Guatemala

And so on to our 10^th country on the trip so far – Guatemala.  We debated how to get to Antigua from Copan and the answer seemed to be a shuttle instead of the bus as it was cheaper and quicker, and would also avoid Guatemala City which by all accounts is a dangerous and not particularly nice place.  However, what we hadn’t taken into account was the size of the minibuses – they are made for midgets!  It was a very uncomfortable 6 hour journey with 15 of us packed into this little bus.  Le Roux and I are just too tall and broad shouldered to fit into the seats and we wriggled and fidgeted the entire way.  With relief we exited the bus in Antigua.

During the bus journey we stopped at this restaurant for a break and had possibly the worst breakfast we’ve ever eaten – the cheese and ham in the very thin omelette were not even warm, the pureed beans were solid, dry and grainy, and the random lump of white cheese on the side was not good.  Not a good start for Guatemala in respect of food.  Luckily it got better (apart from the dishwater coffee we had in a cafe in Antigua!).

Antigua is a beautiful colonial city which both Le Roux and I loved at first sight.  The cobbled streets, colourful buildings and numerous plazas, along with the many old churches and ruins give the place such character and charm.  I appreciate that the city doesn’t truly represent Guatemala – it is just too clean, but we really liked the place.  We spent our first day wandering around the city soaking up the sights and atmosphere, as well as researching whether there was a live volcano to climb that would enable us to put a stick in some hot lava.  Unfortunately, the volcano where friends had previously done this was no longer active so that activity was not to be – the search continues.  My ears pricked up with I overheard the lady in our hostel mentioning a chocolate factory to another guest - a must do for me!  On finding the place (Santa Domingo) we discovered that it is an old ruined convent that has been beautifully converted into a five star hotel.  But it isn’t just a hotel as it has a number of museums, art galleries, craft shops, and exhibitions as well as stunning gardens complete with scarlet macaws and pergolas covered with trailing orchids.  I was so impressed with how they had managed to incorporate the various old walls and chapels into the modern facilities which also included concert and wedding arenas.  We spent a good few hours here and eventually found the chocolate shop which was definitely worth the hunt.  The dark chocolate was divine.  However, it was pretty pricey so we picked just 2 truffles each, a little bar of dark chocolate and Le Roux slid into the basket a little packet of chocolate covered coffee beans which he loves!  

Later that afternoon we climbed the hill overlooking the city and the view was lovely, if a little hazy, and we were fortunate enough to survive the walk without being robbed.  The more we talked to people in Antigua, the more we discovered that it has a horrible undercurrent of crime and there are a lot of robberies, despite the presence of tourist police. 

Next stop for us was an overnight trip to Lake Atitlan about 3 hours drive north west of Antigua.  We opted to stay in San Pedro rather than Panajachal in the hope that it would be less touristy, but unfortunately it was just as bad with bars and restaurants aimed at tourists everywhere.  However, we did enjoy wandering around the town watching the locals going about their daily business - washing their clothes on the lake shore, fishing from little canoes and carrying their shopping or wares in bundles on their heads.  This is the first country since Bolivia where we have seen people wearing traditional dress on a daily basis and it was lovely to see.  It varies slightly between regions, but we didn’t manage to get many photos of the different outfits as people don’t like having their photos taken.  The zoom lens enabled a few shots but no particularly good ones unfortunately.  

Our hotel room had a balcony overlooking the lake and the view in the morning of the mist over the water was beautiful.  That morning we took a little boat across the lake to the smaller village of San Marco which was much more unspoilt.  We climbed the hill behind the village and were rewarded with gorgeous views across the lake to the three volcanoes.  We hopped back on the boat to Panajachal, and the highlight of the overnight trip was the journey across the lake.  I found it fascinating observing the local people in traditional dress hop and off the boat as we stopped at the little lakeside villages on the way.  

In Panajachal, Le Roux went on a shopping spree at the artisan market as we’ve not seen any local textiles since Bolivia either.  We had a fun afternoon bartering with the stall holders who would almost always reduce the price by half without much effort.  We also visited the Nature Reserve just out of town, where there was a troop of spider monkeys, a type we’d not yet seen.  They are very acrobatic and use their tails to swing from unlike other types of monkey - we watched this one monkey having fun swinging around for ages.  

The journey back to Antigua was not a comfortable one.  Having thought the little minibuses were uncomfortable, the next bus size up proved to be worse.  Le Roux couldn’t even get his 2^nd butt cheek on the seat and one of us had to lean forward to accommodate our shoulders, also as I was wedged into the window seat, my knees were being sliced up by the wires under the cover of the seat in front – a very long 4 hours!  When we reached the bus office in Antigua and were told we needed to change buses to be dropped off at our hotels, we decided it would be far more preferable to walk so we abandoned the bus, much to the relief of our achy bodies!

After a quick overnight in Antigua, we were up early to catch the next uncomfortable minibus to Semuc Champey, about 6 hours north east of Antigua.  We passed the time chatting with the other passengers, and it was nice to meet another English couple as we’ve not come across many English so far in Central America (heaps of Canadians though!).  We were dropped off at the caves in Lanquin so that we could explore them and then see the many bats flying out of the caves at sunset.  The caves were nice but not remarkable although our 14 year old guide pointed out all sorts of formations that supposedly looked like various animals.  He kept offering to take photos for us, but he definitely needs to improve his skills as most of them were terrible!  We’d been expecting a mass exodus of bats at around 6:30pm, but they just flew out separately over a period of time.  It was nice to see but not spectacular.  A moto-taxi was waiting for us and I experienced some doubt as to whether it would be able to make the 10km journey to Semuc Champey over the bad dirt roads, but luckily it just took us into Lanquin and from there the hotel pick-up continued the bumpy journey.  

The hotel in Semuc Champey was lovely - set on the hill above the river were a number of wooden cabins and an open dining area from which you could see toucans and other birds in the morning.  We’d booked a tour which included the famous pools and the water caves, as well as tubing down the river.  The climb up to the view point over the pools was steep and I was surprised at how many people struggled with it and they were all significantly younger than us!  

The climb was worth it though as the view over the pools was great.  There is a natural limestone bridge and then a series of pools down the hill.  After the hot climb we were all gagging to get in the water to cool off.  The pools were such fun as you could jump or dive in, and slide down the limestone formations into the next pool.  We were eventually persuaded to leave as we were going tubing down the river next.  We bought a cold beer each from the hotel and then headed down to the entry point.  Half the group (including Le Roux obviously!), opted to do the rock jump which was probably 4m high.  Then there was the option of jumping off the bridge which was about 10m above the river – needless to say Le Roux jumped and I definitely didn’t!  I was quite happy in my tube with my beer just watching the crazy people jump!  It was a very relaxing ride down the river and we headed back to the hotel for lunch with quite an appetite after the morning’s exertions.  

I bottled the water caves in the afternoon as the thought of being underground in water, climbing through little gaps and jumping into black pools with only a candle for light filled me with horror – pretty much my worst fear, so I went to the entrance of the caves and no further – a lazy couple of hours with my book suited me a lot better.  Le Roux and the others loved the experience though – one of the best things he’s done apparently.  We really didn’t want to leave this lovely place and could quite happily have stayed a lot longer, but we needed to move onto Rio Dulce on the east side of Guatemala.

The journey to Rio Dulce was another 6 hours in a minibus and was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Crammed in the back with us were two huge parcels of eggs stinking of chicken shit.  Also, as they were taking up 2 seats a local guy whose eggs they were was hanging out of the window blocking the airflow into the bus.  After an hour or so, people were feeling sick from both the terrible road and the smell, and the little girl in front of me threw up so we had to stop.  We all got out for some fresh air and for people to find their travel sickness pills.  Back on the road, the driver went over some bumps too fast and some of the eggs came loose from the parcels and started smashing on the floor.  This did nothing to help the smell in the van and now we had to try and move our luggage in the tiny amount of space we had so it wasn’t sitting in broken eggs!  After about 4 hours we finally got rid of the local guy and his eggs and switched to another, clean minibus for the final leg.

Rio Dulce is apparently the safest place to moor your yacht during hurricane season, as per the US coastguard, so the town was full of American boat owners.  One was very helpful to us as the hostel we’d picked from the book was now under new management and was far too expensive, so he suggested another option for us just down the road.  It is very nice and refreshing meeting people who are so helpful without needing anything in return.  Our room was nice and had a view of the river, but the clientele of the hotel bar restaurant were something else.  The only word I can use is “red neck”.  The owner was from Dallas, Texas and I had trouble understanding his accent it was such a drawl, and some of his friends were interesting to say the least.  While having a drink at the bar people asked us about our trip and so we got talking.  I then asked this one guy if he had a boat.  The guy across from him, laughed at this and said he used to.  It turned out to be a crazy story as the guy had just broken up his 4 year relationship with a local lady and she had in turn burnt and sunk his boat, which he’d just had done up.  The term he used to describe his ex girlfriend defied belief – a n***er bitch - I didn’t think people would actually use the “n” word to describe a coloured person especially with people they’ve just met in a bar - incredible.

There wasn’t much to Rio Dulce and we were only there to catch a boat down the river to Livingston.  Through the owner of our hotel, we organised a tour which meant we could stop at all the sites down the river and spend as much time as we wanted at each.  The trip was great and definitely lived up to expectations.  First stop was a fort on Lake Izabel, then we headed back down the river towards the coast.  We passed bird island and the water lily lagoon before stopping at the hot spring and cave.  The cave wasn’t anything special but it was nice to soak in the hot water at the edge of the river with a drink.  As we headed to the gorge there were hundreds of pelicans and egrets in the trees and floating on the water.  It was a beautiful ride down river to Livingston.

Livingston also wasn’t any special and we had heard that the number of druggies hanging around meant it wasn’t that safe at night.  We were only stopping one night in order to get the twice weekly boat to Punta Gorda in Belize the next morning.  A coloured guy called Kippie met us off the boat and helped us sort out our boat ticket and immigration, as well as taking us to our hostel in return for commission from the hostel and a small tip from us.  We stupidly stayed at a place recommended to us by a friend, and although it was a reasonable place, it was a party hostel and with a 6am start the next morning we weren’t in the mood for a big night.  Unfortunately one of the staff was leaving and so all of the staff and a fair few others were up for a big night and they partied until the small hours, meaning we got very little sleep.  Lesson learned – don’t stay in party hostels - you can go out for beers if you want instead!

Sleep deprived and grumpy we headed down to the port for our 7am boat, a little “launcha” which would take us 1 hour across the sea to Punta Gorda.  The sea was pretty choppy and I had to concentrate on not being ill as well as hanging on so that I didn’t smash the base of my spine down on the hard seat after every wave.  We all got wet on the ride although the people at the back of the boat fared worst.  We made it to Belize in one piece albeit a little damp and glad we hadn’t eaten breakfast before we left!

Due to the shape of Guatemala and our proposed route through Belize it made sense to come back to Tikal and Flores later on, so we’ve not quite finished our time in Guatemala yet...

Honduras

So, back to the 14.5 hour bus journey up through Nicaragua, into Honduras.  Our plan had been to get dropped off at La Guama and then catch a local bus to our hostel near Pena Blanca, on the lake.  However, due to a serious traffic accident and road works, we arrived 2.5 hours later than expected.  It was dark, there were no buses, no taxis, no hotels and the bus conductor dropped us with a warning about the bad local boys hanging around.  We were in somewhat of a bind.  Luckily, although not for the 2 angry truck drivers involved, there had been another traffic accident and the police were at the scene.  We approached them to ask what our options were and the president of the little town came over.  He thankfully spoke some English, and was able to help.  He persuaded the police officers to drive us the 12km to our hostel and after 20 minutes rattling around in the back of the police van with traffic cones, we arrived safely at D&D Brewery.

D&D Brewery was located in Los Naranjos, a little village by Lago de Yojoa, about 4km from Pena Blanca.  The establishment is owned by a guy from Oregon who brews his own beer in a microbrewery on the premises.  Needless to say Le Roux tried all of the different beers many times over!  The owner had also perfected a chocolate cake recipe and it was so good that I had to have it every day we were there – best cake I’ve had in a long time!  I even asked for the recipe so will be baking it as soon as I have the required equipment to do so.

The area is known for its birdlife and there was a resident twitcher at D&D – an eccentric old English guy called Malcolm who had crazy long white hair and a plaited beard – quite a character!  He was very knowledgeable and was able to identify a lot of the random birds we’ve photographed, although I have forgotten most of the names already!  We headed out into the local countryside for a number of walks to see if we could find and photograph more wildlife. The scenery was lovely - rolling green hills, plantations of sugar cane, coffee, and bananas, and lush forest with little rivers running through it.  The air was heady with the jasmine-like fragrance of the coffee blossoms.  There was, however, a very large ant population and on one of our walks through a coffee plantation in flip flops we were both bitten by some large black ants – they sting and itch a lot and my feet became all puffy and swollen!  Lesson learned – closed shoes required on forest walks!  We also came across a few snarling dogs which were pretty scary so Le Roux took to carrying a couple of rocks just in case!

One morning we hired a rowing boat from a local called Oscar, and Le Roux and I, along with Jason (a lovely Canadian guy from Vancouver we’d met at D&D) rowed down the river and out onto the lake for a spot of bird watching and fishing.  The bird watching was more successful than the fishing, but the lake was beautiful so we enjoyed some lovely scenery while floating around.  We saw the fish jumping, including the much desired black bass, but they weren’t biting for either Le Roux or Jason so no free dinner for us! 

Besides the lake, the other thing to do in the area was to visit Pulhapanzak falls, about 18km away by local bus.  The waterfalls were definitely more impressive than the ones on Ometepe which made the trip somewhat more worthwhile.  However, the best was yet to come.  We had read about a tour you could do behind the waterfall to a little cave and as it didn’t cost very much, we decided to do it.  It would definitely not have met UK health and safety standards as we clambered and slipped our way through mud and over rocks to the base of the waterfall and then waded through the falls themselves, to get to the middle and the small cave at the back.  We were deluged with water and had to hold hands, keep our heads down and breathe through our mouths – scary and exhilarating at the same time!  Our guide found a little bird stuck behind the waterfall, so he carefully picked it up and carried it out from behind the falls before letting the very grateful bird fly away.  Having safely made our way out of the falls, there was an opportunity to swim in a rock pool and to do a 10m jump off the rocks.  Needless to say, Le Roux and Jason did the jump a couple of times while I took the photos.  Overall a really fun and exciting experience!

It was time to move on again after 4 nights at D&D and our next destination was Copan Ruinas, by the Guatemalan border on the west side of Honduras.  To get there involved a chicken bus followed by a more civilised luxury coach.  The chicken bus should have taken a maximum of 1.5hrs, but somehow it took 2.5hrs to reach San Pedro Sula.  We stopped at every person on the roadside, even if they were only 20m apart, and they all seemed to have either lots of shopping or lots of kids, which required assistance from the conductor to get everyone and everything on board.  We even had a disco on board as the driver had installed a serious stereo system and was pumping out the tunes at quite a volume as we drove along.  To start with it was all quite fun and interesting to watch, but as time ticked by and the last bus from SPS to Copan grew nearer I was wishing we could speed up a little.  My wish was granted at the 2 hr mark, when our bus driver became a racing driver and we hurtled along overtaking everything in sight regardless of any blind bends or hills – it became a white knuckle ride and I was relieved to have arrived in one piece with all of our luggage in time to catch our next bus.  After a very uneventful 2^nd leg, we arrived in Copan. The final mile to our hostel was a bit far to walk with all of our luggage so we decided to take a moto-taxi.  At first the driver was pleased to have a fare but that was until he saw how much we needed to fit in his little vehicle.  I honestly don’t know how we squeezed everything in, but we did and then we had to negotiate the steep hills up from the bus terminal to town.  At one point the taxi skidded back a little as it rounded a corner on the steep dirt road and the driver had to have a second attempt at making it up the hill.  We felt sorry for the guy as we’d probably taken a couple of years off the life of his bike so we tipped generously!

Copan Ruinas is a lovely little town with cobbled streets and nice buildings, however, it is pretty touristy as you would expect, with many souvenir shops, hotels, bars and restaurants to cater for the wide spectrum of people visiting the nearby world famous ruins.  First stop was obviously the ruins where we bumped into Larry and Fred again, two Canadian guys doing a motorbike road trip for 3 months (Le Roux is very jealous!), who we’d met at D&D Brewery a few days before.  We wandered round the ruins with them and took in the various temples and stairways, which were pretty impressive.  It was a beautiful setting with trees all around and a number of scarlet macaws and other birds flying around.  What struck us was how few people there were and consequently how peaceful the place was - we had got there quite early to avoid the tour bus rush, but it never came thankfully.  That night we met up with Larry and Fred again for dinner and had some lovely food in Twisted Tanyas accompanied by some good Argentinean wine, which I’ve been missing recently.  The night before we’d had some of the worst plonk I’ve ever had so it was a relief to have something enjoyable to drink.

Our next activity was an overnight trip to Finca El Cisne, a farm about 25km from Copan.  We were picked up from town by Carlos, the owner and host, in his pick up and we had to squeeze 10 of us and our luggage into it, so 5 of the group had to stand in the back for the hour long drive over terrible roads – a hair-raising ride for them, but luckily I was squeezed in the front seat with the fresh veggies and my day pack!  After being shown our rooms, we were given a tour of Carlos’ share of the farm where he talked about a wide variety of plants, including his new cocoa plantation, which was very interesting.  Carlos gave unsuspecting Le Roux one of the little round chillies the size of a peppercorn he was growing and it nearly blew his head off – the hottest thing he’s ever tried!  



Next was the 3 hour horse ride down the road at the main farm.  Le Roux and I have had some disappointing horse riding trips so far, which involved sitting on the horse and following nose to tail in a very specific order.  Luckily this ride was different.  The horses were well schooled but had minds of their own and Carlos allowed us to actually ride them.  We were each given a cowboy hat and a horse - we rode Cleopatra and Luna (mother and daughter) who were keen to go and so we had to hold them back at times.  It was great being able to canter across sections of the farm – such fun to finally ride properly.  

Halfway we stopped to rest the horses and Carlos harvested some coconuts and we had fresh coconut water to drink – lovely and refreshing.  On the way back to the farm one of the Belgian lads on the tour who was a less experienced rider didn’t manage to steer his horse around the bamboo bush and he ended up with a deep cut in his arm – I didn’t realise bamboo was that sharp.  Luckily Carlos’ sister is a doctor so she came by the farm to stitch up his arm.  


After a lovely lunch of some homemade local food we were given a tour of the coffee production plant.  We also got to see a ripe cocoa bean pod, taste the sweet coating on the raw beans, and then try the dry beans before they are roasted.  It was interesting to me as a chocoholic to find out that the inside of a cocoa bean is actually purple and white marbled, with the quality of the cocoa bean being indicated by the proportion of white – the higher the better.  

The day was rounded off by a soak in the natural hot springs nearby - I still find it odd to see a hot steaming waterfall.  After more lovely local food for dinner and breakfast we were taken back to Copan.  We ate a great variety of things during the three meals we had at the farm, including a rosti of a local root vegetable drizzled with ginger marinated in honey; a stuffed fritter made from the puree of a square banana filled with mashed salty black beans; and spiced tamales wrapped around moist chicken. A great 24 hours on the farm and I’d highly recommend the trip to anyone. 

The last thing we visited in Copan was Macaw Mountain, another bird sanctuary, focussed on parrots and macaws, unsurprisingly!  We seem to have developed a bird fetish and are now borderline twitchers!!  We saw a vast number of rescued birds, including scarlet macaws, green parrots, various types of owls, and two types of toucans.  My favourites were obviously the toucans, including the new blacker ones we’d not seen before.  I also particularly liked Polly, a crazy moon walking, talking, head bobbing parrot who lived in the gift shop.  It was sad to read that a lot of the birds are seized by the police from illegal traders, but it takes them too long to get the birds to the sanctuary and as they don’t know how to look after them a significant proportion die en route.  

There was an area at the sanctuary where we could get close to the birds outside of their cages and we got some great pictures, although we did have to put up with the incredible noise that they made altogether!  We dragged Jason along with us as he’d just arrived in Copan, but luckily he really enjoyed the place too.  We had a nice lunch at the sanctuary which was set in a beautiful river/forest location a couple of kilometres outside of Copan.  


That evening, our last in Honduras, we met up again with Jason for a Yarniff rematch – unfortunately things didn’t go to plan and I lost badly, but we had a nice evening.  We’ll have to play again when we reach Vancouver!

And so our short time in Honduras came to an end as we caught a shuttle bus early in the morning to Antigua in Guatemala. We both really enjoyed the places we visited and the people we met – so friendly, welcoming and helpful.  The farm stay was a particular highlight and I’d highly recommend Honduras to anyone.