Just a random note and some additional video material from the last two weeks. I'm in León, Nicaragua right now - a very pretty, secure and generally friendly colonial town (AD 1524) -, critically listening to the latest Peppers album "I'm With You". Still safe and sound, even though I heard a dozen rather eerie stories from fellow travelers. However, none about the places in Nicaragua (my fourth country on this trip) I am going to visit - I'll be trying to avoid Managua, the capital (but will have to pass through tomorrow, right after a little detour to one of these fabulous black beaches).
Right below you can (hopefully) see a Google map of most of the places I visited so far, alphabetically ordered. However, the sun is just about to set and I'll be heading out to take some more pictures before coming back to answer some mails. Hi Rita, I'm with you! Silke, sister-heart, I wrote you a second postcard this morning, more to follow.
Ver mapa más grande
I
Mighty magic Guatemalan thunderstorms, filmed from a farm at the Pacific Coast.
II
Crossing Lago Atitlán on a small motorboat from Panajachel (Gringotenango) to small and peaceful San Marcos.
III
Jumping into Lago Atitlán, a vast ancient vulcano crater lake in Guatemala; close to San Marcos.
IV
Enjoying the unspoiled view from Tikal's biggest temple (Templo IV) in El Petén (Guatemala). You can see, among other temples, Templo del Jaguar and hear a whole bunch of howler monkeys in the back. The setting had also been used to shoot the end scenes in "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" back in 1977 (the Rebel base on Yavin IV).
V
Spider monkeys close to the Maya ruins at Tikal in El Petén, Guatemala.
VI
Listening to Reggea music while traveling towards the paradise-like Belizean coast at Placencia.
August 29, 2011
August 24, 2011
NOTA #3: Entre los mayas en GUATEMALA y los garifunas en BELIZE
Internet, after all. I planned on updating the blog since some days now, but always something (or somebody) intervened and I just kept on having a good time. It's definitely never really getting boring down here. I'm in Copán Ruinas, Honduras right now - having crossed the boarder to the third country just yesterday afternoon (after an intensive one-boat-five-buses-trip from Guatemala's Carribean coast, goddamnit). I just visited the Maya ruins closeby (hence the name) with a fellow traveler from North Carolina and even if it wasn't quite as exciting as Tikal (no monkeys, no ancient skyscrapers and super-expensive, but boring tunnel tours), at least I got away without any of these bites that gave me a hard time last week. So far. The internet connection is fairly quick and I will even be able to upload pictures at the end of my writing, however, it's not exactly supercheap and definitely not stable (the electricity just went off, but luckily I didn't start writing then; the person responsible noted that would be fairly normal for Honduras, however, so I will just stop worrying and love the bomb). Personal soundtrack for the moment: "For What You Dream Of" by Bedrock (feat. KYO). As loud as possible.
Right then! Bored already? Well, here we go. I started my trip through Guatemala last Monday (August 15) with a visit to Quetzaltenango (Xela), stayed there for one night, met one amazing person right at the start (that made me smile throughout the day) and continued to Lago Atitlán, also known as possibly the most beautiful lake in the world (I'm quoting Aldous Huxley here). Huxley also said the following: "Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing."
(Meanwhile the electricity collapsed again, but I use GMail for writing now, which basically saved most of the above written. I'd wish I have my own little netbook here.) I stayed in a beautiful little place called San Marcos (far away from tourist-ridden Panajachel) and met up with Kiva, the girl from the U.S. I worked with on the farm. We were basically jumping from cliffs right into a huge ancient volcano crater lake, surrounded by some rather recent ones, still pretty impressive.
I took a shuttle bus from Lago Atitlán (via Antigua and Guatemala Ciudad, the dodgy capital) right to Flores in the north - a pretty comfortable overnight-trip through El Petén, Guatemala's biggest (and jungle-spread) district. On the way there I got to know Oliver, a curious, superfriendly and highly-interesting individual from Vancouver, Canada who shared my itinerary. Flores is situated on a small peninsula on a rather huge lake, pretty touristy (but very secure, I would also get drunk there for the first time - on my last night in Guatemala) and, more than anything else, the major starting point for Maya ruins explorations such as Tikal. We stayed in one sublime and superkewl hostel called "Los Amigos" (very recommendable!), ate mostly fresh fruits from the market in another town just close-by (Santa Elena), went for a swim in the lake and eventually made our way to Tikal the following morning (August 18). Tikal is just amazing and rather hard to describe with mere words. As we went there early enough there weren't many tourists around and we encountered quite a buch of both spider and howler monkeys (even though we would merely hear the latter and one wouldn't believe it, but it did sound like one massive Tyrannosaurus Rex getting pretty pissed on something behind the next temple). Templo IV is Tikal's highest plus it had been exceptionally interesting for me, personally, since George Lucas used the view for shooting his first Star Wars film back in 1976 (the Yavin IV rebel base at the end). We did some Yoga excercises on a smaller but very pretty temple later on. Also, I carried away quite some disturbing bug (and/or mosquito) bites which kept on annoying me for the following days.
Did I mention that I liked the hostel? I really did. It's a shame, Oliver's and my ways parted that soon, pero así es la vida, creo. I took a bus to Belize the following day where I spent the two nights. The first in dodgy, but pretty interesting and reggae-ridden Belize City - in a hotel with other (pretty random, alcoholized and noisy) travelers who were on their way to Northern cayes. When they would get stuck playing cards I strolled through the city and hooked up with some locals (some who actually didn't try to sell me dope).
The next morning I took a bus to Placencia (via Belize's capital Belmopan and the 2nd-biggest city Dangriga). Placencia is quite a relaxed and still pretty laid-back place with dream-like and palm-ridden beaches where that is definitely made for couples (I met two young U.S. Americans who spent their honeymoon there). I stayed in "Lydia's Guesthouse" (being aware of the irony) and talked with Lydia (who is around 50) to negotiate the price (since I have to pay a lot more being alone) and she actually told me her brother-in-law's last name would be Wagner as well (So much for the irony?).
I had quite a good night with two rather noisy, but comfortable fans, in total darkness (I shut down the windows for safety reasons, people apparently do try to break in occasionally).
I left Belize via their southernmost "city" Punta Gorda, not without having a long and most interesting conversation with a local barber while waiting for my bus connection (buses don't really stick to timetables) and he apparently appreciated my traveler's advice for setting up a shop (since he spent more than an hour talking after he delievered a big package of toys for his baby daughter onto the Belize City-bound bus. Nice guy.
Before eventually heading on to where I am right now (Copán Ruinas, Honduras, remember?) I had to cross Guatemala one more time (via speed boat right across the Carribean Sea) and stopped over in Lívingston for one night. Quite a special place. I didn't really fancy it too much at first - it's pretty dodgy and not as relaxed as people claim; however, my hostel had been a blast again! We were some 20 people all sitting together, while having a most delicious (vegetarian) dinner. It felt like being on a school trip, just more mature, fun and exciting. I ran into two Israeli girls later that night and we would hang out together for quite some time, sharing awestruck, memorable moments.
I would take a boat to Puerto Barrios (Guatemala's biggest harbour town) the next morning (August 23) and after quite a delicious breakfast, five consecutive buses (medium and small, all local) and a little annoying boarder crossing experience I eventually made it to my third Central American country. Our hostel (praised in pretty much every edition of Lonely Planet and called "En la Manzana Verde") is quite a shitty, boring dive and I definitely wouldn't recommend it. I originally planned on staying longer in town (for doing some laundry, after all, e.g.), but it's not really worth it. I talked to some girls from Madrid this morning (flawless Spanish, yippie!) and they filled my brain with a big bunch of pretty curious-sounding information about the island of Utíla (as part of las Islas de la Bahía). This is going to be my next target. I will likely leave tomorrow morning. Apart from everything I feel safe and sound. The only problem are my slowly dying headphones. I miss you too, Rita. I'm pretty sure you're having an amazing time, Donnie. I tried to call you, but you weren't anwering, cK. One other human creature being stuck in my mind, but well - así es la vida!
So well, since I haven't had problems with electricity for more than one hour, I will now try to upload pictures and videos. Meanwhile it looks like there is quite some storm setting up outside. Very beautiful.
GALERÍA DE IMÁGENES
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III
IV
IVb
IVc
V
VI
VII
VIII
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Placencia.
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XI
XII
XIII
XIV
August 13, 2011
NOTA #2: LOS ÚLTIMAS DÍAS EN LA FINCA and BEFORE THE STORM
Shalom, y'all.
I'm facing the daily afternoon showers/thunderstorms, very sunridden and pretty beautiful today, while writing these lines and uploading the following pictures from the last week up in the hills, close to the Pacific Ocean. Well, meanwhile fog has covered the new view from the terraza de la pasada - new because I spent quite some time this morning with cutting down the little bamboo forest that prevented us from enjoying this boa vista.
Rita just entered the scene, rather exhausted-looking, I'd say (to put it mildly). She had been to a Guatemaltecan marriage this morning which sounds like a great idea at first, but on second thought I'm rather happy I didn't join (now) - the whole thing had been evangelistic which means: dull worship ceremonies, no alcohol and no dancing. Cutting bamboo and doing laundry then! (Granted, surely highly interesting from a cultural-anthropological approach.)
I don't want to bore you with too detailed descriptions of what has happened here over the last two weeks - and pictures (below!) tell certainly more than any words, right? What they might not tell you, however, is e.g. that I very much enjoyed my stay on this farm, the work in the macadamia shelter, talks with the locals, cooking sessions with Rita and Tara. And I would even stay longer, but - surprise! - the eternal urge to keep on traveling and seeing new places is (still) stronger. So I'll be heading off to discover what Guatemala and the surrounding countries have to offer - all for myself since Rita will stay here until we will, hopefully, re-unite in late September. For this reason I put this map of Central America right below the paragraph (so that everyone eventually knows what is where, geographically). My rough itinerary for the upcoming week looks like this: Quetzaltenango (Xela) - the Maya ruins of Tikal - Belize City - Guatemala's Carribean coast. Starting this Monday, 6:30am local time. If I don't miss the bus which happens to depart rather unreliable.
Still, some additional remarks to my stay here over the last days: we had some more visitors in the hotel, rather spontaneously, though: a very sympathetic couple from London (him being a genius guitar player). They'll be heading to the Islas de la Bahía in Honduras (so do I), and maybe we'll see again, but nothing is certain on that trip. Then, my good-bye talks with Tara further revealed a pretty Twin Peaks-like atmosphere in the community and I could indeed imagine an intelligently created TV show about the existing social conditions, tensions, decays and developments. Definitely better than other ongoing local television crap (See Rosalinda for more). Also: 18 (that spells 'eighteen') days without alcohol until now. Liver, you owe me one.
One last thing that I have discovered in the July edition of my Spanish revista ECOS: a special kind of dictionary, published by a Colombian teacher called Javier Naranjo. The book is called "casa de las estrellas. universo contado por los niños".
Unos ejemplos estarían:
ADULTO.
"Persona que se obsesiona por hacer el amor."
"Niño que ha crecido mucho."
AMOR.
"Que mi mamá no se muera y mi papa no se muera."
BORRACHO.
"Es una gente más o menosque quiere matar."
DIOS.
"Es una persona que le clavan clavos."
MUJER.
"Es una persona que se enamora de alguien."
PAZ.
"Es para unos que matan mucho."
SOLEDAD.
"Tristeza que le da a uno a veces."
GALERÍA DE IMÁGENES
01)
y más pollos.
02)
03)
Food or money?
04)
05)
06)
07)
08)
09)
11)
Sunset colours.
12)
13)
Very muddy.
14)
15)
frente de la iglesia.
16)
And our bus.
17)
(There are presidential elections in Guatemala on September 11.)
18)
19)
20)
21)
Cortando bambú.
August 04, 2011
NOTA #1: FROM LONDON TO GUATEMALA and EN LA FINCA.
Hi there, everyone.
As you have just started to read these lines I assume you have both a little time and some decent desire to find out about what I'm up to these days. First of all: as you might already know, I am not alone here, but accompanied by my wonderful and very patient friend, travel companion and Spanish teacher Rita.
Alright, where exactly is _here_? Well, the two of us are right now living and working in a Guatemalan community called Nueva Alianza (www.comunidadnuevaalianza.org). This community, located close to the city of Retalhuleu (1,5hrs by chicken bus) and in turn not too far from the country's 2nd biggest city Quetzaltenango (better known as Xela), is more or less selfsustained by some 40 families who work together on various projects and farms and it's pretty much a very enchanting place to spend one's time in. Still, why are we here? While Rita is slowly preparing her investigations for accumulating material for her Ph.D thesis, I am getting down into various talks with locals and gringos alike, speaking Spanish from dawn to dusk while at the same time preparing my upcoming backpacking trip that is about to get started in some two weeks from now on. (I am writing this first blog note offline, while sitting in front of the posada/guesthouse, still wondering how I could add some photographies for the internet connection is rare, slow and strenuous to work with; it is Wednesday afternoon on August 3.) Both Rita and I spend half of our days with working on the finca, that is: while she is getting wet and chemicalized at the water purification area (Agua Pura) I am getting to know a nut called Macadamia (Hands up! Who has ever eaten a macadamia nut?), working with locals in the end process: skinning and separating the nuts, then washing and drying them in the sun before further separating and packing. My day looks basically like this: I get up at between 6am and 6:30 (after a hell lot of sleep), then getting down to the macadamia stall, waiting for my fellow-workers to arrive (they are mostly late and I usually use the time for taking pictures of nuts and baby hens, tan bonito). At 8am I return to the guesthouse for breakfast (with Rita), then back to work until 12pm. It follows: sunbathing, showering, cooking lunch. In the afternoon: reading and learning Spanish and Lonely Planet guides about neighboring countries. Playing football and UNO cards with the farmers' kids (all around 10 years old), taking more pictures and doing some writing. Some time dinner, socialising and eventually heading to bed at around 22pm, not before watching two to three episodes of "The IT Crowd" wirth Rita which is highly recommendable and kick-ass-fun. ("Ahaa! A stress machine!")
Sounds boring? Honestly, it isn't. Hell yeah, this is Guatemala and we're surrounded by a 3,500m volcano and hectars of tropical forests that once were entirely Maya territory. Also, apart from a million strange animals that randomly visit us daily (I recently encountered my first armadillo ever which definitely had had a wow-effect to it. Then, on our first day here, it made BUFF in front of the community kitchen and a huge, pretty, erm, special-looking bug had been falling from the sky. Oh, and I just (apparently) killed quite a big dragon fly who just used my left arm as a landing-platform (she is fine and somehow managed to fly away before I could take a picture, sadly). Oh, and I didn't drink any alcohol for almost a week now (last time in a London pub). Wow!
Anyhow, what else is there to say? And how did we actually got here in the first place? Well, Rita had been in this community before (pretty much two years ago) and I decided to accompany her this time. We flew via London where we stayed with a friend (who cK and I got to know last year via Couchsurfing, cK? Best greets from Marco!). After changing planes in Dallas we eventually arrived in Guatemala Ciudad and immediately left for Antigua (Guatemala's older capital), not far away. Those two cities couldn't be any more different nowadays and a short quote from the central america LP shows how:
GUATEMALA CIUDAD: "Depending on who you talk to, Guatemala's capital is either big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable or big, dirty, dangerous and fascinatíng."
ANTIGUA: "This is fantasyland - what the country would look like if the Scandinavians came in and took over for a couple of years. It's a place where power lines run underground, rubbish is collected and stray dogs 'disappear' mysteriously in the middle of the night."
We spent one day and two nights in the latter and then headed on to the community on July 29. (I just realized that there are now insect blood trails on my journals. How nice.) Ever since, apart from working and watching amazing British TV series we went to a football game in town (i.e. Retanhuleu, short: Reu). The local team contra Guatemala Ciudad. Funnily we didn't actually figure who was who until the game ended. That said: we were sitting right in the apparently local fan area, surrounded by craze and red steam. Yay, red! The Reds, or Rojas, were in fact the capital equipo. Who won? Neither: a rather boring draw of 0:0. Also, we were hiking to a nearby cascade. _We_, by the way had been four people, in fact. Rita, I and two U.S.-American girls. One of them is working here as two-year volunteer (Tara), the other more or less just traveling through (Kiva), but still staying for some two weeks on Nueva Alianza). Kiva had been leaving this morning, and I will long be gone before Tara. Interestingly, Tara had been through quite some traveling along Central America's coast line, e.g. to las Islas de la Bahía (Bay Islands) on Honduras' Carribean coast which is also on my list (in case I don't get robbed and/or murdered before, e.g. between Tikal and Belize City).
And, as I am approaching the end of this first blog, it is starting to rain again. Well, it is basically raining here every single day, but pretty predictably: virtually only after 2 to 3pm (with loads of heavy sun in the morning up to lunch, so I am getting quite baked also). There is a hurricane predicted somewhen the next days (that would mean: about a week rain and storm non-stop, heavy as hell; hurricanes come by fairly often, though, about five times a year). That would also mean: no macadamias anymore. BUT: I would be working with the bamboo guys who do create wonderful owls out of bamboo. Anyone interested?
Anything else? The showers are cold, and the food is fantastic. I am really getting into maize tortillas. Being a vegetarian is easier than presumed, at least until now. Also: I am taking pills against malaria now (every Sunday before going to bed 500mg of cloroquina fosfata (Aralen) for the next 12 weeks, as a precaution for the Carribean coast along Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica). I will try to get some pictures added. It's just half the fun without.
And now I want to greet my Mom and Dad. Hi, Mom and Dad! XD Silke, I love you and I miss you. Donnie, cK, Fine, Sabi, Sarah, Kathi, Katja, Phil and Miro - I just felt like mentioning you guys, you are the kewlest kids in my world and I think of you! Claudi, Dinah, Lena, Marko, you're on the postcard list! Keep tuned, I'll write more if I get any resonance on this one. Lara, do you think of the plants? (: Keep on enjoying my mattress and call Fine when encountering important-looking mail. Two last things: I did drink coffee here and, for the first time ever, I actually LIKED it. Still, I miss mate (tea). And: My German cell phone is switched off; you can text me on my Guatemalan one on the following number: 00502 4978 0243. I'll be back way too quick and then I will meet YOU, after all. So exciting.
PICTURE TIME!
In London.
Antigua.
Some of these incredible bugs.
Vista del techo.
The vulcano next door.
Starring at and from waterfalls.
Human vs. Nature.
Los Rojos de Guatemala Ciudad.
Catching an armadillo.
Pollitos!
Más pollitos.
Kitchen photo session.
In the macadamia shelter.
