Travelling and Pausing

When on the road there is always a need to get balance between living in the moment, recording the journey, sharing with others, time for reflection and moments to get more engaged in places along the way (as well as I am sure numerous other possibilities). I haven´t written on here in a while; my attentions have been balanced elsewhere.

So now I sit down with a small amount of attention for blogging and find myself with the dilemma of whether to write from where I am right now, or in order to keep some sort of record of the journey so far.  Do I primarily want a record of where I have been or how I am feeling at the moment? Is this for me to re-read, or are there actually family and friends occasionally dropping by to see where on earth I am?

So...

I travelled with friends (from home) from Flores/ Tikal to Lanquin/ Semuc Champey, which is a beautiful and reasonably remote national park region in central Guatemala.  We stayed in a hostel in Lanquin that though pretty felt somewhat detached from the town and I felt a little like being a tourist on a conveyor belt. However our feelings towards the more detached sense of the town was not helped by my friends having their laptop and wallet stolen (probably by our bus driver).  The area itself was stunning and the guide we went with the next day was really nice and gave us a good introduction to the caves (no health and safety requirements here as we went in to caves where we had to swim and climb and scramble, with flipflops tied on with string, no helmets and candles!  A lot of fun and a couple stubbed toes).  Then we did a short tube down the river and jumped into the river from a big swing.  We then hiked up a steep hill to a viewpoint where you get the classic stunning view over the actual ´Semuc Champey´which apparently means something like, the river which goes under the earth. The fast flowing river goes through a cave/ tunnel which goes under an area of limestone which has pools fed from separate springs.  They feed a series of pools that tumble into each other through a series of small waterfalls.  You can swim from one to the other and the sun even came out while we were there lighting the clear turquoise of the pools.


I went with Zand and Ada to Antigua where I volunteered with them at 'Los Patojos' for their last week there.  It was a quiet week as the kids/ young people they work with were registering to restart the next week.  However as I have very little Spanish it was probably a little easier to be mostly painting walls and some logos and helping sort the library.  Antigua is a very pretty city and I spent most of the mornings in town, wandering or reading or journalling in one of the many nice cafes or coffeeshops in town.


My plans took me on to Xela (Quetzaltenango) on Saturday.  I took the easy option of a shuttle which dropped me to the hostel I wanted to stay in.  It was a nice way to arrive in a new city at dusk.  Sunday morning I wandered around zona 1 getting my bearings and a sense of the city.  It felt a little like wandering Belfast on a Sunday in that a lot was not open until the afternoon, however I also got some sense of the place.  I headed back to the cemetry after I was informed that Sunday was the day to do that, as families head there often with picnics.  I took several pics (which I will upload later).  The cemeteries here really are more picturesque than at home.  Not only are they built more extravagantly and on top of each other, but they are also brightly painted and interesting to look at.


I headed to my Spanish school at 2, as I had arranged on the phone.  However the person who had told me on Friday that there was space for me was incorrect.  Fortunately as I stood there an email came through from someone who cancelled studying this week, so I was in!  I am studying at a school called PLQ, which as well as being a cooperative language school is involved in supporting local projects and raising political awareness.  This means that as well as arranging trips to local sights there are trips to interesting projects and regular conferences about local & regional political and social issues.  It has been interesting.  They also have a good library so I am reading 'Bitter Fruit', a recommended book about the CIA supported coup, which I hadn't been able to afford in the bookshop in Antigua.  This is a beautiful country to travel in, but I am also concerned & interested to learn more about both the history and the current political situation.  I would prefer not to be just a totally ignorant gringo passing through.  


Spanish classes started yesterday.  I have found that my two evening classes at Queens a couple years ago were more useful than I had thought, however I am still very much a beginner.  Today was conjugating basic verbs and learning a few more useful words, both nouns and how, why, because, when...... Remembering them all is a little more challenging but I am really enjoying it so far. I am also living with a lovely family, just a mum and her 9 year old daughter.  So that gives me the opportunity to practice my language 'skills'!


So I guess I went for the recording my trip option.  Further reflections and art and collections will continue in my journal and I will no doubt share more here later!

And that is enough typing on a keyboard with half the letters missing. I am not the best touch typist in the world!!


Hasta Luego

Tikal

We got up at 4am (last Wednesday 12th) for a 4.30 pick up.  There was a large group of us, and we were in a carpark at sunrise, none-the-less it was a great tour and our guide manage to keep all 30 of us together and informed and interested.   I had woken up in the night to torrential rain and the weather had turned the day before.  Waterproofs were packed, but we had great weather.  The overcast sky meant a cooler walk around Tikal and the sun came out while we were on top of Templo IV.  The wind and rain just started about 3 minutes before we made it back to the bus!


The ruins are striking and it was hard to imagine the place as a built up city without all the trees and wildlife.  It was good to go early in the day  in order to see more of the wildlife (and before there were too many tours).  We saw ocellated turkeys, coatimundi, a toucan and a family of spider monkeys. Also impressive was the national 'Ceiba' tree with it's distinctive tall straight trunk and branches that spread at the top of the jungle canopy. Definitely worth the visit.

Flores, Guatemala

Los Amigos Hostel, Flores

It has been a 14 day festival with daily parades and dancing and firecrackers at all hours of the day and night!

Go Slow...

Caye Caulker - Go Slow is the slogan.  On our first day we were walking up the island towards the main strip and a man called out to us - "slow down"!  Today is my last day on the island and I hired a bike this afternoon and feel like my ambling cycling has definitely got into the island groove!  It is a busy but chilled island where you can wander ("no shoes, no shirt, no problem") as you wish.  My wandering adventures yesterday afternoon and cycling this afternoon discovered the more residential parts of the island, as well as the large houses (holiday homes?) on the southern part of the island beyond the mainstay of the hotels, hostels and cabanas.  I am staying in a very basic cabana of my own - just what I love.  I have a comfortable bed, the room and sheets are basic and clean, and I have been able to string up my hammock on my porch and watch the sees and stars!  What more could I need?

One of the main things I wanted to do here was dive.  After my surprise on our first day of finding out that it was not possible to dive the next day (all booked up!!), I went on a full day snorkelling tour with the others I was with.  We had a great day out seeing beautiful coral and fish as well as sting rays, an eagle ray, nurse sharks and turtles (including a logger head turtle).  I then have been on half day 2 dive trips the past couple days to reasonably local sites.  This has given me a chance to do some great dives and chill out on the island.  All in all a good few days.  So I am off to enjoy my last night here and tomorrow I head to Guatemala!!

Catching some moments on Caye Caulker

Nurse sharks

Omar the Divemaster

Adventures in Pine Ridge

Our last day in San Ignacio we hired a vehicle and headed to Pine Ridge with Ricky along (who looks after the house we were staying in).  Not only was it good to have Ricky along to know where we were going, but also to get us to do things we would never have done on our own (we wouldn't have known you could; nor would we have dared).  

We explored a couple caves going up through a hole I was worried about getting back out of, but it was fine, just a little mucky.  We wandered a pretty nature trail which I have posted photos from below.  In the absence of my SLR (sadly posted back to my brothers in Texas after breaking on its first outing), I am making good use of my iPhone, and in particular my hipstamatic app!  We then went through the Rio Frio cave.  It was beautiful with big openings at either end framing a sunlit jungle scene.  We got a little wet here, but it just required a some wading.  We then got back on the bumpy road that required full concentration from Zac who was driving! (We bought him a drink later!)  

Rio on Pool was next.  Lunch at a picnic table with an awesome view was followed by climbing down in swimwear and clambering over rocks to reach the mulitple pools and small waterfalls that were there.  We shared this spot with a number of other groups.  Lying in one of the pools with water gently pooling around my head was somewhere I felt quite happy to chill for a while! 

Our last stop was Big Rock.  A very steep walk down to the river was followed with a 6ft jump into a pool of water.  Ricky then got us to swim up to the next pool, walk/swim across, climb up the other side towards the large water fall and then jump 20ft off a big rock into the water below the waterfall and then try and get up under the edge of the fall.  Several bumps were got at this final stage - but we had a lot of fun!

The next morning saw up packing up, saying farewell to Ricky and Calvin and Kumquat Cottage and getting the bus (a fascinating opportunity to people watch some of the diversity of the country) to Belize City and then on to Caye Caulker.

Wandering a Nature Trail in Pine Ridge Park

Adventures involving Caves and Canoes and Cahal Pech

I am hanging out in San Ignacio with friends of a friend from Minneapolis.  My friend unfortunately had to cancel her trip and is snowbound, but I am having fun hanging out with her friends (now mine too).

Canoes

Our 'host' here is Ricky.  He looks after the house where we are staying and has been very welcoming and friendly and fun.  He and Calvin (his friend who also helps out in the garden) came along one afternoon as we went canoeing down the Macal River.  A very pleasant three hours accompanied by some local rum and coke, and involving a swim and jumping into the river from a big rock.

The scenery was beautiful.  We paddled and floated gently between lush jungle which cast verdant reflections in the clear water below.  As well as seeing a number of large black vultures and numerous birds that we could not identify (blue heron like ones, small darting yellow ones and a dark blue fishing bird), I saw a quick flash of my first toucan and a number of large orange and brown spiky iguanas which were sunning themselves high up on the branches.  It was one of those experiences that you keep thinking how beautiful it is while you are in it, and keep taking mental snapshots to fill the resevoir of beauty in your mind.  It also reminded me a little of being on the river in the rainforest in far north Queensland.

Caves

We went on a full day tour to the ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) Caves, with Carlos, our passionate and entertaining guide.  Erin and J had been there with him a year ago and their recommendation of going back with him again was great.  We drove there through farming country (stopping to pick fresh oranges on the way), and then walked for about 45 minutes through the Mountain Tapir Reserve to the mouth of the cave.  Carlos showed us lots of interesting plants on the way, getting us to smell various leaves and pieces of bark that he lopped off with his machete, and to taste (yeuch) a leaf that is like chloroquine and helps with malaria.  

The 8 of us in our group sat at the mouth of the cave as we were given an introduction to the geology of the cave and the history of the Mayan people and what the cave was / may have been used for.  Carlos has a real passion for the history of the cave and a desire for tourists to appreciate the honour and privilege it is to get to go in there, and to ensure the preservation of the caves and artifacts in a sustainable way for future generations to get to appreciate.  It really is a remarkable tour and a chance to experience a 'living museum'.  98% of the artifacts discovered there are still being preserved in situ.

We had a short swim into the cave (shoes and all wet straight away), after which we climbed over rocks and through water that went from ankle to chest deep at various points.  Carlos got us to turn the headlamps on our helmets off and we sat for a few moments to appreciate the darkness and the weight of history and significance of the place to the Mayans.  After going deep into the cave we climbed up some rocks and then a ladder that has been secured at one point, in order to enter the dry chamber.  We took off shoes and kept on socks, in order to have the least impact possible on the limestone floor of the vast cavernous rooms, one of which is known as the Cathedral.  The pots left by the Mayans have been there for well over a thousand years.  It is quite incredible.  There are also some skeletons of people who are believed to have been sacrificed within the cave as part of a religious ceremony.  Most beautiful are the natural features of the cave system.  Stalactites and stalagmites; rock columns and stone flow formations.  Sparkling formations that glitter in the torchlight and fascinating organic shapes that fold and hang and flow.  

I have been in caves before and some may have had as/ more beautiful formations, but this was definitely the best cave adventure I have been on.  It was enhanced by having Carlos as a guide (in case anyone is coming to Belize).  There are only 23 (or so) licensed guides for this tour, and the government is trying to control the amount of tourism in order to preserve the integrity of the caves and the artifacts it houses.  He is a good one, though by the end of the tour I almost forgot my name as I became 'Miss Ireland' for the duration of the day!

Cahal Pech

A couple brilliant days, followed by a relaxed couple days, post new year and while my friends are on a trip to Tikal (I will be going there for longer after Belize).  We walked to Cahal Pech ( a local Mayan site) last night, but got there as it was getting dark, so I returned this morning to see it in daylight.  I read about the site in the small visitor centre and then wandered around with my camera and imagination wondering about who might have lived there and how life might have been.  The tree surrounded site is very peaceful and I was the only person there until just before I left, to walk home through the residential streets looking at homes and gardens and churches on a quiet Sunday morning.

First Impressions in Belize

While driving in to Belize City from the airport, and then on to San Ignacio on the Express bus I tried to just see what was in front of me, but found it hard not to make comparisons - the wooden houses on stilts remind me of Thailand, or the big vehicles and some advertising make me think of Texas.

While writing this I have just been interrupted/ serenaded by the "Reggae Ambassador for Belize", while I sit out the front of a cafe Flayva's in San Ignacio.  A song he has written about Belize, "This is Belize where we live with ease; we get vege-tables and eggs with ease, get honey from the bees and we can go to the Cayes".  A friendly Rasta who is wandering around welcoming tourists to Belize with his battered guitar and big personality.

One of things that has stood out about Belize is the great diversity in the cultural backgrounds of the people who live here, peacefully side by side.  Creole, Garifuna, Mestizo, Maya, White, Chinese, Indian, Mennonites and the Amish.  It has been interesting to see the diversity in faces and languages (though all speak the official English).  New Years Eve at the Block Party on Burns Street in San Ignacio evidenced a little of the melting pot that is Belize.

Driving out of Belize City towards San Ignacio the sun soon set and much of my trip was in darkness, but my impressions were of a flat landscape where the trees alongside the road formed a corridored view of the countryside.  Colourful wooden houses broke up the green of the vegetation at irregular intervals and we passed a graveyard where all the tombs were raised and the white-washed and concrete majority were liberally scattered with yellow, blue and even bubblegum pink ones. 

In spite of a temporary stress due to a non-answered phone, my trip to Kumquat Cottage (kumquatcottage.com) went remarkably to plan.  Almost disconcerting after the previous week's London adventures! The house is very pleasant, eccentric and creative and has  everything you would need for a pleasant stay and a great 'jungle' garden (complete with a once sighted iguana!)  A good place to start my Belizean trip.

Snapshots from initial wanderings in San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize