Archive for June, 2010
Posted on June 17, 2010 by angela
We got up early to watch the first World Cup Football game. Mexico is a huge rival here, so there was a lot of celebrating their non-victory. Later, we said our goodbyes to Francisco, Karla and Melissa and I took one more longing look at Karla’s pink bug. Man, I miss my bug sometimes. The next one will be pink!
As Francisco says, “Pink is not a crime!” But, he also says he can’t drive it.
After getting lost a few times and driving through some areas that were easily 100% indigenous (non-Spanish speaking,) we finally got on the correct road to Semuc-Champay. The scenery was fantastic. There are so many small bumpy mountains and the clouds were rolling in. A couple hours on pavement, and a long bumpy hour on steep dirt terrain and we were there.
We arrived at Semuc-Champay, a series of cascades emptying into some beautiful turquoise pools. The view from above is legendary, but we were anxious to go jump in. Coban had been a nice change from the heat, but now we were back in it.
We jumped right into the first pool we found and swam to a rock island in the middle. We swam around a bit until we had a feeling we hadn’t felt in a while – cold. By the time we hiked back to the car, that feeling was gone and all the windows were down for our hot and slow climb back uphill.
There was camping there at the park, but it was just the parking lot and no one (except the armed vigilante) was there. We decided to hit the former finca near town referred to in our guidebook as “the hippest place in Guatemala.”
On the way, we picked up a farmer and his son for the very long, and very steep journey to the next town of Lanquin.We checked into our decent digs ($15US) and immediately went out to enjoy the spectacular grounds.
There was a nice river with a strong current. Bode wanted to get in, but Jason told him about the time he got swept away by the current of the Rio Grande when he was a kid, and his friend Dale had to save him. Actually, Bode was riveted by the story and we heard it about 15 times that night. By the way, thanks Dale!
Just across the river were cows grazing on the mountains. Bode insisted they wanted to cross the river to our side. I doubt it. I’m not sure if it was the hippest place in Guatemala, but it sure was peaceful.
Posted on June 16, 2010 by jason
We headed out early to beat the heat. We got a tip to check out Mariscos on the southeastern edge of Lago de Izabel. We took a side trip to go investigate, but were unimpressed. By now it was 9 am and sweltering and we wanted to jump in the lake to cool off, but even this didn’t seem too inviting. We had lot’s of driving to do, so we decided to just grind it out.
There is livestock everywhere – being herded down the middle of the road and seemingly on every truck. It was very slow going for almost 7 hours.
The highlights of the drive were getting the occasional ‘thumbs up’ or peace sign from passing cars – something we never saw in Mexico. One guy even started frantically waving an American flag out his window and really wanted us to pull over. Even the guy at the gas station had lots of questions about the bus and called it un classico.
We had been invited to Coban by Francisco – the person behind Club La Fusca - and were welcomed by his great family. We were actually supposed to call him when we got into town, but we first stopped for lunch. Before we knew it, one of Francisco’s buddies had spotted our bus and called him up. They found us first and surprised us there.
Francisco and family were generous enough to host us for our entire stay here. He invited over some VW buddies from the club for dinner and we showed off the bus some more. It’s always nice to hang out with some other aficionados – even if we do have trouble communicating. All really great folks.
Francisco is a pretty interesting guy. He’s studied Mayan history extensively and has his own personal collection of Mayan artifacts. He’s got a collection of old VW’s – a rarity around there, and even recently acquired a splittie. In Guatemala, this is a big deal. You would think that their proximity to Mexico would mean that there would be plenty of air-cooled VW’s here, but there are virtually none.
Of particular interest to me is his connection to Guatemalan orchids. His grandfather was a pioneer in preserving hundreds of species of indigenous species. We heard stories about conflicts with other (foreign) collectors and hair-raising run-ins with the military in the rain forests during the recent Civil War.
Francisco’s family is working hard to preserve his grandfather’s legacy and his family is currently building a museum and preserve just outside of town in the rain forest.
Francisco took us to his grandfather’s house to see the over 1000 species (20,000 plants total) his grandfather collected from the forest over his lifetime. Afterward, we drove out to the forest to see the progress on their orchid preserve. In about a year from now, their orchid preserve will be complete and ready for visitors.
Posted on June 15, 2010 by jason
Just a few miles from the Belize border, we took a short-cut down a gravel road that was supposed to save us some time on the way to Poptun. We asked a kid at the intersection if this was the correct road and he said it wasn’t. We turned off anyway and, of course, it was the correct road. So far, asking directions gives random results. It seems we might be better off just following our instincts.
We drove for over an hour on decent gravel through lush green farm land. There was sign after sign advertising “Toros se vende.” The road was bearable, but we were very happy to see pavement ahead of us when we met up with the main north-south highway to Poptun.
We had heard great things about Finca Ixobel and we were not disappointed. It’s a very relaxed farm that’s really more of a hostel. They pointed us to the campground and said we could park and camp anywhere. We picked a treehouse with hammocks and nice porch.
Everything here works on the honor system. Just go to the fridge and get a drink and put a mark next to your name. The food here was stellar (and a bargain) and I’m pretty sure I gained some weight after only two days. Although we didn’t join the backpackers for a night out, there’s a bar down by the pond and happy hour starts at 10 pm. We were fast asleep.
At only 600 meters, it’s still a bit warm in the evenings, but still pleasant enough for camping.
I will mostly remember this as the place that I learned – for the first time – that my wife is absolutely horrible at ping pong. Embarrassingly bad. Why didn’t I know this earlier? I’m pretty sure she’s been hiding this from me our entire relationship. Bode learned what it means to ‘skunk’ someone.
From here, we made the rather bad decision to drive south towards Rio Dulce. I thought I would be able to take a dirt road that cuts over towards Sumec Champey via Sebol. I asked at least 4 people at the turn-off, hoping for a different answer, but they all said to forget it. We continued to Rio Dulce. I’m still wondering if I should have tried it.
We made it to the Rio Dulce and quickly found a place to stay near the lake with A/C. This is supposedly a popular hangout with the yachting crowd, but it looked more like a floating RV park to us. One old salty guy actually looked exactly like a pirate, with the hat and everything. Definitely a lifestyle choice.
It’s unbearably hot here, so our primary goal was to figure out where to go next. After briefly considering taking the boat trip up to Livingston to see the Guatemalan Caribbean, we decided to high-tail it to somewhere cooler.
Posted on June 14, 2010 by angela
We were at Tikal at 6am. You might want to re-read that sentence, because it most certainly will never happen again. We left our hostel at 5:30am to avoid the heat of Tikal.
Along the road, there must have been 10 different animal caution signs, and within minutes we spotted the first coati foraging around.
Tikal is one of the Mayan civilization’s greatest cities, both in terms of size (222 square miles) and historical importance. It lays in a tropical forest which protects hundreds of animal species. Most interesting to Bode – even though he’s never seen it – was that this was the Rebel Base in the last scene of the first Star Wars movie… Episode IV (my first Star Wars I should say.)
On the hike we spotted spider monkeys and tons of birds, including a toucan. The grounds are enormous, and after a good half hour hike we made it to The Great Plaza. Plenty impressive, with enough tall temples to climb up to entertain a 5-year old. Only a few of the biggest pyramids are open for tourists to climb on, since apparently the Mayans were much better at climbing steep steps than us modern idiots.
Every tourist flyer, map and poster in Guatemala seems to have the same beautiful view of Tikal, and now Bode points to it and says, “Hey, it’s the Jaguar Temple- I’ve been there.”
The views from the top of the temple are astounding, and what is really amazing is that we only saw a small part of the park. We lucked out with a bit of an overcast day, but 2.5 hours is about all the ruins Bode could take.
We kept hiking and Jason climbed to the top of Temple IV, which is the tallest of the structures at 65 meters. Bode wanted to go, but we told him he’d have to leave his new costume (twigs and leaves) and he decided he’d rather play jungle boy. I was happy to join him.
One of the park rangers drove by in a 4×4 and asked us if we wanted a ride back to the entrance – a 45 minute jungle hike. We eagerly accepted.
It’s worth noting that the well-signed entrance fee to the park for Guatemalans is 25 quetzales and the entrance fee for everyone else is $150 quetzales. A 600% mark-up for tourists. Government sponsored discrimination is alive and well here and not the last time we would experience it this day.
By 9 am we were back at our hotel and eating breakfast. After another quick swim, we headed out for our next mission of the day – getting to the Belize border to obtain vehicle permission. An hour and a half later we were there.
As expected, there were a few good Samaritans offering to assist us so when a woman started yelling that we needed to pay to cross the bridge 50 feet from the immigration offices we just drove on through. I may have heard “Policia” but decided to trust Jason’s instinct that she was just another tout trying to get money from unsuspecting gringos.
Bode and I stayed with the van while Jason went to deal with registration. There were no lines and no problems, and it took him about half an hour. License, vehicle title, and passport is all you need for a 90 day vehicle permit sticker. You fill out a form and they copy and stamp everything. Total cost: 40Q.
Just before he returned to the bus, a police officer came up to our window. I thought he was saying we needed to move the car, and looked to see Jason walking up. What I didn’t see, was there were 5 other officers behind the bus. Apparently, we did need to pay to cross the bridge. The troll had called the cops on us.
There was a tourism official nearby who helped interpret, and through her we explained that we didn’t know about the toll and would pay on the way out. The officers asked if we were crossing into Belize and we assured them we were just there for vehicle paperwork and staying in Guatemala. Jason had asked at the immigration office and was told the toll was 5 quetzales, we confirmed this with the officers.
On the way back over the bridge, the woman lowered the gate so that we couldn’t pass. Jason handed her 5 quetzales but she insisted it was 50. We happened to see the tourist official and she stopped to help us argue that several people, including the police , told us it was 5. This went on and on for about 10 minutes (a long, hot 10 minutes). Meanwhile the traffic on the other side was passing just fine, not paying a cent. She finally closed their gate so everyone was stopped waiting for us. Not a nice lady.
Jason told her we had all day, and they could call the police to check. She went into her office and came out with some sort of paper that we weren’t sure said anything relevant. She insisted it was 5Q for Belizians and 50Q for everyone else. It was apparently free for Guatemalans. We finally paid the ludicrously exorbitant 50 quetzales ($7.50 USD) and drove away.
Posted on June 11, 2010 by jason
We used my hotel rule of checking out at the last possible minute to fully utilize their pool and finish up our laundry before heading out. We made it less than an hour to El Remate for a look around since it was way too hot to start hiking in Tikal.
We pulled off onto a dirt road and started driving around the lake… and we found what we were looking for almost immediately. Big blue lake, long swimming pier, and a white horse just hanging out and cooling off in the water. Errrrrrrt. We didn’t really know what we were looking for here, but sometimes you just know when you’re there. We were there.
There are a smattering of hostels and hotels and eco-lodges here and we happened to pull over right in front of something you might call an eco-lodge. Primitive in all the right ways. We weren’t aware of any camping (and it was still way too hot again,) so we forked over the $20 USD for a room with a fan and we were done for the day.
Put on the trunks and head for the water. I’m not sure how we killed an entire afternoon and evening out by the water, but we managed to do it. We met some really cool folks too.
Despite still not really knowing how to swim, Bode was keen on jumping off the dock all day and we were keen on staying cool. He’s getting better every day.
Part of our afternoon involved playing with everyone’s cameras. Elana’s had some sort of feature where you could make it have different effects like a fish-eye, or let you put silly costumes on people… and it was waterproof. Anyway, we thought all these silly camera features were ridiculous and couldn’t imagine why anyone would want all that stuff on their camera. We played with it for hours while we dismissed the entire concept.
Posted on June 10, 2010 by jason
I was a few more hours drive from the border at El Ceibo to the next sizable town of La Libertad. We were able to fill up our tank at a surprisingly greater cost than Mexico (about $3.75 USD /gallon – yes, they use gallons here) and continued slightly north.
We were a bit chagrined to find that our GPS – that worked great in Mexico – has virtually nothing for Guatemala. It literally gives us a blank screen other than a few major highways which are incorrect. We promptly got lost once we entered the first sizable town near Flores. Time to get a good map and start asking directions.
Flores is a nice little lake island town that is only a few blocks long and is connected to land by a small bridge. It’s a colorful place and there are a smattering of tourists lounging on the docks, coffee shops, and milling about. there’s not much to do here, but it’s a good stop-over in the middle of the state of Peten.
We decided to treat ourselves to a place with a pool and spent the afternoon cooling off… it’s hot and there’s no camping here. I’m not sure we ever really planned on driving through Central America in the summer, but here we are.
The town has some good restaurants and hotel rooms with A/C, so we were happy to be here and figure out what’s next. Now is a good time to crack the book on Guatemala while Bode builds forts with the hotel pillows.
Posted on June 9, 2010 by jason
After Palenque, we didn’t really have any specific plans. From here, it’s quite a long drive to just about anywhere. We had been considering driving north and around the Yucatan peninsula. However, we really didn’t want to drive north out of principle alone. Besides, we’ve been there several times (FYI – Tulum and Cozumel are great) and were getting anxious to be moving into another country. We also considered driving up to Cancun for the sole purpose of catching a flight to Havana, but this idea just sort of died on the vine. We can still fly there from just about any international airport if we change our mind.
We knew we wanted to get to Guatemala, so had to consider a few routes. Ultimately, we decided on the quickest route to Tikal – through a relatively new road and vehicle crossing at El Ceibo. Word had it that we would have no problems on the Mexico side, but there were essentially no facilities on the Guatemalan side. The worst case would be that we would have to turn around and drive all the way through the southern Yucatan (10 hours?) and then down through Belize. Or, go farther south to the border crossing near the Pacific coast and then make our way back up. We decided to go for it and try to talk our way into the country and figure out the vehicle importation later.
The first thing in the morning, we took the road south from Palenque and then quickly cut east towards the border, then through a mountain road shortcut over to Tenosique and then another turn-off to El Ceibo. Somewhere in there we entered the state of Tabasco.
The roads are all in very good condition – mostly new pavement – and there is essentially no traffic in either direction. We stopped at a mystery town near the border for a quick lunch and the lady gladly over-charged us for a few bowls of chicken soup. We were intentionally trying to spend our few remaining pesos, so it was no big deal. I later worried that the approximately $10 USD worth remaining in my pocket wouldn’t be enough to get us across the border and all the way to Flores. It was.
There’s not much going on at El Ceibo – it’s no town, but a kind of no-man’s land that you might expect to see at a remote border crossing. You have to drive through 10 or 15 guys waving red flags and standing in the road trying to get you to pull over to buy their stuff, exchange money, or eat at their food shack. Show no signs of braking and they’ll move out of the way. When you get all the way to the border there will be a giant Mexican flag and an immaculate new facility on the left.
Go inside the large air conditioned (!) building and take your vehicle import papers and the sticker from your windshield to the proper window and wait for the person to fill out and stamp all the paperwork. Everyone here is nice and professional and they only let people with official business into the building – no riff raff. There are signs everywhere indicating that all services are free to discourage touts or “border helpers” from getting established here. So far it’s working.
After that, take your receipt showing proof that your vehicle import papers were canceled, your passports, and your old tourist cards (and Banjercito receipts) to the small office next to the gate. They will stamp everything and send you on your way. There were no lines for anything and the total time required was about 20 minutes. Total cost to leave Mexico: nada.
I stopped and asked some of the wandering money-changers their rate and was surprised that it was exactly the bank rate I verified the previous night. Nobody seems to be exiting Mexico here and their business is selling pesos to Guatemalans, so maybe I was helping them out. I happily exchanged my $10 USD worth of pesos to quetzales and got back in the car.
Some official looking people will lift a gate and let you out of the country. Drive a few hundred meters to Guatemala, where some not-so-official looking people will drop a rope and move a few orange cones to let you into the country. There are a few motorcycle taxis here to ferry people to the Mexico gate and exactly one tiny building on the left. This is the immigration office. Still in the car, we were greeted by the smiling uniformed aduana officer who looked at our plates and said “Ahhhhhh! California! Bienvenidos!”
I hopped out of the car and went to the one desk in his small cinder block building to complete an immigration form/tourist permit for all three of us (about $2 USD each) and get passport stamps. Like we suspected, there was no possible way to handle vehicle importation here, but he assured me we would have no problems and we could go to another border to finish our paperwork. This was by far the nicest (and sweatiest) immigration official I’ve ever met. He vigorously welcomed me to his country at least 5 more times and showed me a big map and answered all the questions I was capable of asking. I couldn’t understand all of it, but I think he said we would have no problems in Guatemala, that everywhere was safe, everything was beautiful, all the people were friendly, and they were glad we came for a visit.
I hopped back in the car, exchanged a few moist high-fives with Team Rehm and we were off into Guatemala.
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