Bus up to Pacaya

We book ourselves on a volcano trip for this afternoon. Antigua is surrounded by three large volcanoes and a tour is one of the popular things to do here. To get a good trip, the book says beware of freelancers who approach you in the streets and offer you a tour since they may be in “cahoots” with the bandits.
What do we do? Accept a tour off the first man who comes to speak to us. He’s a softly spoken man called Alberto and I trust him. The tour starts at 1pm and lasts until 10pm. They take you by bus to the foothills and then walk you up to the top with a security guard as protection against the bandits.

Road-building on the way

We go and pack our bags, collect some snacks and have a meal in Burger King. It is cheap and we feel like a solid meal besides the toilets are so good compared to the hotel. The bus is just another school bus, painted bright colours and our guide is a little wiry man with a bowl cut. There are another 12 tourists on the bus and annoyingly they all appear to speak very good Spanish. They’re all Dutch and Italian. I feel practically dumb because our guide speaks little English.
So we head off. After an hour we can see the sharp cone of Volcan Pacaya but can’t get to it because of a roadblock. There is a narrow mountain pass which, judging by the number of trucks carrying mud passing us by is either still being built or has suffered a major landslide. We have to sit in a queue for one and three-quarter hours while the road is repaired sufficiently. This is very frustrating since by this time it is 4pm and presumably the light will not hold out for long. We continue up the mud track, occasionally skidding very close to the edge on what looks more like a streambed than a road.

Pacaya

Eventually we reach a tiny village and meet our local guide and security guard: a little old man in wellies who grins at us and points jubilantly to a rusty machete at his waist. High-security then. Al hopes he has a revolver in his pants.
And so, with crunchy lava soil under our feet and the huffing and puffing of our less athletic companions in our ears, we set off to climb our first volcano. It is quite a climb and it’s still very hot. Halfway up we meet an “official” who looks for all the world like a bandit – he even has a cowboy hat – but tells us to hurry up because it’s getting dark. Just after this it begins to rain. Out come the cagouls we are grateful to have bought along.
As we clear the vegetation line, the scene becomes a moonscape. Ahead of us there is nothing but black lava stretching upwards under heavy rain. It is impressively grim. When it starts to thunder and a bolt of fork lightning strikes on one of the slopes we all wonder at the stupidity of what we are attempting – climbing the highest hill for miles around during an electrical storm.

Moonscape with hot steam erupting

It gets progressively steeper and steeper and climbing loose lava is like climbing a scree slope – two steps forward, one step back. The final ascent is ridiculously steep but the rocks are now curiously warm to touch. From holes underneath them pours sulphurous steam. The scene is amazingly atmospheric and a photo through the rain of three cagouled figures silhouetted on a ridge ahead (Al included) and swathed in steam is a memorable one I hope comes out.

At the summit, in the rain and a thunderstorm

At the top with the light failing, we can’t see anything for the sulphurous fog, which makes us all cough. My camera doesn’t work properly in the wet, hence the lack of decent pictures of our ascent. We eat our Mars bars and feel cold but exhilarated. We reached the top of Pacaya in what must be pretty difficult conditions. The steam piling off the hot rocks is incredible. Unfortunately, the crater itself is hidden in the steam but we can see the red hot lava under a rocky ledge. We stay on the top for only a few minutes until it is thoroughly dark and the golden lights of Guatemala City are spread beneath us beautifully. The rain has stopped but lightning keeps lighting up the sky.
The descent in the dark and steam is like skiing downhill – surfing on loose lava. We pity those who came ill-equipped in baseball boots. Earlier I even saw a Mexican attempting this in leather slip-ons with white socks. He must surely have left them buried by now. My boots are full of water and sharp lava pieces. The walk down is much longer in the dark. We are spaced out with our guide way behind us. But we stick in the group and make use of our torches which are a godsend. The threat of being held up by bandits is real but laughable. Apparently they take everything including your clothes and shoes and the thought of 15 naked gringos turning up back at the bus is just sheer comedy.
In fact that is just about what there is when we get back and everyone starts stripping out of their wet kit. Safe but wet. The excitement is not over yet though since the dried streambed of a road we came up is now pretty much a real riverbed after the rain. At one point, the track is so treacherous we all have to get off and walk while the bus careers down the steep bit. We get back to Antigua wet and tired at 10:30pm and have to eat a bag of nachos for dinner as there are no shops open. Sleep like a log.

Tim gets a haircut

We have to do chores this morning – laundry and sorting out plus, for me, a haircut. I discover a real gentleman’s barbershop where, as Al observes, you have to be dead to have your hair cut. In fact we are convinced that the old boy in the chair is actually dead and is being made up for his coffin. Time certainly passes slowly here so even if he’s somehow managing to cling on to life, he’ll surely be needing a coffin by the time his hair’s cut. The barber himself won’t be far behind either.

…and a shoeshine

So, meticulously remembering the phrase for “just a trim, please” (and not the catchy “just make me up for my coffin, please”), I take my place in the hot seat. Using an excellent miming routine I manage to say what I want and he sets to work, slowly. Al is on hand to laugh and take photos. Again he thinks I’m mad to entrust my hair cut such a barber. Alan is obviously one of those people who has his hair styled rather than cut. When the barber gets out a cut-throat razor I am praying he doesn’t nick me. I have no idea how to ask him for a new blade – and anyway I don’t think he’d have one. It all seems to work out fine in the end. I even get to ask for “un pokeeto mas, por favor” (a little bit more please) off the top. At the end, I’m impressed and it costs 15 Quetzal (a little over £1). Bargain. I should have had this done before going into the jungle.

Life is tough as a youngster here

In Guatemala City (to be avoided) we walk, despite taxi drivers’ insistence that it is dangerous, with two other Europeans to catch a bus to Antigua and are soon installed in a cramped and packed “school bus” with our luggage stored precariously on top. The only thing stopping the drivers here from being dangerous is simply their buses can’t accelerate. Our bus driver is surrounded by “God is my driver” and “God rides with me” signs – all presumably designed to replace the need for good driver training. His windscreen has been shattered in a huge circular pattern right where he looks out. People just keep piling on.
Antigua is lovely. It is as calm and attractive as Guatemala City is dirty and oppressive. We crash at a tiny traveller’s commune where rooms are the cheapest yet at £1.25 each per night. They are very basic but clean and Norma, the hostess, is smiley, friendly and enjoys a fractured Spanish conversation with us.

Selling to tourists

To repair our stomachs and recover some sanity, we head to Dona Luisa’s, an infamous local haven of good food. Afterwards, I am had up by the shoeshine brigade and make my annual grossly inflated payment into the pockets of the shoeshine boys who are the same the world over. The young haggler starts at about £2 and I start at a still inflated 30p. I can’t win. We settle at about 50p. Actually my shoes are filthy after dusty Flores so they need a clean – at least that’s my excuse. As normal it takes three of the boys to argue over the job and offer me advice as the patient involuntary consumer. Al thinks I’m utterly mad but only narrowly avoids having his own canvas boots polished black. Doh!
We find a pricey bar and have a couple of drinks then to an exhibition of local handicrafts including a superb collection of photos taken of volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan, where we are headed next. I resolve to take some like it. So far my camera has been underused for fear of having it on show too much. Around here there is little problem, I think.
Back in the room we light a mosquito coil before going to bed – although there is no need – and realise only four hours later when waking up with a dry mouth that our room has no ventilation. I open the window and sleep on.

This morning we visit the local pharmacy to get some Pepto Bismol which apparently is good for bad stomachs. Then we head to the bus station to buy two tickets for the night bus to Guatemala City. We find some nice prints of Mayan stelae on cotton which make good souvenirs. We have a tasty lunch in a simple comedor, “El Rodeo”, including fried chicken, chips, salad, bread and salsa. Guatemalan food does not stretch the imagination much further than this. The national staple diet is rice and refried beans which I don’t like.
I have a slightly ominous feeling about the night bus tonight – there is a small risk of bandits enroute and the road is marked as unmetalled on the map – 506 kilometres of rough riding. As if to add to the mood, a huge lightning storm sits over Flores for the afternoon and one blast knocks the electricity out. We are left to do our shopping and packing in the dark.We end up with two nice painted stelae on cotton – and even haggle a little although the prices are generally fixed.
Our bus turns out to be the newest looking bus ever seen in a developing country. I can’t believe we are travelling in such luxury: the “traveller” part of me is almost ready to reject it outright and pick up a much more uncomfortable public bus. But it only costs £9 and is full of Mexicans not Westerners so we settle in for the night. To take our mind off the potential bandits (and the bumps) they are showing Titanic on the video. Would you believe it?
I don’t sleep much but the only time I’m really concerned is around 1am when three men with guns stop the bus and get on. Fortunately they are just policemen checking for bandits, but quite why they are checking inside the bus is never made clear. Luckily no bandits try it on. Other exciting events of the night include nearly hitting a cow sat in the road and at one point taking a rough and ready detour across sand to get round a road roller parked blocking the road. They are still building the road, as usual.
At 3am we stop at a roadside eatery. As dawn breaks the scenery is fantastic – rocky peaks and steep valleys in cloud. We have climbed about 2000 metres in the journey and Antigua will be much cooler than Flores was.

Temple I, Tikal

We’re up early to get in a minibus to Tikal. It is a good one and-a-half hours away. Not sure what to expect except for jungle and large temples. The national park costs 50 Q to get into for the day and surrounds Tikal itself in a 15 kilometre circle. We set off into the hot jungle liberally sprayed with DEET and sun cream. Halfway to “Temple I” after encounters with giant grasshoppers and crickets we realise we took a wrong turning and are actually on the way to Temple VI – described persuasively in LP as “remote, with some risk of mugging. Go as a group”. So we turn back: it was only to escape the tourists we choose to go this way but it seems following them is our safest bet.
Eventually we come across the Great Plaza and despite the crowds it is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer size of the two temples here and their surrounding buildings. Considering that they were built only to serve the sun and rain Gods (or perhaps to massage the egos of the ruling elite) they demonstrate just how advanced the Mayan civilisation was at that time. The whole complex took many hundreds of years to build and rebuild and the main square (only cleared of jungle in the last two decades) is still impressive even after nature has attempted to destroy it.

We climb up the very steep Temple II to get a view of Temple I from the top. It is spectacular. Then we take a look at some stone carvings, called stelae. The face of “Chaak”, the rain god, was found carved into a temple inside the walls of the outer temple (as if later carvings and temples superseded it). The face is 8 ft high and quite well preserved. Down a tiny tunnel (which we discover to our delight with the aid of a flashlight) are the excavations of a second symmetrical face on the other side of the buried temple. Since few other tourists are ever likely to discover this we feel most honoured and, like the archaeologists who dug through expecting it, exalted at having found the preserved remains of a 2500 year-old civilisation. This is probably the most striking thing we see all day because of the sense of discovery.

Surveying the scene

There are over 4000 buildings at Tikal and many more stelae objects, spread over the 30 kilometre square site. Most of the carvings show religious sacrificial ceremonies (usually human) but also recount stories and indicate important dates and occasions. There is still a lot of excavation and restoration work to be done but it is very exciting to experience. We go on to look at many more temples especially Temple IV, the highest, which gives a superb view over the high jungle canopy and faces east, presumably as a temple to the rising sun. Apparently you can sleep on top and catch the sunrise if you bribe the park guards.
At the top of each temple are generally three tiny connected rooms – used for ceremonies – with triangular roofs. There are no remaining signs of activity though, all the artefacts found have been taken to a museum or lost in the intervening 800 years since the city was mysteriously abandoned. We half plan to return at dawn tomorrow (4:00am bus) but in the end cannot justify another day here so instead plan to leave Flores by tomorrow by night bus.

Sunset over the lake in Flores

In Flores at 4pm we get some proper money changed (approximately 12 Quetzal to the pound) and check into “Villa del Lago”, a very pleasant hotel and a comfortable en-suite room. At £10 per night it is a little expensive for us but one night of luxury will help us feel better. We go for a walk around tiny Flores, set on a desolate and beautiful lake and enjoy dinner at a local hostel, still treating stomachs delicately. We haven’t eaten anything except a few crisps since last night. Still feeling tired after not eating properly for a week.
Thursday 5th August
Breakfast is at “El Toucan”, a small restaurant next door, where there is even a pet toucan to entertain diners. A pancake, a fantastic fruit salad plus freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee costs about £2 each and is greatly appreciated. The sound of automatic gunfire in the distant hills is mildly disturbing; the locals don’t seem to notice. Perhaps it is just a firing range. Propeller-driven civilian planes land infrequently at the airport across the lake.

Contemplation

Today we head off to a set of caves in the nearby hillside (incidentally towards the gunfire). First, my Spanish is put to the test in arranging two more nights (dos otro noche) in a cheaper room (mas bareto), very successfully. We also book two tickets to go to Tikal tomorrow (beginning at 8am). Tikal is the ancient Mayan city we’ve really come to see. The hotel handles all the booking. The caves are a long walk out of town especially in the heat of the day – we always end up travelling at noon. The caves are limestone and vaguely lit inside. There is a party of locals going around already but no guide or charge for us. There are large caverns inside and lots of “curtains” and lumpy stalactites. A few are impressive but most are dry and there are no single “beauties”. The floor is muddy but at least the caves are cool.
We both begin to think about getting some help for our stomachs which keep promising to get better but never seem to. We joke about Al and Tim’s “Shat in America tour” with miniture lavatories instead of map pins to mark our route. Moments of hilarity help to prevent worrying about what is probably not too serious although the section in the Lonely Planet on dysentery does not make for comfortable reading.

Buses all from the US – old school buses

Today begins at 6:45am with the alarm clock. We are heading to Flores in Guatemala and the journey is fairly complex. After a rushed packing session where Alan temporarily loses his money belt – we head off for the 7:30am speedboat to the main land. Al buys the tickets while I try and get to the bakery for some breakfast. Unfortunately it is shut at this hour so we have to hurry across to the boat hungry. The journey takes an hour in the rushing wind and the baking sun. At the end the captain checks everyone’s ticket. Why he didn’t do this as we got on, I never work out but I put my ticket in my shirt pocket where it is now nowhere to be found. I suspect it has blown out. My third major cock-up.The captain cannot get paid if he does not present all the tickets but we force him to make a frantic phone call to the island to check the receipts. He believes we did have a ticket so I am lucky.
Now we have to arrange a bus to the border “Melchor de Mencos”. Just as we are booking one for 9am (20 minutes time), a rather weary looking Brit turns up and tells us we actually need a visa to get into Guatemala – three people he met last night were turned back yesterday from the border. He is going to the embassy to sort his own papers out but with only 20 minutes to catch our bus we don’t have time to resolve this one. Anyway, I am pretty sure the visa requirements won’t have got any stiffer and the woman who sold us our tickets agrees. It is more likely that either the three were winding him up or got turned away for being scruffy. UK citizens have not required a visa here since 1996.

Tim in Flores

We head off anyway, board the public bus to the Melchor, rather than the express we have paid for, but at least we get to see the Belizeans way of life. I get chatting to the conductor (it’s easy in English) and enjoy a rare opportunity to speak to someone local without making a transaction of some kind. We stop endless times along the way to pick people up but eventually after three hours of bum numbing school bus seats we get to the border. Here a whole bunch of hassles await us. First we change all our Belizean dollars by a little dodgy money changer – it’s the only way we can convert this otherwise wasted resource. However, this is a mistake since we then have to pay $7.5 Bz dollars each in departure tax on our way out. Lonely Planet did not tell us this and it is probably not even official. We have to spend our precious hard-currency reserve of cash US dollars instead.
We leave Belize and walk through no-man’s land into Guatemala. There are no signs to guide us but eventually we end up in a little office we assume is immigration. Some bloke tries to sell us a camera he has clearly stolen (or found) off a Western traveller. We get our stamps and then, surprise, the guide demands $5 US from each of us for “entry tax”. It is so blatantly unofficial and yet we have no option. There is just us two and them. More of our US dollars go to lining some corrupt bastard’s pocket. Later on the bus, we learn the phrase for “we want an official receipt” so that next time we can be more forceful.
Now free men in Guatemala, we are pestered by taxis, men on bikes and idiots. The book does not give a map of this tiny border town and so we have no idea where to go. Eventually a bus turns up and takes us to the bus station, where we get on another bus to Flores. It leaves in 30 minutes so we have to wait, guarding the back of the bus where our bags are stored. Baggage pilfering is common apparently, so unfortunately we have to be careful. The road to Flores is still being built, but this doesn’t faze our driver who is quite happy to fling us around corners at high speed. The bus is very fast downhill and very slow uphill. Everywhere is dust. We pass lots of interesting sites and lots of rather poor housing, but everyone has a smile on their face. It strikes me that no one in the countryside is poor here, nature provides for them richly.