The end of the first adventure is nigh!

#5
My next blog post on the last few days of our non-stop group tour in covering Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

Antigua, Guatemala.
We spent two nights in Antigua after Río Dulce. An eight hour bus journey turned into a nice twelve hour journey due to numerous accidents we came across on the Guatemalan roads. These are quite frequent and the driving is erratic with tuk tuks, cars and even Lorries just choosing to use the other side of the road to over take the traffic jams making things even worse. We finally made it to Antigua at about nine that night. Antigua is a colonial city of cobbled streets, it is set higher up and therefore tends to get quite cold at night. It is set between three volcanoes, all of which are Guatemalas only active volcanoes, Fuego, Pacaya and Agua volcanoes. I have planned to stay for a further two weeks after the group tour ends to learn Spanish in one of the many schools they have here so was glad the Antigua lived up to what I had heard about it. It has lots of nice restaurants, bars and cafes and is filled with tourists as well as locals. I've fallen in love with place already.

 

The next day a few of us went on a four hour hike up Pacaya volcano. Entry to the volcano with a tour guide cost about €6. The volcano last erupted in 2014 and destroyed some of the villages around it. The hike up was manageable but steep although there were plenty of locals following us up offering 'taxis' to the top AKA: horses. Most of us managed to make it up easily enough in foot. A section below the mouth of the volcano where the lava had poured into was still steaming and we were able to toast marshmallows! There was also a small 'Lava store' where the Mayan villagers nearby use the volcanic rock to make jewellery and sell. The jewellery was beautiful and of course it was too good not to buy something.

Later that day the rain came....for hours. Seeing as it is rainy season it's to be expected I guess. There
is a huge local market in Antigua so we went for a look. It was manic, with narrow paths between the
stalls selling everything from clothes, wallets, pots, pans, Tupperware and lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and animals. Lots of offal, including hearts, livers and kidneys on display (a vegetarians worst nightmare). They also had live chickens in baskets...whose fate I did not have much hope for.

We found a small street cafe in the market full of locals and ordered 'pollo' (chicken) from one of the elderly women preparing the food. We got a chicken stew, rice, salad and tortillas (tortillas come with EVERY main meal here) and a fresh fruit juice for €2 each. Bargain. It was also a good way to practice my embarrassingly bad Spanish.

Later that night we had a salsa lesson which was hilarious but really good fun. Our teacher Martine
was an absolute pro. We had dinner in a place called Rainbow café after stepping on each others toes.
 Followed by a big night out in Antigua consisting of an Irish bar, bad salsa dancing, giant jenga
complete with dares and lots of tequila. The next day with a sore head I packed a bag for two nights and we headed for Lago De Atitlán.

Next stop: Lago De Atitlán, Guatemala
Food: chicken stew, rice and pickled salad, tortillas for €2 at the market
Drinks: copious amounts of tequila and lemonade
Bars/restaurants: Reillys (obviously an Irish bar), Rainbow cafe for our salsa lesson and good nachos! The lucky rabbit for dancing, lots of fellow backpackers, beer pong, giant jenga and table tennis
Lesson 5: Marshmallows taste better toasted on top of a volcano

Lago De Atitlán (lake Atitlán) Guatemala
A three hour bus journey took us to Panajachel on Lake Atitlán. Lake Atitlán is a very popular destination with both tourists and holidaying Guatemalans. Apparently it has been described as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world! It has thirteen Mayan villages dotted around the lake. Panajachel is the main hub for accessing the rest of the villages around the lake. It has plenty of stalls selling colourful Mayan woven crafts including scarves, rugs, bags, clothing and shoes. We spent most of the day wandering around looking at what was on offer. As it is low season there were not as many tourists around as usual. There were lots of Mayan women and children walking around trying to sell us souvenirs even when we were sitting having lunch. After a while it got quite annoying as they wouldn't go away even when you said no thanks to them in Spanish. The next day we had a long day planned, visiting the Mayan villages around the lake ending in a nights stay with a local family in
a small village called San Juan. I was happy enough to leave Panajachel, I wasn't overly impressed with it but it is a useful starti point for exploring the rest of the lake with plenty of water taxis and tour complaines.

Views from Casa Del Mundo

We got a taxi boat the next morning and stopped off at a 5 star hotel called La Casa del Mundo which was set on the side of the lake. It had lots of little terraces with hammocks, chairs and tables all with views of the beautiful lake. We had a couple of hours to hang around there and could swim in the lake. It's definitely a place to stay if you aren't in a backpacking budget.

We then got a boat to the Mayan village of Santiago Atitlán. We were lucky enough to have a local guide to take us around the village. He was a local Mayan man in the local dress. The villages all have their own Mayan dialect which is their first language, Spanish being their second. He was

explaining to us that there is a 7:1 ratio of women in the village and it is common for men to have multiple wives although he said for the younger men it isn't as common, the reason being that having more than one wife is too expensive these days! The guys in the group seemed to agree with him......

He brought us to a beautiful church from the 1500's that was built when the Spanish invaded. They have incorporated the many Mayan gods with the Christian saints, he showed us some people praying and explained that they were praying to the Mayan gods and not the Christian gods. The village was a mix of Mayan religion, Catholic and Mayan Christians.

We then walked up the narrow cobbled streets, behind people's houses to visit a Mayan Saint......I didn't really know what to expect. The Saint is called 'Maximón' who we were told is an evil Saint. He moves house every May which is historical. He was previously moved to avoid the Spanish finding him. We entered a small room to see three men eating their lunch, flashing lights all around the room like Christmas. In the middle of the room was a four foot wooden statue with a top hat on, a suit jacket and lots of ties around his neck. The best bit......he was smoking a cigarette.....so surreal! This was their Saint. The men that were in the room are called 'shaman' and are apparently chosen at birth by the midwives! They basically seemed to sit there lighting cigarettes for Maximón and giving him strong liquor. It all seemed very bizarre seeing as the Saint is Woden statue.... Anyway visitors are expected to come and have a drink with Maximón or make a 'donation' to visit home. We were not allowed to take photos but I have included one I have found just to show how strange the whole thing was.

After a few hours in San Antonio we  got another boat to a small local village called San Juan where we would be spending the night with local families. When we got to the island we had a local lunch of avocados, rice, squash, chicken, carrots and of course tortillas. After lunch we met our host families. Myself and my roommate Ellie were greeted by a lovely lady called Elena. She was dressed in the local Mayan clothing and mainly spoke Mayan with a small bit of Spanish.  We followed her up a massively steep hill to her house. We didn't speak much Spanish and she spoke even less English but we were still able to communicate a small amount. The house was very basic but we had our own room and were greeted by two lovely little dogs and Elenas' granddaughter who was about five, she was desperate to show us her toys and was delighted when we gave her presents of stickers and lollies.

After leaving our bags off Elena brought us to the main square of the small village where we were meeting the rest of our group again. For the rest of the afternoon we were shown around three local co-operatives set up by the local communities. The first was a demonstration of the local weaving, called back strap weaving. It was so impressive to see the various colours that the women got from using all natural, locally sourced products such as avocados, beetroot and different berries and barks. There were hundreds of scarves, bags, hats on show that had all been handmade by the local women. The scarves cost around €12-16 and took roughly 4 days to make!

Local weaving 

Locally made scarves

Homemade lunch in San Juan 

We also visited a local art gallery and natural medicinal shop. It was torrential rain as we were walking around...of course I was not prepared but managed to fashion a hood out of a plastic bag. Slave to fashion. After getting drenched we all headed back to our home stays where we had a quiet night with our local Mayan families, learning about their way of life and culture. Ellie and I offered to help Elena and her daughter (also called Elena) with dinner. We helped them make tortillas, flattening balls of dough out and patting them down in our hands. Needless to say ours were the runts of the batch with one of mine being dropped on the floor, much to the dogs delight. After a long day we ate dinner with the family and spoke a bit about football and where we from but the language barrier did limit the conversation. We had an early night and got ready to head back to Antigua then next day where we had a big last night out in Antigua and reluctantly said our goodbyes as our tour officially ended and our group dispersed the next day.  Very strange get after being family for over two weeks!

On our last day a few of us hiked up a viewpoint on the north side of Antigua called Cerro De La Cruz which overlooks the whole of Antigua including the volcanoes surrounding the city. It was a nice, hot day and a perfect way to end the first part of my adventure.

Cerro De La Cruz 

Next stop: staying in Antigua for another two weeks
Food: beautiful breakfast in Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlán
Drinks: minimal apart from our last night out in Antigua
Bars/restaurants: 'Las sopas' restaurant in Antigua for one of the guys' birthdays which included a vegan cake! A bar called 'La Chimena' owned by a local couple from Antigua.
Lesson 6: Making tortillas is surprisingly hard
Jxxx