Falling in love with Guatemala

From the countries I travelled in Central America - here comes my favourite: Guatemala!
I found the people very friendly and hospitable, a lot of natural and cultural places to see and it was cheap as well.
What I realised in most of the Central American countries:
You don't see many couples in the streets holding hands or kissing each other.
People were not smiling so much. Just when I smiled a lot at them sometimes there was a reaction.

I just passed Guatemala City and went directly to the famous Ciudad de Antigua. In my opinion there was nothing special about it but a lot of tourists. We spent one night there couchsurfing (in the house of a couple who were working in a hostel ^^). Just this very night, there was a big eruption of the volcan de fuego.

eruption with lava streaming down the mountain

Then we headed to the pueblo Panajachel at Lago Atitlan. Already the next morning we left and had a long hitchhiking day with about 10 rides to get to western Guatemala to San Marcos. A small city in the mountains. And there were no tourists around. We felt great shopping at the local markets and seeing original life in one of the poorer regions of Guatemala.

Wäsche waschen wie so oft am Waschbrett

Albi and me on a rainy and cold ride

local market

 One evening we recognised a weird looking building (picture below). Thought it might be part of the university. Turned out it was a catholic church and just as we entered the service began. So we sat down and took part in the whole event which was a very nice experience for us.

catholic curch of San Marcos

For the next day we planned to hike the highest mountain within whole Central America, the Tajumulco (4220m above sea level). We took a bus to get closer. It was always fun to see the almost 2m high Albi in the small buses.

with Albi in a local bus

That's Tajumulco, 4220m

there were a lot of guatemalian people in tradition clothes, who have been up on top for the sunrise, they told us. Most likely they were there for some sort of ritual.

Fred on top of Tajumulco. El techo de Guatemala.

On our way we saw a lot of guided groups of locals and foreigners, who carried tents and wood to stay for the night. We just went fo the day, were really fast in getting up and down. And had a nice view above the clouds.
The next day was most likely my luckiest one on this trip. We wanted to hitchhike almost the whole country to the south to get to Honduras to see the Maya Ruins of Copan, just right beyond the border. In total some 500km.
And we made the jackpot: Got our first ride from San Marcos to Guatemala City (230km) on a pickup. Albi and I had to share those 1 to 2 m² for 4 hours. Including peeing in a bootle ;) And those amazing guys stopped at a McDonalds drive-in to get some lunch for them and also for us! :D
In Guatemala City he drove us through the whole city to a place where we would get another ride more easy.

Happy about the food and coffee :)

You always see full cars. Here pigs.

That's what you call a full car! :)

Then we had a short ride just to another gas station and from here another lucky one: A truck driver who took us another 220km almost to the hondurian border. And as we made a stop at a nice wodden "restaurant" he even invited us for the meal!
In my experience guatemalian people are really friendly and hospitable. During almost all of the rides we (mostly I, Albi was always sleeping) shared our stories of live and travel, our believes and sometimes really made friends.
The night we spent at the side of the road in the bushes. And first Albi then also me got some aching bellies and the night had to go to "toilet" some times.

unser Nachtlager bei Chiquimula

Next morning hitchhiked to Copan in Honduras. In between we visited las ruinas de Copan. It was nice, not very touristy (from what I saw it was maximum 50 tourists the whole day).

colorful birds in the trees

pyramids

stones in Copan

parts of the temples

Then we got our next ride with two guys, in a pickup. we crossed the border (saw the same grumpy lady in the office again) and they drove us some 50km back to Chiquimula. The thing was, about every 10km they stopped to buy some canned beer. It was just some small street where either way he had to go slow, so we were not worried. And actually he drove better than some other rides ;) But after about 30min ride within Guatemala there was one of the regular police checkpoints (they have them almost every 20km whithin the whole country). And the policeman came to the car.

police: Hola, como estan?

guy: Muy bien.

police: Se hacen un buen dia, he?!

guy: Si. Todo bien

While saying his last line the policeman leened into the window, the guy gave him a bill into his hand. They wished each other a nice day and we drove further :) 

Arriving the evening in Zacapa (a small town in nowhere) we were walking around asking for a place to stay. And this amazing family drove us through the whole town, bargained the price for us and also invited us for dinner in a restaurant! :)

So actually we got invited 5 times for food and drinks within 3 days!

feeding the hungry stomachs

our new friends in Zacapa

From here we hitchhiked to Coban, and then further to a small but touristy pueblo Lanquin, in the middle of Guatemala, in the middle of the jungle.

Our ride in the jungle

a bridge

this was the kitchen part of our hostel :)

When we arrived at the village unfortunatelly there were loads of people surrounding us advertising their hostels. All screaming the prices. And I just made the best to make them all dissapear

guy one: Amigo, buscas hostal?

guy two: solo 45 por noche. Tienes Wifi

guy three: 40 por noche. agua caliente, Wifi.

guy four: Amigo, 40 por noche. aqui cerca. Hay agua caliente

Me: Bueno. La verdad? Estamos buscando algo para 20 la noche!

And for real, they all made a sound of dissapointment and within 5seconds dissapeared and were never seen again :) In the end we found a place for 25 or 30 Quetzales.

It was a really nice place. We visited the expensive but worthy blue pools Semuc Champey and a cave there. The next night we stayed with a local family in their tourist company office. Although at some point they turned out to be a bit strange and tried to convince us to buy some things.

Semuc Champey

Semuc Champey

view from above

Albi in the caves

And we even hitchhiked a TucTuc car (those small 3-wheeled Taxis).

So here is the time to mention our hitchhiking to-do-list, we made up after a week. We wanted to get some special rides:

carro de caballo o vaca (Pferde- oder Ochsenkarren)

ambulancia (Krankenwagen)

policia

Truck

Truck-Ladefläche

TukTuk

Pickup

Bus

Armee

Autos

And actually we made almost all of the list! We missed the army, the ambulance and the carro de vaca :) look at the following pictures.

After two nights in Lanquin we left and headed north to get closer to Tikal. On ride left us in some veeery small village, i think it was Campur. The most local I have ever been. And it was raining. So we waited under a roof of a house and talked to an old woman, and a girl and boy for almost one hour. Told about our travel, showed them some coins from other countries. In one hour there only passed 3 cars. The third one was actually a tourist transfer bus. We took it and thanks to the help of our newly made friends we paid less than the price the local bus for a 2 hours ride through the jungle.

Later got some other rides. Here is a picture of the market of a local city on the way.

some city in the nowhere

And Albi and me had sooo much fun this day. It happened often that we saw some tourists in a bus or other local people passing in a car while standing on the road and waiting for a ride. And then when we got a fast ride and were overtaking them again were smiling and waving to them. And this day we saw the same tourist bus over and over again :) We and them were always laughing when meeting us. And actually we were faster travelling, cheaper and I guess we had a more fun ^^

In Sayaxche ist eine Fähre, über die alle Autos müssen. Wir sind mit unserem Ride hinten an der Schlange angekommen. Haben uns bedankt und verabschiedet. Sind zu einem der vorderen Autos gelaufen (an besagtem Touristenbus vorbei) und sofort auf die Fähre und weitergefahren. Angekommen im Norden Guatemalas (Petén) bleiben die meisten Touristen auf der schönen Halbinsel Flores (siehe Foto). Das war uns aber zu touristisch und irgendwie war da auch nix los. 

Halbinsel Flores

Wir sind stattdessen in der Vorstadt San Benito geblieben. Haben dort klein gewohnt und sind abends genüsslich von einem Straßenstand zum nächsten um uns echt leckeres und preiswertes Essen zu gönnen. Unser Lieblingsstand war bald gefunden. Als wir den nächsten Abend auch dort aßen, erinnerten sich die Kinder (etwa 6 und 4 Jahre), die gelegentlich der Mutter am Stand halfen oder einfach nur spielten, an uns. Nicht lange und sie verloren ihre Scheu und spielten eine Art Fanger mit uns :) Auch die Frauen freuten sich uns wiederzusehen. Zumal wir glaube ich durch unsere Anwesenheit auch weitere weißhäutige Kunden angelockt haben...

After two days we started off to get to Tikal. And actually we were so lucky to get someone already the second ride to lift us directly there. Which was way to fast, as we still had the whole day! So we decided to do a crazy village-to-village hitchhiking. We only took rides for the next 10km to the next village, walked around, drank a beer and took the next ride. Really was a relaxed day. And had amazing rides (remember the hitchhiking-to-do-list above).

counts as a ride?

open truck ride

hitchhiking guatemalian police :)

At the entrance of Tikal (still 20km from the ruins) we just realised to have exactly the entrance money left in cash. But also the last bus to enter already had passed. Walking was not allowed. So we waited. And luckily after a while there came an empty tourist bus and gave us a lift! Another free ride from the list. :) All together we made about 1500km by hitchhiking in Guatemala.
Arriving at the evening in Tikal there was no legal option to sleep for free. Wild camping was not allowed and the camping as well as the hotels were really expensive. After checking all our options and talking to many people there explaning our situation (basic travelling, trying to spend few money and not having any more Quetzales) one nice park ranger showed us a place inside the camping site and told me:
Entre amigos: El guardia normalmente va a dormir a las 10. Yo mismo estoy patrullando esa area. Asi que despues de las 10 acuestense nomas alla.

We did as he advised us (sneaked after 10 into the camping area and just slept there under a tree). Unfortunatelly we got caught just after some minutes of sleep (looks like it wasn't the park ranger himself patroulling there) and brought to the ranger station. We refused to pay those horrible tourist prices and insisted that there had to be a possibility to sleep for free. Or not to sleep and stay at their office with them. And many other ideas. They rejected all of them and were on point to throw us out of the park (yes, really driving us all the 20km back through the jungle!). I made a last efford and gave the camping guy my old cell phone as guarantee to pay half price the next morning. Finally he accepted, we went back and slept in the camping for half the price.

Next morning we got up at 5 to be up on the pyramide at sunrise. Had to walk some half hour in darkness through the jungle but was totally worth it.

From all the Maya ruines I have seen Tikal was the best, actually worth it's entrance.

sunrise in the jungle, Tikal

climbing old pyramides

 

Die Liane hält mich ohne Probleme.

Maya Tempel durch den Dschungel hindurch.

Main square with temple of the jaguar.

panorama view

And already at about 11 we left Tikal, heading further to cross Belice to go to Mexico.

Saludos, abrazos y besos.

PS: Hier ein Nachtrag zum Vulkanausbruch (der nun besseren Bilder wegen) und ein Bild was mir viel bedeutet: Albi und ich standen beim Hitchhiken für fast eine Stunde in einem kleinen Dorf im totalen Nichts im Regenwald und es regnete ein wenig. Vor einer Hütte saßen eine Oma, eine junge Frau (eher Mädchen), ein Junge und ein Baby. Sie baten uns unter den Dachvorsprung um nicht weiter nass zu werden. Wir kamen ins Gespräch und haben uns nett unterhalten und sind uns bei diesem kurzen surrealen Zusammentreffen tatsächlich ein bisschen ans Herz gewachsen.