dark yellow beach. The noise makes conversation impossible below a shout when walking at the edge of the surf. Welcome to Las Penitas, a small beach destination only a 45 minute bus ride south of Leon.



Here, the Pacific takes prisoners if you are not careful when entering the ocean. The undertow tugs at your legs, the occasional wave threatens to bowl you over. This is not a gentle swimming beach like those we have seen in the Caribbean. This sea is a monster who will gobble you up and, if your family is lucky, spit out your remains somewhere along the shore. It is a sea to treat with respect and caution – and is a whole load of fun to play in; leaping over the smaller waves, diving under the big crashers. Timing is of the essence to avoid being slammed into the hard sand and shingle. It gets the adrenalin coursing and every so often encourages a return to the beach to regather your wits.



More gentle, much more gentle, is the mouth of the river with is sheltered behind a long sand island where turtles come to lay their eggs. The river is not sluggish, and just lying in the shallow warm waters you are gently turned and pushed towards the sea. The broad expanse of fresh water is home to numerous birds, waders, gulls and vultures, who line the banks and sand bars or stalk fish in the shallows. Further upstream the river slowly narrows to a mangrove-flanked wilderness that is a joy to explore by kayak, the silence only broken by the quiet directions of our guide Miguel pointing out a well-hidden camouflaged bird, the splash of an oar or fish, the call of birds or the rustle of something moving in the undergrowth. The occasional small log boat, ironically piled high with fresh-cut logs, chunters by or the larger, and more polluting, local fishing boat taking tourists on a noisy and dirty tour.

Arms tired from the unaccustomed effort of paddling, legs from being kept straight out in front and spirits drop until Miguel turns us around and we row with the current. We are tiring now and the mangrove does not appear to be moving past any quicker than when we went upstream but in less than 45 minutes we are back near the start of our journey, which had taken 2 hours upstream. Here we see the highlight, today’s freshly-hatched Atlantic Green Turtle babies desperate to find the sea. Except, they are penned in so that they can be released when it is dark and less of their predators are around. This is a hatchery where turtles break out of their eggs in a grid numbered from A-Z and 1-10. The eggs are laid along the beach at night by turtles returning to their own birth place and gathered up to be kept under the protection of guards. Our little 40 or so newly-borns come from V3. The urge to get to the sea is unabated for hours as the baby turtles continually cross and recross their pen searching for the water. It supposedly makes these tiny little things stronger and better equipped to make their dash through the pounding surf. They must be tossed and rolled like on a giant rollercoaster gone mad given the impact those waves have on us. Maybe two to five in a 1,000 will survive to return one day and give birth themselves on their beach. But will they find V3 if they do?

Leon

13th – 19th February


Lion of Leon

Leon – gently-fading, paint-peeling, left-leaning, Sandinista-supporting, heat-sweltering, Colonial-Spanish, ex-capital of Nicaragua.


Door Man


Door to Somewhere...once

We have had a very enjoyable few days here. In many ways it is just an ordinary small city with little major ‘pull’ to attract tourists. It is not a Granada or Antigua. And that is what is good about it. This means that people who live here either ignore you or treat you like anyone else without trying to sell you anything. Quite a few people randomly come up asking for a dollar and sometimes people stare for the novelty of seeing a gringo in town.

There are few major sites.


Viewing the Cathedral

The most obvious is the splendidly blocky cathedral is the largest in Central America and squats there like a manga sumo wrestler. It is tough and uncompromising, not graceful.


Nuns Gather at Night

What it is notable for are massive paintings of the Stations of the Cross inside, and four Atlas-like sculptures high up on the front supporting cross walls.


Bloody Heavy these Colonial Cathedrals

There are a few other interesting colonial churches, the yellow La Recollocion being the most architecturally beguiling and the 19th Century El Calvario being simply awful; a demented cross between Trumpton and Legoland. A small adobe church in the suburb of Sutiava is an interesting indigenous church.


Attendance at La Recollocion

The streets are almost invariably lined with colonial period single-storey buildings. All equivalent to those in Antigua yet peeling paint is testimony to the lack of funds for restoration and give a greater appeal for lived-in character. The theatre is a boldly coloured delight.


Leon Theatre


Drama Queen of Leon

Like many Central American colonial towns there is plenty of street life, from fruit and hot dog vendors to the tinkling bell alert of a hand-pushed ice cream cart or the Sunday special toy cars for children. The central park, outside the cathedral, is one of the best used we have seen so far. The market is enjoyable and a great place to buy your fruit, vegetables, tamales, tortillas and cheese. In Sutiava, the Casa de Queso is recommended for cheese-lovers.


Street Food


Bottle Shop in the Park

Our highlights, for very different reasons, are:

The Ortiz Art Foundation. A private family’s amazing collection of Latin American art, mostly Central American, from the 15th century to contemporary housed in two large, beautiful courtyard colonial houses. The collection is a major one by any means and holds one intriguing contemporary art piece after another that largely have clever techniques and sense of humour in common. Worth more than one visit.

The Sandinista tour and Sandinista memorials. You can read more of these below.

Lazybones Hostel. Perhaps the best accommodation we have yet stayed in on this trip. Two courtyards form the focal points for a relaxed and well-kept hostel that gets the right balance between easy-goingness, services and tranquillity. With a pool, free internet and WiFi, free tea and coffee (a blessing after the tea desert that is El Salvador) and a pleasant courtyard of rocking chairs below a grand mural aswell as the right attitude from the owners creating a peaceful, respectful clientele it is a lovely home-from-home. A double costs C$325 at the time of writing. Highly recommended!

The Cocinita Vegetarian Restaurant. Set in another lovely colonial building, the food is great. The only thing we had a problem with was what to do with the first large choice of meals for the first time. We’re used to having the ‘one’ thing on the menu we can eat! It took us a while to choose, overcome as we were with curry, tofu, falafels, gratin, pasta, gazpacho, etc, etc, etc… Everything we had was delicious. If you head towards it – don’t give up. It really is there despite the lack of life in the vicinity or obvious sign. Look for the large table in the entrance with the chess pieces – the table has two large chess boards built-in to it.

With the Sandinistas in Leon

Saturday 16th February

Check out photos from the tour on flickr here

We decided to take the Sandinista Tour of Revolutionary Leon this afternoon with a veteran combatant of the FSLN. We eventually parted after four hours walking around the war-torn monuments and places, the museums and memorials to thousands of brave individuals who had the commitment and passion to stand up against the military of a vicious dictatorship. Our guide was Dionisio, a quiet spoken man of humility yet conviction. In many ways there was a massive gulf between us. Here was a man who every night risked his life to man watch-towers, follow coded instructions and make bombs in the violent struggle against death camps, tanks and indiscriminate bombing. He could have been killed by the National Guard, Contras, or one of his own home-made bombs – as his younger brother was. While we have led very protected, privileged lives and are able to visit the country to find out something about the Sandinistas beyond The Clash album and the news of the Iran-Contra Affair.

Leon was the capital of the long-running revolution against dictatorship in Nicaragua. This left-leaning and poor university town has long been a centre for liberal thought and art. Opposition here was some of the strongest and involved a cadre of a few hundred armed combatants fighting an underground guerrilla war whilst supported by thousands of the population. Here fighting was sometimes street-by-street. Actions could be an assassination attack on a house of National Guard one night, the defence of a church against tanks the next. The FSLN – or Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional – was formed in 1961 to lead the fight against the dictatorship of the Somoza political dynasty. They took their name from the anti-Imperialist struggle of Augusto César Sandino during the 1930s.

Dionisio fought in the streets of Leon during the 1970s and is still an active member of the party, now in power again at last following the 2006 elections. He took us to the political prison, known as Prison 21 after the year it was built, where prisoners held 100 to a small room were regularly tortured with beatings, teeth filings, electric shocks and suspense upside down in water. It was all the more poignant when he only told of his two tortured stays in the political prison, but only after Georgia asked him. We saw two churches shelled by the military in the 1970s because the Sandinistas used the bell towers as watch towers. There is the street where four students were gunned down during a demonstration in 1959, the places they fell marked by four crosses painted on the road below a memorial. The courtyard building, then a social club, where the first of the three Somoza dictators was assassinated in 1956 by poet Rigoberto López Pérez disguised as a waiter. Near sunset we went to the Museum of Heroes and Martyrs which houses the photographs and some personal effects of people killed in the struggle. We ended at a the third mural on the tour which was painted in the 1990s to depict the history of Nicaragua from indigenous roots, via Conquistadors and the struggle to end with two children running hand-in-hand to a future Nicaragua of open land, lakes and mountains.

Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the tour was to spend time with someone who risked his life to fight fascism and could tell us his personal recollections of fearing the National Guard taking him during the day because of scratches on his arms and legs caused by crawling defensively on the ground and of fighting them at night at locations communicated by secret signs.

I recommend booking this tour which is easy. Go to the FLSN headquarters on the central park, opposite the cathedral and ask for Dionisio. The tour is $10 per person.

Goodbye San Marcos

After nearly two weeks we realised it was time to move on. We left Atitlan on Friday, passing through the amazing Friday market on Solola, a small town above the lake that is home to perhaps the most ornate embroidered traditional Mayan clothes, both for men and women, in the immediate area. I wish I had known about the week before to go for a day`s photography!

We also left our great hostel mates – Marieanne, Paul and Tracey. Marieanne and Paul are two Canadians, she an English language lecturer, he an investment advisor, travelling around Central America after looking after students on an exchange in Nicaragua. We had lots of good conversations about novels and films, as well as sharing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and firing up the hostel’s sauna. Tracey is an American singer-songwriter. We heard her new songs, nearly one every day, come through the walls, catching segments of lyrics such as ‘…clean sheets and fancy underwear on…’ She stormed Blind Lemon’s open mic with songs about men. The open mic is something of a San Marcos Friday night institution and about as rocking as it gets. Some people stay until after 11pm! The entertainment was mixed but mostly of a high standard, from the Mitchellesque poignancy of Rose, the gutsy and thrusty country-blues of Tracey to the comical, hunching, shirt tails-flapping Rob with his cigar box mandolin and Poncho-wearing, Catweasle-bearded Yassi bravely covering Mano Chou’s King of the Bongos.

Overall, San Marcos is a place to relax, to experiment with a course in mediation or holistic therapy, to read a book sipping a coffee, to meet other travellers or to eat a taco in the village street. We’d certainly go back again.

Conquest

Sunday 31st January

After Chichi market I wanted to visit two nearby places which were – are – central in the Spanish conquest of this part of the Americas, the subjugation of the Mayas and the preservation of the Mayan creation myth.

In 1524, Pedro de Alvarado was sent by Hernán Cortés to conquer the southern highlands of what would become Guatemala. This area was home to a number of different Mayan tribes, dominant among them being the K'ichee' who had themselves conquered neighbouring tribes and had their capital on a ridge. The capital was a medium-sized Mayan city called K'umarcaaj and now known by the Nahuatl name of Utatlan. Not as grand as Tikal or Copan but still comprising stone stepped pyramids, open plazas, a ball court and elite residences. It was a flourishing city at the time of the Spanish conquest. It had only been settled about 1400 on a ridge surrounded on three sides by steep, pine-clad ravines. The Spanish knew they would have to bring the K'ichee' under their domination if the conquest of this area was to be successful.

The Spanish enlisted the help of a neighbouring tribe and attacked the K'ichee' who they defeated in battle. The K'ichee' kings then invited them to the capital under truce. The Spanish arrived, kidnapped the two K'ichee' kings and burnt them alive at the stake in the central plaza, beneath the three temples dedicated to the gods credited with creating the world and the Mayan people - Tohil, Avilix and K'ucumatz.


Utatlan today with the remains of ceremonial fires

I wanted to see K'umarcaaj. Today it is a small, unrestored archaeological site open to the public. My reaction was one of deep sadness. Much of this the result of the barbarous killings enacted here. Part was also to do with the feel of the site today. It has little money to fund its care and it appears as a cross between a neglected park and a neglected recreation ground. Stubby grass, a bare concrete or limestone stucco floor to the central plaza, electricity poles and burning fires reek of desolation. Mayan people coming to the site to hold ceremonies in a place still sacred to them, and perhaps to commemorate the acts that happened here, make the fires along with burning incense and candles.


Shrine carved into the crumbling remains of the temple dedicated to Tohil

Another reason for the bare appearance of the city is that the Spaniards robbed most of the stone from Utatlan to build the Catholic church in the nearby ‘new town’ of Santa Cruz de Quiche. The white-painted church towers over the town.


The church of Santa Cruz de Quiche, built of stone robbed from Utatlan

Back to Chichi where a significant event occurred in 1702 that was to help preserve a significant aspect of K'ichee', and Mayan, culture. A group of K'ichee' bravely showed Friar Francisco Ximénez of the convent at Chichi a copy of the K'ichee' Popol Vuh, or tribal council book, in 1702. I say bravely because the Catholic priests burnt nearly all Mayan books or codexes as anti-Christian. Instead of following the inquisitional orthodoxy, Ximénez copied the original he was shown from the Mayan hieroglyphs to Latin script. The Popol Vuh recorded the K'ichee' creation myth featuring hero twins and a history of the K'ichee' tribe. Without the friar’s act of academic interest all of this would have been lost to the flames. The Popol Vuh is now the key document for understanding Mayan cosmology, creation mythology and the immediately pre-Colombian history of the Guatemalan highlands.


Mayans and tourists mingle in the cloisters of the convent in Chichi

Getting There
From Chichicastenango get a chicken bus to Santa Cruz. It is only about 30 minutes. The bus arrives at the Santa Cruz bus terminal. Minibuses to Utatlan - signed Las Ruinas on their front - leave from the central park. Either take a tuk tuk and the driver will drop-you off at the correct spot or walk north for four blocks and west for two. It is about 10 minutes by minibus to Utatlan. They take you right to the entrance. To return to Santa Cruz go down to the main road, about a five minute walk, and wait. The minibuses are frequent and it is easy to visit Utatlan and return to Chichi in an afternoon.

Chichicastenango

Sunday 26th January

The place with the unpronounceable name. Well almost, it has taken me nearly 4 months and a visit to the place itself to learn to pronounce it correctly. It was always that 'cas' in the middle that threw me each time. Now I'm fluent and ready to take on saying town names such as Chimaltenango and Quetzeltenango - no problem!


Chichi market

Thousands of Mayans from the surrounding area and dozens of tourists shipped in from Antigua and Pana come to Chichi every Thursday and Sunday for the massive market. It is a riot of colour as most of the women and some of the men still wear traditional handwoven clothes, with designs differing from one village to the next. The market fills the main square and church steps and comes in four parts - the covered fruit and vegetable market, the main part of the square and surrounding streets selling everything from ceremonial incense to cheap clothes via hardware and live turkeys, the flower market on the church steps and finally the market for the tourists selling textiles, masks and woodcarvings. The first three are almost solely for Mayans and the core of the square are a group of cheap eating places.


Chichi Textiles

We tourists really only drift around the edges of this temporary village even though it is one of the main tourist destinations in Guate. It never felt like a zoo when I was there as there are just so many Mayan people doing what they are there to do. And with the place being so packed they don't hold much quarter trying to get around static tourists looking confused or taking photos.

The whole market is extremely exciting and dynamic and if you can find a spot to one side to watch it, it is mesmerising.


Better than Tesco anyday.

One of the main events of Sunday is morning mass in the Catholic church. Except this church integrates traditional Mayan rituals with Catholicism. Elders from the town and surrounding area attend on mass, the priest reminds them all that whatever way they worship it is Christ they come for, then after he finishes people light candles and murmur on 12 square altars laid along the aisle from the front to the back of the church. Many people also burn incense before entering the church to bless the spirit of the church itself.

Getting There
I went to Chichi by chicken bus from Antigua. You get the buses from behind the market. You first take a bus to Chimeltenango, then a bus to Los Encuentros and then the final bus to Chichi. There was no wait at any of the changes and the buses are quick! The final stretch is a half-hour ride up and down steep roads with tight zig-zag bends that the drivers take at speeds Michael Schumacher would find difficult to match while the conductors lean out of the door shouting at every other vehicle to get out of their way. The bus ride is an experience in itself.

Accommodation
I stayed in the basic and cheap Posada Belen on one side of town. The balconies overlook a wooded ravine on one side and the town on the other. It is nothing fancy but rooms are large. The shared shower had hot water two days out of three.


Mayan elders attending mass


Blessing the spirit of the church. Note the Harley Davidson jacket!

Community Tourism in San Juan

29th - 31st Dec

Homestay and guided tour in the Lenca Highlands, Honduras


View from our homestay door

I am sitting looking over coffee plants and chickens eating a salted taron grapefruit while the slap, slap of fresh tortillas being made comes from the kitchen where Doña Soledad is making my lunch. It is 11am New Year’s Eve and we are coming to the end of a visit to the tourism co-operative of San Juan, a village south of Gracias. We are staying in Doña Soledad’s house, a hearty and jovial 84 year-old who welcomed us in with a hug and a kiss. She spends most of her day in the kitchen, beside the wood burning hot plate. Her husband goes out to milk their cows, her adopted son Leonardo to work their land full of coffee plants, bananas, beans, maize and other fruits and vegetables. Meals have been mostly of food from her own land, much of it organic, including freshly squeezed milk, cheese, curd cheese, beans, bananas, free range yard eggs, coffee and maize tortillas.


Georgia picking coffee

We made tortillas with her the first night. I would say ‘helped’ except for the mis-shapen attempts we produced. On the last day she demonstrated how she roasts coffee beans on her hot plate and we helped turn the beans so that they did not burn. As they roast, the smell comes increasingly of coffee, except in our case and because of our 'help' it was dominated by a heady aroma of charcoal.


Roasting the coffee beans


That's fresh coffee!

Soledad’s daughter Gladys runs a stationers cum button shop cum café which quadruples as the visitor centre for the co-operative. This was where we arrived to and were shown a well-produced information folder that explains the aims of the co-operative, how it benefits its members and the activities provided through it.


Leonardo, Soledad's son, and Georgia pick coffee

Over the last couple of days we have got to know them all, especially Doña Soledad, and so got much closer to Hondurans than before. The co-operative is only four years old and was founded due to the plummeting coffee prices on the international market. With declining incomes a group of villagers and a Peace Corps worker identified the sorts of activities and infrastructure needed to increase small-scale community tourism. The current twenty members of the co-operative earn much needed income but also the visitor learns much more about contemporary and traditional Honduran life than if simply passing through and staying at a hotel. We have certainly got to know the people and lifestyles very well.


Danilo our guide and Campesinos

We had a full-day 24km hike into the mountains yesterday to visit the Waterfalls of the Elves. While not seeing any elves we did spend a great day with Danilo, a small farmer who as a guide earns 50% over the average daily wage for a coffee worker. Not only did we learn about the plants and history of the area, we were introduced to other members of the community and felt like we were being right in a real part of Honduras.


A waterfall, no elves in sight!

More photos are on our flickr photostream, link above left.

Thank You Gracias

26th-29th Dec

Capital of the Lenca Highland, Honduras

Gracias


One of the Gracias churches

Gracias is a small mountain town in the western Highlands of Guatemala, an area occupied by the indigenous Lenca people. The bus journey from the coast rose through ever-more stunning countryside flanked by high mountains. We met a British-Irish couple who now live in San Francisco on the bus and shared stimulating conversations to pass the four hour journey. On arrival, we hopped in a tuk-tuk to the Finca Bavaria, a German-Honduran owned small walled coffee finca and hotel on the edge of town. Our room was set in a beautiful but somewhat neglected garden of forest trees, flowers, bananas, mangoes and coffee plants, all hidden behind a high stone wall and foreboding black steel gates – German style. The family who run the finca for the owners comprise a friendly but somewhat dotty hombre, a scowling senora and their pleasant, smiling daughter. The gates were purportedly closed at 10pm, to be opened on knocking, but were closed by 9.30 and opened with comments of ‘ooh, isn’t it late?’


Gracias Chat Up

The town is a small grid pattern of low pan-tiled painted houses, with a labyrinthine market at its centre. Two white Hispanic churches are the highest buildings in the town, one of them set next to a small wooded park. It gets its name from its founder, Spanish Conquistador Juna de Chevez, who called it Thank You to God when he came to this part of Central America in 1536. It is one of the oldest towns in Honduras, and has twice been it capital albeit briefly. An indigenous Lenca revolt against Spanish rule was brutally put down here when the Lenca leader Lempira was murdered on the pretence of an invitation to peace talks. He is now a national hero and his name is the name of the Honduran currency.


Lenca Hombre

Gracias doesn't get many tourists which means that there is a different atmosphere in town than elsewhere we have visited so far. People are going about their normal lives and as visitors we can see what that means in Honduras rather than solely being on holiday mode and seen by locals as a source of cash. One feature is that there are lots of men in cowboy hats.


Oranges are the only fruit

The market is a delight to explore and buy tortillas, fruit, vegetables and cheese. The outer walls are honeycombed with small shops selling everything from saddles and hardware to clothes and plastic things. Gracias is a place to wander around aimlessly and absorb how people live in highland Honduras. We also climbed to the nearby 19th century Castillo and spent an afternoon in hot springs situated 8km outside the town in a wooded gorge. A group of American and British backpackers arrived mid-afternoon and we shared beers over conversation – the ideal way to enjoy communal bathing. The only issue being the overly-amplified music which was further let down by Depeche Mode, Metallica and Eye of the Tiger.

More photos on our flickr photostream, link top right.

Yaxha

The last weekend in El Remate before we go to Caye Caulker in Belize for a 10 day holiday. Can't wait.

On Saturday I visited La Blanca and Yaxha while Georgia worked on a couple of inHeritage comics. I was kindly given a lift by Lou, an American living in El Remate with half a dozen businesses and ideas for a hundred more. We met the archaeologists digging in La Blanca, were comically charged 80Qs for two lunches that should have been 40Qs and settled on 50Qs, then he dropped me off at Yaxha for the afternoon before returning to collect me after sunset.

Yaxha is another fantastic jungle-clad Mayan city that has recently been renovated and had some great infrastructure added to it - wooden walkways and decent signs. It's right next to a lake too.

Here's some photos


Yaxha Pyramid


Lake Sunset from Templo Mayor


Stucco Glyph

Tikal for the Weekend

Monday, 11th November and we are resting after a weekend at Tikal. I’ve been going up two or even three times a week to photograph the most visited and best preserved/reconstructed ancient Mayan city in Guatemala. But that involves an early start and a departure well before sunset, as well as the inevitable haggling over fare. Esta 10 quatzales por una Guatemelteca and usually 15 for uno turisto. Pero muchos collectivos quiren 20 or even 30 quatzelas. No me gusta! It’s a pain haggling with the minibus drivers so we decided to have a weekend away and stay in the luxury Jungle Lodge right next to the gates of the site. We could stay for sunset on Saturday and be up for sunrise on Sunday as well as treat ourselves to dinner on white linen under a palm-thatched roof and Victorian black and white photos of the temples being cleared of jungle.

We checked in with Oliver who has clearly been on a tourism training course that said a real smile is with the eyes and closed them everytime he did smile which was about twice a minute. We had a nice little room with a balcony overlooking a narrow, beautifully planted garden, into the jungle. Georgia was greatly attracted to the open air swimming pool surrounded by jungle. The Lodge lives up to its name!

We managed to eventually find out that for 50 quatzels we could enter the site an hour before official opening at 6am with a guard to be escorted to Temple 4 to watch sunrise. Oliver didn’t tell us this, the ticket seller didn’t tell us this. Only a guar overhearing our enquiry told us this.

We have had two great days wandering around probably the most dramatic Mayan city in Central America. It was one of the biggest and most influential in its day, though not the biggest. However, they still mostly survive as forested mounds with little uncovered to understand a Mayan city. What really makes Tikal are the six dramatic pyramid temples that soar above the forest canopy, Temple 4 is the highest at 70 metres and from here you can see jungle as far as every horizon, look down on mighty rainforest trees, watch branches and trees shake to the swinging and clambering of spider monkey foraging for fruit, follow parrots, toucans, vultures and hawks flutter, swoop, soar and glide above the trees. There are few rainforests in the world with such majestic and high viewing platforms.

Sunset was one where a large dark red fiery disc, fractured by fingers of cloud, sinks lazily towards the horizon. Flocks of green parrots squawked their way from one tree to another in search of a roost. Darkness and silence descended with it.

Sunrise was a gentle, gradual lightening of promise for a new day. The night had been quiet except for the chilling roar of a group of agitated howler monkeys and dark save the overwhelming lights of stars, planets and the Milky Way glimpsed between clearings. We climbed Temple 4 to look over the silhouetted proud crowns of four other pyramids to the east. Then, as half light burrowed into the shadows the jungle began to awake. First the howler monkeys let out their loud roars stating they were here, that others should not invade their tree-top territories. They opened their mouths, inflated their throats, and the jungle raged to the sound of demons unleashed from hell. Then, surprisingly, came silence with the dawn. The howlers stopped. Except it was totally quiet. Now that they could be heard, the birds filled the morning light with song. Sparsely came the notes at first until the sun was above the horizon, then every tree seemed alive with every type of song and call as they too announced their territorial presence. Branches began to bend to the first spider monkeys searching for food, toucans flitted to the tops of fruit trees. Ungainly in their swooping flight and comical with their oversized and overcoloured beaks, they kept high in twos and threes. If ever a bird was created based on the winning entry in a young children’s art contest, the toucan would be it.

Dawn went through a slow blending of grey, yellow and orange hues. Subtly, the clouds grew pink and orange high in the sky, the sun shielded by a larger cloud. Yellow vertical bands of light shimmered on the horizon below the cloud. After the light show, the dozens of other tourists left to start their various tours. We remained on high and were treat to the sound and sight of the jungle without camera shutters or flash bulbs. Cloud hung low in the hollows of the ground, casting treetops in silhouette. The bright oranges and pinks gave away to misty whites and diluted golds and then the sun climbed above the cloud and the jungle shimmered like a sea, the temples like majestic sailing ships waiting to set sail. What a way to spend a Sunday morning!

I have put some of my photographs of and from Tikal on my photography website - Tikal Photos
Enjoy!

Skulls, Drunks and Broken Taps

El Remate, the Peten, northern Guatemala.

On Thursday we decided to head to the village of San Jose on the other side of Lake Peten Itza. It was November 1st, All Saints Day. This is widely and strongly celebrated here because of the mix of Catholic faith and traditional religion which honoured the dead and ancestors. People across the country walk in large numbers to the cemeteries to have picnics with their dead families, wash and paint the graves, and place wreaths of bright flowers. We had been told that San Jose, having a alrge Maya population, had a traditional ceremony where Three Skulls were taken in procession around the village.

The day started well with a beautiful boat trip across the lake from the town of flores to the village of San Andreas only 2km from San Jose. Andreas has the hotels and we´d been recommend Villa Benjamin on the basis of its view and restaurant. After disembarking we climbed the near vertical village streets, following directions further and further up the hill. THe directions got shorted each time suggesting we were really getting closer until the last person we asked pointed and used only one word - arriber - up! When we reached the hotel the view was truly spectacular - right across the jungle-fringed lake and down into the turqoiuse waters below where kids leapt off a wooden dock. The only hitch was the somewhat shady hotel managed who couldn´t say anything - and I mean anything - without winking or suggesting in hushed tones he was doing us the sort of favour that should have involved him producing silk stockings and silver watches from a raincoat. His somewhat dubious antics put us off but being tired and hungry, by now it was 2pm ,we decided just to have lunch before deciding our next move. As the food was great and his wife more normally friendly, we thought we´d take a room as we were here. The gardens were beautiful and we wouldn´t have to speak to him. We paid then heard the shattering news that they were leaving at 4m the next morning to visit her family grave so there would be no breakfast.

Not disheartened by the news, lack of light in the baño, unfinished electrical wiring, cobwebs or fake stone walls, we set off along the road to San Jose for a sunset walk beside the lake. The water shimmered blue and aqua in one direction, shades of pink and purple in the other. We hung out on a dock by San Jose´s part-built concrete promenade which promised tourists, cafes and car parks galore. We then thought, as it was nearly 6 and our reports varied between 6 and 7 for the start of the ceremony, we should find the church where the action was meant to begin.

Skulls
We climbed to the sound of bells and the vision of a white bell tower to find a church almost empty except for three skulls lined up in front of the alter, each with a raised cross on its forehead. After about 20 minutes of sitting in the empty church, except for the occasional bit of activity as a mujer brought a decoration or alter piece out, we thought best to get a drink and come back later.

Drunks
We pitched up at a small bar for a soda and a licuado de papaya to be hailed from the back by a guy saying ´why not come in´. Why not chat with the locals. The three guys didn´t instanly look like they had been drinking for that long. There were the husband of the woman doing all of the work, his father-in-law (both from El Salvador) and a local friend. Georgia was soon speaking Spanish to the father in law and friend while the other guy decided to talk at me ni English. Neither of us spoke much for the next half hour or so. My amigo had come to Peten after a vision of god while on magic mushrooms after leaving the US Army cadets. He had seen eyes appear on the floor and walls, then the earth at way and in hunger. A voice spoke to him, saying ´why do you think it doesn´t not explode´before two hands cupped the earth. Taking this as a sign that he hd to go to the Peten and show the locals how to save the rainforest by growing vegetables on rafts of waste in the lake, he had ended up drunk in San Jose.

Skulls again
The church bell rang again and we took this as our cue to escape, climbed back up to the chruch to find a full Catholic mass about to begin. THe church was packed, there were plenty of chicos and chicas hanging around outside the open doors and as the mass progressed more people wandered in and out. A dog sallied in, wagging its tale as it sauntered downthe aisle until it found someone it knew and sniffed them. It soon became bored and wandered out again. That was probably the highlight for me. Realising that the mass was going to go on for a long time and that any procession wasn´t shaping up to be that spectacular we decided to walk back to our hotel.

Broken Tap
We crashed out in our room but as the toilet cistern wouldn´t stop filling up Georgia went to flush it again and turn off a dripping tap. Suddenly water was flooding everywhere and I found Georgia trying to keep the tap on the faucet. I took over so she could get the manager, as our room and the balcony flooded. Thankfully he turned off the ater without trying to sell us a new plumbing system or blackmarket coffee and we moved room. About two hours later there was a knock on the door and he shouted something, apparently prompted by his wife. It seemed to be that he wanted us to pay for the tap we´d clearly broken. Giving the general unfinished and uncared for state of the rooms we thught we´d not enter into the conversation.

Flores, Guatemala

Flores in the lake

We approached Santa Elena with sun bursting through the leaden sky of clouds after a rain-soaked journey thinking this a good sign for better weather until the rain came back in time for us getting out of the collectivo. Santa Elena is the muddy (or dusty depending on the weather), busy, noisy, polluted mainland cousin to the historic island town of Flores which is joined to the former by a causeway. Santa Elena guards the approach to Flores like Rapunzil’s mean father. Both are on Lake Peten Itza, the largest lake in northern Guatemala. It is surrounded by jungle-covered hills where villages nestle against the shore.


Bright Street of our hotel

We were whisked through the ugly to the good by another collectivo who just happened to be waiting at our drop-off point. Our arranger drove us around a few hotels until yes we agreed with him, the one he recommended was the best. This was the Mirador Del Lago at 60 Quetzals for a fan double with a private bathroom. As it was at our price with a decent room and warm water from the shower we happily took it and he presumably happily received his commission.


Typical Flores door

Flores is a town of narrow cement and limestone-cobbled streets lined with brightly painted buildings. The island was the ancient Mayan city of Taxapal and still today bits of Mayan buildings and burials are found during construction work. At least some, we were told, were found by archaeologists working alongside the builders.


Casa Veija - an old house hidden in a backstreet of Flores

Today, Flores, is a major tourist hub for backpackers and holidaymakers visiting the ancient Mayan city Tikal, just over an hour’s drive away. This means lots of gift shops selling Tikal t-shirts and traditional clothes, internet cafes and many, many restaurants selling Western specialities for prices expensive compared to local. Where a meal of squash and salad in Santa Elena would be 15 Quetzels, in Flores a meal costs twice as much. We found a great street taco place near the lakeside with a cheap buffet of salads and salsas.

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