Chilling out on Utila

We take an expensive taxi ride to the pier where boats to Utila leave. At the dock is a rather confusing waiting room and ticket office with a bunch of loud-mouthed American tourists already waiting. Luckily they are headed for Roatan, the other more upmarket island.
We wait for our boat and enjoy a rather bumpy ride to Utila. The island turns out to be much like Caye Caulker but with a mixture of Spanish and Caribbean English spoken. We choose a place called “Trudy’s hotel” after a search for a good place. On Utila sand flies and bugs are a big problem as is the heat, so 24 hour light and water, fans and screens are essential. The island electricity is switched off from midnight until 6am so everyone needs a hotel with a generator. We have a small room which is fine and has good views of the bay and somewhere to swim. Also, the dive shop linked to the hotel “Underwater Vision” is just starting a PADI scuba diving course afternoon and asks if we’d like to join. There is only one other girl on the course so it could go ahead with just three students. We talk to Darren the Australian dive instructor and he seems pretty good – so we sign up. $168 US each gets us a three and half-day PADI course.

Choosing a dive shop

Utila prides itself on being the cheapest place in the world to learn to dive. The course starts at 2pm in the classroom, which is a bit rushed for us. We grab some lunch and read the PADI manual we have been given. Alysia, the American girl with us on the course is really nice and is on holiday from a 2-year VSO placement in Nicaragua. The afternoon is spent on lectures and videos in the classroom learning about the diving kit. We are both a little apprehensive but looking forward to it. Al has problems reading through all the stuff quickly enough and also has to have a medical tomorrow to check his asthma is not a problem.
At 5pm we’re finished, tired and hot. We’ve already done two tests to prove what we learnt but the stuff itself is pretty easy. The real tests are in the water tomorrow morning. We take a swim in the sunset-lit dock. Later the night is hot and sitting in a tiny comedor a storm brews. The rain doesn’t really help to cool us down but the food is good.

We successfully negotiate San Pedro Sula and book an expensive £110 flight to San Jose, Costa Rica in a week’s time. Now the plan is to head out to the island of Utila where we hope to do some diving. To get here we have to go via La Ceiba on the coast. On the bus we pass numerous bridges which collapsed during Hurricane Mitch in 1996 and have been temporarily replaced by pontoons or military bridges. It is humbling to see what the flooding and weather has done to this country which it has been unable to repair.
La Ceiba is dull and rainy. We get hassles in the bus station from taxi drivers and hotel touts. On the local bus to the town centre, I get funny looks from the locals. I have an inexplicable dislike for the place immediately. Later I realise it is because many more of the locals can speak English (Caribbean English – there are lots of black Creoles here) than elsewhere and I find this strangely off-putting. It removes a barrier we can normally hide behind. People speaking English well are usually other travellers who we can trust. It is therefore easier for local English speakers to deceive us. In Spanish, under the cover of misunderstanding, I can ignore or be rude to people who are hassling us. A manifestation of typically British politeness means that in English I feel more duty bound to converse.
I don’t like La Ceiba and I can’t explain why. It is too late to cross to Utila tonight, so we find base camp, a hotel called “Amsterdam 2001″ run by an old Dutch sailor who is a good bloke and speaks English. The room is huge and dingy but clean. Out in the streets after dark it is not pleasant. In the end we walk quickly to Pizza Hut, passing girls who call at us and a man with a rifle on a street corner. Off-duty security guard or not, guns do not make for a nice atmosphere. After comfort food we take a taxi home just to be safe. I’ve never felt like this before anywhere. The taxi is a death trap. Nothing except the engine seems to working. It is probably marginally safer than the streets though.
Back at the ranch I bang my head on the toilet door frame and have to chase cockroaches round the floor before going to bed. None of these things improve my view of La Ceiba.

Stellae at Copan

I wake up with an upset stomach, again. I thought we’d just got rid of the sickness. Alan seems fine. I knock back some more Pepto Bismol which seems to do the trick. Honduras is a very poor country and the health risks here are worse than elsewhere. Tap water is absolutely undrinkable and cholera is spread freely. Roadside stalls are not recommended for their food unlike elsewhere.
We sort out our laundry and take a fried breakfast at a local cafe – I’m hoping fried eggs will plug me up. Plastered in the usual cocktail of DEET and suncream, we head off in the heat for Copan. The ruins here are on a smaller scale than Tikal but have a better collection of carved stelae and were nevertheless home to 27,000 people in their heyday of 900 AD. It is impressive and the stelae are often beautiful and full of detail. It is amazing that these structures have survived being ravaged by the jungle for 1000 years and still look this good. But I can’t help feeling frustrated at the little knowledge we actually have about the Maya. I have no real idea how they lived or what made their civilisation tick. Sure, the archaeologists have made a valiant attempt to decipher the complex hieroglyph’s but we are left with a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces have been destroyed and the “box picture” has been defaced. I can’t help thinking, as Michael Crichton said in his book “Travels” which I am reading, that the many guide books are involved in a conspiracy to cover up what we collectively know about the Maya – nothing. We don’t know how they came to invent an advanced calendar and astronomical system but never discovered the wheel or the arch. We don’t really know why their civilisation ended. It is beautiful to see their majestic remains have proved so permanent and yet they have sent us a riddle through time which is ultimately unsolvable – too many of the pieces are missing.
We spend an interesting afternoon looking for clues to the mystery in the heat but get no closer. Back at the hotel in the evening, getting our laundry back is a pressing concern since we have decided to leave at 6:00am tomorrow for San Pedro Sula, Honduras. In best Spanish I ask some woman, who seems to be vaguely connected to the hotel, if we can have our clothes back. She says no, you must collect them tomorrow. Thinking on my feet, I say (in Spanish) we are leaving to go to San Pedro Sula. Then she looks cross but does go to find the clothes anyway. She tries to charge us the 40L we have already paid but again I am ready with my Spanish and feel victorious when she lets us have them correctly for free. Al is annoyed when he finds he has a sock missing but neither of us has the bottle or the Spanish to go back and annoy her again. We have a good laugh and hit the sack.

Luckily, as we near the border town of El Florido, the passengers have thinned out and we have a bit more space. We eat the watermelon in celebration of getting this far but we are wondering what to do in the event the border is shut when we arrive. It is about 5:20pm and the bus is doing about 10 miles an hour up a steep hill. It is beginning to get dark. Al is visibly worried – our packs seem like they must fall off the roof at every bump and the border crossing is a mile from even El Florido where, the Lonely Planet admits, there is a single Hospadaje (hostel) which can “put you up in an emergency”.
I’m going with the flow and hoping the border guards will keep the border open for the last bus before knocking off. Finally, at 6.10pm we arrive at the border where a football match is being played in no man’s land and peasants in cowboy hats apparently walk unheeded between the two countries. We dash for the Guatemalan exit “hut” and luckily find it open. We smile nicely and hand over a few dollars to oil the bureaucratic machine and then we’re out into the international soccer match. Bizarre. We still have to get into Honduras and we foresee getting stuck with the footballers since now we can’t return to Guatemala without shelling out more entry tax.
It is still raining and getting dark. It is 6:20pm. The Honduran checkpoint is another hut about 100m away and the immigration window is open. Unfortunately, the only member of staff in the office is sitting at the back with headphones on – tallying up for the day perhaps. We attract his attention and he seems surprised to see us. He says, in Spanish, we are too late (mas tarde) and should return tomorrow (manyana). This is bad for us but despite our pleading there’s an awful moment when it looks like we’re going to have to kip right there by the football pitch for the night.
Luckily, the guy is not a jobsworth and decides to let us in – for a fee. We hand over 50 Lempira we’ve just changed with a little man at the roadside not knowing how much they are worth in this inflation-bound country. This seems acceptable to the guard and he proceeds to produce our visas – copying the names out laboriously – while we breathe collective sighs of relief.
The journey still isn’t over. We have to reach the nearest town, Copan Ruinas, 12km away and the last bus left at 4pm. Luckily almost immediately we cross the border, a bloke approaches us and offers us a ride in his jeep for 40L each. This is just about all the money we have left but we hand it over anyway and stand on the back of his pick-up to ride the rocky road cut between dark hills and jungle with steep drops on either side. There are three people in the cab and an old geezer in the back with us. We take a photo with him to celebrate our Honduran arrival – he seems friendly enough. We turn a blind eye to the possibility of bandits although lots of the passing peasants carry long machetes.
The country is beautiful: rolling and jagged jungle-covered hills, but soon we can see nothing but black and the rutted road lit up in the headlights. 45 minutes later we are finally in Copan Ruinas, a tiny town serving the tourists coming to see the Mayan ruins. All in all we have travelled a total of 135 miles as the crow flies today and it has taken us 8 hours.
Another map reading error delays finding our hotel. It seems friendly. Luckily our remaining Lempira just covers the room but tomorrow is a Sunday, banks are closed and we have no more cash. We are forced to spend some of our precious US dollars on a meal in a restaurant after an icy cold shower. But feel a lot better afterwards. I am absolutely drained and battered being shoe-horned into buses.

Arriving, victorious in Honduras

Today is a day of travel. We are up sleepy at 6am to begin an exhausting series of buses which will eventually take us across the border into Honduras. Our schedule is tight. We catch the first bus, to Guatemala City, without any problem. The views are spectacular but inexplicably I begin to feel very unwell. I endure it for a while by taking long breaths of cold air to reduce the nausea. I think it must be some deep fried bananas we ate last night (rather than travel sickness). I haven’t eaten anything today. As the bus stops to collect more passengers, I get up and off and with a quick “una momento, por favor” to the driver I run into the hedge and chunder. I feel much better except for the fact the entire bus is watching and I have to run to catch the bus as it moves off.
In chaotic Guatemala City, we retrieve our bags from the roof and stop for a couple of Cokes to visit the worst toilet in Guatemala. The women in the café laugh because the gent’s is closed and we have to use the women’s. Perhaps the gent’s is really clean… Navigating by the grid system is not as easy as it looks, at least for us. We get lost well and truly and have to ask some locals in broken Spanish.
Finally we find the bus station for Chiquimula and a half an hour later we are installed on an acceptable bus with a travelling salesman trying to sell us Korean ginseng tea in Spanish. Al falls asleep, I stare out the window. I notice the people here to be particularly dirty – they lob rubbish out the windows of the bus without concern just like the Chinese and Indians I have seen before. I wonder whether it’s an issue of culture, economy or just a lack of respect for an environment that provides everything for them.
Our schedule begins to look tighter and tighter. The border with Honduras closes at 6pm and the last bus from Chiquimula leaves for the border town El Florido at 3:30pm and takes two and a half hours – presumably just making the border in time. Our bus is delayed and by the time we reach Chiquimula it is 3pm. Some festival is going on since there are beer tents and loud music in the streets. Local women are selling barbecued steak with spring onions and coleslaw, wrapped in freshly cooked bread. It looks and smells delicious so we buy some and a watermelon for lunch. Then, armed with these, we board our final bus bound for El Florido.
This turns out to be the smallest bus in the world, or at least the most densely packed with people. Presumably originally designed for American school kids, my thighs are longer than the inter-seat distance which makes it very painful especially when there are three people to a seat designed for two. Coupled to this our seat is above the wheel arches so the floor has a lump in it forcing me to put my knees up. With a huge watermelon and the remains of the kebab on my lap, if I were asked to make an attempt at the most uncomfortable position to sustain for two and-a-half hours for the Guinness Book of Records, this would be it.
The road to El Florido (58km) is mostly unmetalled and at some points hardly classifies as a road at all. The bus is pretty bumpy but the scenery is stunning: chalky cliffs and rugged green hills. This is the back of beyond and the middle of nowhere. A simpleton is sitting next to Alan and makes funny comments seeming to say we’re in his seat. Then he winks conspiratorially at us and looks around suspiciously. He ends up shaking our hands and welcoming us to his country. Mad man.

Market day

I force myself awake at 6:40am to take some photos of the lake – it is already light but the clear morning air is worth getting up for. The cool, crisp freshness, the clear blue sky and the sleepy atmosphere of locals getting ready for business makes pictures magical this morning. The sunset across the lake will probably be even more spectacular.
Back at the hotel, I wait for Al to wake up and we eventually leave for “ChiChi” at 8.30am. The local bus is crowded as usual and I have to give up my hard-won seat to an old woman who looks like she wouldn’t survive the journey standing up. About halfway there she gets off and gives up my seat to someone else and then she jumps off the bus like an 18 year old. Perhaps only the skin ages prematurely here.

Yep, those are chicks

We get delayed in the town of Solola by a brightly coloured festival possession but then the real, rural journey starts. Everything geographical about Central America is on a larger scale than that at home. This strip of land is not really very large but it seems to have inherited some sizeable geography from the two larger continents it joins. The hills are steep and the roads winding – but the drivers are not fazed. Even packed to the hilt with people, the buses valiantly push on up the hills with hair-raising speed, spinning around chicane and hairpin bends with accuracy. Not always though – we see at least one truck on its side down the hill and a hot dog trailer making a spirited bid for freedom.

Local trade

ChiChi is magical. We have come here for market day and so does everyone in the neighbouring towns and villages. Although much of the exterior of the town is geared up for selling local handicrafts to tourists, this is primarily a local market selling fruit, vegetables, chalk, soap, coffee and beans to satisfy local demand. It is fascinating just to walk through the streets and soak up the atmosphere and try to take photos to adequately capture it. It is the bright colours of the local produce and the clothes all the locals wear which are most beautiful. The local stallholders tend to be of Mayan descent, those selling tourist handicrafts tend to be Latino (of mixed Spanish/Mayan descent). This reflects the ethnic class distinctions in Central America and is largely a result of the sidelining of Mayan traditions which, luckily, has been “reversed”, at least a little, in recent years. There are hundreds of local Mayan women walking about selling hand-made cloths and jewellery. There is always somebody asking if you want something, wherever you go. “No, gracias” is our most used phrase.

Local costume

It is great fun to be there and share the experience. Even the hoards of tourists do not detract – most of them do not make it to the inner-market anyway. We enjoy a tasty banana and cornflake milk shake at a stall where the girls laugh at our limited grasp of Spanish. We ask for a “jugo de banane” which is my best guess at banana milkshake, when in fact the correct phrase is “licuado de platano”, but they understand anyway. Then we decide to lunch the traditional way. There are plenty of tourist restaurants around the edge of the market but we want to eat with the locals – stall holders and buyers alike. So we go right to the centre of the market where under the cover of tarpaulins there is a long low hall with wooden benches and tables. The place is a hive of activity as women cook over wood fires and make tortillas. The smoke billows around – adding to the atmosphere (and heat) and making our eyes sting. But we get beckoned over to a table where a plate of typical “pollo fritas” (fried chicken) with chips, rice, salad, chilli sauce and tortillas can be had with a couple of bottles of pepsi to wash it down with. We get to watch the way it all happens which is probably the best part of the day. The women smile and laugh at us – we are the only Westerners there.

Lunch in the tradesman’s smokey shelter

The local handicrafts are woven rugs, cloths, masks and jewellery. Alan has his eye on a rug and I on a mask. Haggling is the name of the game, certainly. In Spanish, our numbers are fairly intuitive now so haggling would be easy if we had any idea what fair prices are. Very large rugs start at 400Q (way over the odds) but we heard a guy get one down to 50Q in Panajachel. Armed with this information, Alan has a brave attempt with two young kids – already having experts at haggling. Their rug is 300Q and Al offers 40. This first derisory offer is always the worst point since the two children naturally cringe in mockery (as if you have just insulted their family). This is just an act but it plays on your mind and makes you want to pay more just for the convenience of not upsetting them. But the price does not fall as rapidly as we expect. They stick high – even bartering Alan’s camera into the deal at one point. The lowest we can get them down to is 180Q, still £15. Although it is nice, Alan walks away.
Now it is my turn with wooden masks. I like them for their distinctive Mayan look. The one I like has a Quetzal (the National bird and currency) on the head of a typically hook-nosed Mayan face. Of course, I try to feign a lack of interest in this particular one as the stall holder suggests 40Q. I go for 15Q and receive the same look of feigned disgust. We settle on 25Q and since this is about £2 I am satisfied I have achieved a reasonable deal. It is a fine souvenir and will surely be a talking point.

Lunch

Al has an embarrassment at the bank. He goes in with grand intentions of changing his three- 100Q notes into twenties – a good idea since no one ever has any change and it begins to get expensive. He memorises a fairly lengthy phrase for this but is wrong-footed when he encounters the pretty senorita at the counter. He loses his nerve and has to read from the phrase book too disjointedly to be understood. I wink conspiratorially at a security guard who has noticed Alan’s plight, as if to say, “I can speak perfect Spanish: I can’t believe this guy’s so poor” – bastard that I am. When the confused clerk asks Al in perfect English what he wants he is well and truly done for. Embarrassment all round.
We visit a couple of churches. Nominally Catholic, the locals are actually more Mayan-influenced here and the rituals performed are not particularly Christian. The churches are very basic inside. Old Mayan men and women come in to pray. They bring candles and stand them on large wooden blocks on the floor. All the time they chant and speak their prayers outloud. They light the candles, sprinkle rose petals and splash rum from little bottles all around. They kiss the wood and then “cross” themselves before leaving. Outside the acrid smell of burning incense (“copal” resin) is very dominant.
Finally, Alan achieves success with a rug – a small one for 70Q. It is nice but he probably pays over the odds for it and secretly believes it is flea-ridden: he keeps getting mysterious bites. Before we leave our final success is buying cloths from a woman who follows us around persistently. At first we show no interest but I am tempted by her hand-embroidered cloths which would make great presents. We haggle hard – she starts at 90Q for one cloth and eventually by feigning disinterest we get her down to 85Q for two, one for Al, one for me. I want to go lower but she stays firm. Actually considering this is about £3.50 each and the cloths are hand embroidered and must take her days to make, we feel we have a good (if cruel) bargain. We make her day and then run for the bus.
Back in Panajachel we sit by the lake and watch the sun set gloriously over the volcanoes. The colours change imperceptibly to the eye but are well captured on film.

View of Lake Atitlan, Panajachel

Today we have to get up far too early (6am) to catch the one direct daily bus to Panajachel at 7am). At the bus station we get swept in with a herd of Westerners who have been told to wait for the Panajachel bus. I suspect a scam but we go and see anyway. They want 28Q (about £4) per ticket which is way above the odds. We decide to find the real public bus and travel without the herd. Unfortunately, this direct bus is nowhere to be seen, so we catch a bus to local “interchange” Chimaltenango (tenango means “place” in Mexican). It costs 6Q and our bags ride on top. We are the only tourists and we are with Mayan locals with bright smiles, highly coloured clothing and babes in papousses; much more fun.
Our journey takes us a couple of hours and four local buses but it costs just over half as much as the scam bus and is so much more worthwhile. We note the wearing of “cowboy” hats amongst the Guatemalan amigos (older men). The hats bob about in front of us. Breakfast is provided by some of the women who sell tortilla and vegetables from their baskets. And later we both get a couple of bags of “papas fritas” (spicy chips).

Al by the Lake

Panajachel is wet and misty but lake Atitlan is beautiful and moody. The place is geared for the traveller. Although there is little culture here – in fact it is basically a beautiful setting for an elaborate Mayan shopping experience – I take to it immediately. With hundreds of locals trying to flog their wares at every opportunity there is always something going on and it’s full of colour and atmosphere. We find a tiny pension “Santa Elena” for 40Q per night for a double with basic communal showers. Then breakfast on muesli and fruit salad – gorgeous – on the lake front before booking a trip to San Diego – a village on the other side. The lake is ringed by huge volcanoes and I desperately want some good photos but the weather is not currently playing ball.
The boat trip sets off at 3pm, due to our tardiness in booking. It takes one hour to get there and the last boat returns at 4:30pm giving a total of 30 minutes looking at the rustic San Diego village and its old Church. The boat trip is good in itself, providing plenty of time for thought. And plenty of photos but still the mist doesn’t lift. The old church has models of various saints down the walls, dressed each year by the local women and we experience the rather humbling sight of some of the local sick praying for help in front of a particular deity. Such luck is ours.

Lake Atitlan

The Mayan’s have a particular deity called Maximon, a rum drinking, cigar smoking sinner by all accounts. Not seen as a particularly worthy saint by the Catholic churches, Maximon’s black-dressed model is house and worshipped in one of the congregations’ home. Each year a different member of the village is responsible for keeping Maximon and all the others visit and pray to him there.