Ruined

The ruins at Tikal were easily as impressive as I´d been led to believe. After an hour drive through jungle we arrived, were treated to the obligatory signs about no littering, no guns, no hunting, and watch out for the howler monkeys who like to defecate on the heads of tourists from the treetops, and paid the somewhat exorbitant entry fee. Tikal is a vast compound of ruins and temples, some fully restored, some in the process, and some still mostly buried. Gone are the days of full access where you could climb and enter temples at will but there´s still plenty of opportunity to explore and monkey around on your own. I guess part of the reasoning was to preserve the ruins, but I suspect the handful of tourists who managed to fall to their deaths from atop the ruins played a part too. For being so generally short the Maya built the temple steps for seemingly a race of long-legged giants...they must have had some well defined calves. As usual I skipped the guide, preferring instead to sidle up to groups with guides and catch a snippet or two of the history.




















It´s really quite impressive what you can get accomplished with hundreds of years, an absolute ruling theocracy, and a huge supply of slave labor. I´m sure there´s something I could learn from their obvious work ethic but I suppose there´s no motivator like the fear of a not so swift and painful death. It´s hot, humid and buggy out there in the jungle and looking up at these massive structures, many of them built on top of hillsides, I found myself grateful not to have been around to be conscripted in helping to build them. Kind of cool to imagine the swarms of activity, bronzed kings in magnificent headdresses resembling jaguars, holding still-beating human hearts and looking down from ahigh on the masses of peasants bowing reverently. Like I said, I only caught bits and pieces of the history stuff, though I have seen Apocalypto. Seriously though, you really do get a feeling of being in the presence of History, capital H, and it´s hard not to imagine some of the more macabre practices of the Maya when looking at their sacrificial altars. I must say though that it´s kind of annoying that so many people, when faced with these awesome structures rich in history, instead of simply appreciating it feel the inexplicable need to do something inane like carve ¨Jack hearts Lucy¨ into the wall. ¨You think what the Mayans built and passed down to posterity is impressive?! Yeah well look what I can do too!¨Thanks for the contribution assholes.










Spent a quality a5 hours wandering around and on top of the ruins and I believe I saw pretty much all there was to be seen. Stopped for lunch in the ¨Great Plaza¨looking up at the huge Jaguar Temple and had to fight off a few raccoon relative creatures who have lost all fear of humans and were intent on clawing their way into my backpack. All in all it was definitely something I wouldn´t have wanted to miss. I´ll be checking out some ruins in Mexico in the near future, it will be interesting to see how they compare. Well, not much more to say on that, I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Off to Mexico tomorrow!

Paradise Found

Made a mad dash through Belize to the tropical island paradise that is Caye Caulker. 6 hours on a 40+ year old bus made for school children remains a painful and ass-numbing experience. I will say it´s nice to again be in a country where the majority of citizens speak English, the first language of most Belizeans. I´d gotten used to the uncommon feeling of being rather tall in comparison to the inhabitants of the regions I´ve been travelling through and this seems to be no longer the case. The somewhat diminutive Maya and other Spanish speakers have given way to what appears to be a population of tall, large, and heavily muscled locals. A lot of the women even have a generous size advantage over me. Oh well, but I did like feeling tall for once! The English spoken is very unique: lilting and musical with a lot of slang and creole words mixed in. When they speak to me it´s relatively easy to understand, but when they´re speaking to each other it might as well be a foreign language for all I can tell.


I understood immediately why this place is such a popular resort destination for rich Americans looking to escape cold winters and beach-less landlocked states. While much of Belize lives on in the unfortunately common Central American world of violence and poverty Caye Caulker and its even more upscale and resorty neighbor Ambergris Caye are sheltered havens for tourists. The nice things are the uncommonly garbage free streets and coastline, the relative safety, friendly locals and that even the stray dogs are well-fed. The bad thing is the fact that everything is incredibly expensive, sometimes not even just by C. American standards. The Caye is a foodie´s paradise and made me instantly wish I was much richer than I am so I could spend a couple weeks here sampling the food from every available restaurant and stand. Everywhere seems to have gourmet menus with lobster drizzled in garlic butter, slow-cooked lamb, exotic seafood in delicious sauces, and a huge variety of other delicious sounding menu items. Everywhere I went I found myself drooling from the smells emanating from restaurants and outdoor grills. The sandy streets of the small town lead to a small little beach and swimming docks, an area known as the cut for the small channel that now separates the island after the most recent earthquake. A great place to relax, read a book and have a beer. If you appear to be in at all of a hurry or really even walk with more than a languorous stroll one of the island´s residents will call out with friendly and mild reproach, ¨Go Slow!¨, the island´s semi-official motto.




The hostel that was recommended to me only had dorms with AC available and I dutifully shelled out the extra four bucks, a decision I was not to regret. The rooms were lovely, my roommates variously nice and cute and I was later to learn the people in the non-AC dorms had the unfortunate experience of being woken by rats scampering through the walls, across the floor and eaves, and even in one case on the bed where said person was trying to sleep. So, yeah. Met some nice British girls and found a place that was doing pub trivia where our team ¨6 Brits and a Yank¨ almost won, and would have if not for the reluctance of some members to bet the full amount of points on the last question. I´m not still bitter though...really, I´m not!


Arranged the next day to go on a snorkeling tour of the nearby reefs on a sailboat. Was a bit disappointed that we did not get to see the manatee, but it was nevertheless awesome. Saw mammoth stingrays and nurse sharks, beautiful coral, magnificent tropical fish, and creepy looking moray eels. Our snorkel guide grabbed a stingray and let us ¨pet¨ it, feeling the mucousy skin while carefully avoiding the stinger. He next managed to snag a good size nurse shark by the tail, wrestled briefly with it, flipped it upside down seemingly rendering it immobile and again let us touch, this time sandpapery skin. Oh to have a good underwater camera. Our captain and assistants were all good-natured, funny and interesting people. One of them a Canadian lady had been a professional power-lifter, canoe racer, construction worker and stripper. Hell of a resume.




After the final snorkeling stop the rum punch was broken out and we began to slowly make our way home. Shipwreck! Haha, the disappointment of not seeing a manatee was quickly replaced by the excitement of running aground on coral. Our now embarrassed and completely mortified captain had been sipping a rum and chatting up one of the girls which apparently left him precious little attention to devote to where the boat was headed. After some frantic and futile backpedaling with the small outboard motor and various shifting of the passengers to extremities of the boat, tilting it at an alarming angle in some cases, we seemed well and truly stuck. Eventually I along with a few others were tossed overboard with our snorkel gear to lighten the load and try to free us. With my mask on I watched as the crew mightily pushed on the boat from the water, finally smashing off a huge chunk or 3 of coral and freeing us. Oh, the irony! We had been given a serious lecture on how precious and fragile the coral ecosystem was and how we should avoid at all costs even standing on it with flippers or in any way endangering it. Now I had witnessed our eco-friendly tour boat rip a massive chunk of it out of the reef. Not cool. On the plus side the delay gave unintentionally turned the tour into one featuring magnificent views of the sunset. Silver lining, etc.

An embarrassed Captain Willie





A few more nights of drinking, good eating, reggae, and lots of funny Brits, Scots and Irish and I decided my budget demanded a speedy exit from Belize. I´m now in the Guatemalan town of Flores near to Tikal where I will be going tomorrow. Can´t wait, it should be really good. Will post pictures of it when I can, probably from Mexico, my next stop. Getting closer to my homecoming, can´t wait to see everyone! -Azi

Livingston, I Presume

Made my way up the river to the Caribbean seaside town of Livingston. Home to a fascinating mix of Garifuna (cultural group derived from West African slave-descendants), Maya and Spanish-speaking Guatemalans. Place has got a very cool laid-back vibe, but it´s set to that backdrop of slight seediness and and that subtle scent of lazy lawlessness that seems somewhat common to the Caribbean port towns I´ve been to and is undoubtedly what made them such popular haunts of the pirates of yore. Though no actual pirates were in evidence, our arrival at the dock was predictably marked by the loud calls of the local hustlers promising to lead you to a good hotel, carry your bag or in any other way ¨help you¨ regardless of whether that help is actually desired. Had heard a lot of good things about Casa de Iguanas and upon learning the only available accommodation there was a hammock decided I could bear it for the night. The owner has adopted and hand-raised an orphaned raccoon. As anyone who has traveled in Central America knows: sleeping outside in a hammock in a hot, humid, and mosquito ridden coastal town with the jungle looming over you requires certain preparations. Chief among these is drinking enough alcohol to elevate your blood alcohol enough to discourage the mosquitoes from mistaking you for anything from which it could possibly be safe to drink blood to feed unborn mosquito children. Liberal amounts of deet containing substance smeared over exposed skin is also a good idea. All very scientific I assure you. In addition, upon learning of my predicament a young local, whom I assumed was a traditional medicine man, offered me a packet of herbs with the understanding they could be used to assist sleeping. The hostel staff were young, funny and party-oriented guys and I awoke the next morning having slept but somehow feeling not at all rested.






A quick boat ride to some nearby waterfalls, guarded by an old man watching over an elaborate and incense clouded shrine to Bob Marley, provided the necessary refreshing swim to wake me fully up and yet another opportunity to jump off of something into water. We were next transported to a boat-accessible only private white sand beach to spend the afternoon relaxing. Played some volleyball with the locals, but as the net only came up to my head I found it a bit unsporting to be able to spike the ball at my much shorter opponents without having to even jump. We quickly switched to futbol and after an hour running around in the sand on a hot beach I recuperated by swimming, lying on the beach, reading my book, and watching a large group of French frolic. Tough life.





Smoky shrine to Bob Marley







The town is quite charming, with drumming and vaguely African sounding rhythms competing at odd hours against the more typical Latin music heard throughout the rest of the region. The city planners also had the commendable foresight to place a large open air crocodile pit in the middle of the children´s park. Two foot walls protect the children from an unobstructed four foot drop down into a small holding cell for a pair of giant crocodiles, one of whom I was informed carries the name ¨Kunya Kinte.¨ There are spaces for four crocodiles but apparently the other two managed a daring escape into the river while their cells were being cleaned out. Went out at night, despite somewhat dire warnings about a series of tourist robberies at knife-point the previous weekend, to check out the local Garifuna music. Extremely passionate drumming and maraca rhythms accompany singing/chanting and the highlight for me: the guy playing an instrument constructed from tortoise shells, of which I have semi-clear recollections of seeing in various cartoons throughout childhood.





Wonder what happens when the ball accidentally goes in the pit...

The British hostel owner, Rusty, offered me a job working at the hostel, which I´m sure would have been entertaining, but I declined. For one it´s just too hot to do anything during the day and nights aren´t much better. Plus I´m starting to think about home more and more and want to continue on my journey towards its eventual finish. Finally one of the other staff has recently contracted dengue fever which I didn´t find all that encouraging towards semi long-term employment in the area.

The direct boat to Belize apparently only runs twice a week and I´ll be hanging out here till Friday when I leave for Belize. Just gonna relax, sip rum on the beach, read my book and generally enjoy the tranquilo atmosphere of the place. Looking forward to Belize, will keep you updated! -Azi

We Can't Stop Here! This Is Bat Country!

After spending time at amazing Lake Atitlan and being wowed by flowing lava on Pacaya I figured my next stop would inevitably seem tame in comparison. Not so! Made my way across the country to the town of Lanquin a few kilometers from the natural marvel that is Semuc Champey. A series of pools formed by some or another natural process possibly involving calcium and limestone. I don't know, I'm not a geologist, look it up on Wikipedia already. The point is that it's really, really awesome.

View of the pools from a lookout high above



The hostel here sits right on the river, a series of thatched huts serving as dorms and rooms. Cows wander around the large property, occasionally stopping by the hammock area to have a leisurely chew on someones towel or bathing suit left out to dry. There's a dock to lie out on, fields of grass, firepits, beautiful scenery of both the nature and animal variety, a cool river to beat the heat, and fun and interesting people to hang out with. All these factors and more combine to make it a very difficult place to leave. Sure, there's also somewhat scary and euphemistically named "eco-toilets" that contain strangely detailed usage instructions for what appears to be a hole in the ground and have nearby buckets of lye. Yes, occasionally turning the shower knob can lead to a disconcerting electric shock. Admittedly, the sight of the staff emptying all the mattresses out of the dorm room next to mine and performing a complicated anti-bedbug process is somewhat disturbing. Of course without these charming little hiccups I probably couldn't get a room for 4$ a night and the place would most likely be a boring resort style hotel catering to a richer and older crowd. So, I wouldn't dream of complaining.

Cow that tried to steal and eat my board shorts





An extremely popular destination it has a lively restaurant/bar and every night plays host to buffet style meals, happy hours, drinking games and dancing. There's even a giant, scaled up set of Jenga blocks that stands over waist-high, every block with different rules such as "Jump in the river or drink 5". Very fun. It's interesting to see how, as every day a new group of tourists arrive and leave, the scene subtly changes. Seems to be at least 50 different people staying here at all times with large groups leaving and arriving daily. Getting some decent Spanish practice after making friends with a local who works behind the bar for the hostel.


Our previous group of 5 travelers was down to just Mike and I, and we made the most of it, enjoying some really fun days and nights before he had to head back to Antigua for Spanish school. The Semuc Champey tour includes a couple hours in this incredible limestone cavern. Our exploration of it just scratched the surface as the tunnels extend for over 10 kilometers. Filled with gently flowing water that is often deeper than I am tall and dark side passages with roaring waterfalls that I imagine would sweep you deep into the mountain, to be entombed forever. The rock formations in the cave are also very interesting despite the lack of light to see as much of them as I'd have liked. The passage through the cave, with a large group of people and only a couple guides was a bit cold and at times kind of scary. The only light is the lit candle that each person carries, casting strange shadows and giving the whole thing the feeling and appearance of some arcane and primitive cult-like ceremony. Something very evocative of ancient ritualism about a long line of people holding candles filing through a dark limestone cavern with water up to their necks. There's places where you have to climb up or down rickety metal rungs or swing through a cascading waterfall holding tight to a rope, giving the whole thing that wonderfully Central American feel of dubious and tentative safety. Can't say I've ever done anything quite like it before.

Els and I chilling out in the pools

After emerging, teeth chattering, from the cave we headed for the park and a lazy rest of the day swimming in the pools, relaxing and hiking up to a nearby lookout point. It's a beautiful area and it was nice the sun finally deigned to come out for awhile. Had so much fun we went back the next day just to spend the entire afternoon hanging out in the park and jumping off a nearby bridge. Jumping off of things seems to be somewhat of a theme of this trip... After a long day at the park, me, Els (a very nice Belgium girl I met), and Rikki (another nice girl) decided a nice sauna was in order. The thing is a wood heated hot-box, hotter than anything I've ever experienced, hot like the burning inferno of hell. Might not have been the best idea to match Els' determination to stay in for a neverending 15 minutes...After stumbling gratefully out, probably seconds prior to death, and into the river, I lay back on the dock and noticed that the entire world was spinning crazily and the stars were doing vaguely hallucinatory movements, jumping around wildly and such. Had a lot of fun nights, we celebrated a full moon for 3 nights straight as no one was sure which night was the "actual" full moon.

Uhhh, that´s me in the background to the left....






A familiar pose

The form of transport most common in the area, and the one we used, involved packing as many people as possible into the back of a pickup truck modified to hold cattle. That combined with the mountain roads led to some pretty painful rides as you had to continually brace yourself and tightly grip any available surface to avoid being thrown around. My personal record down here was 25 people crammed into a van that was made to hold 15 at the very most. Was really quite impressive actually.

Mooooooo!!!

Another fun activity is floating lazily down the river, an hour's stretch worth, soaking up the sun and enjoying the amusement of watching people who are inexplicably unable to steer an innertube get stuck in various branches and obstacles. Was planning to leave on Saturday and meet Els and Rikki in Rio Dulce, but felt compelled to stay another couple of days. Even now I can feel my brain inventing rationales and reasons to further extend my stay. Could easily do this for a month rather than a mere week.


Another cool thing is the nearby bat cave unleashes thousands of bats every night at dusk and they swoop along the river eating hateful mosquitoes. There's a rope stretching across the middle of the river by the hostel (the current's pretty fast) and you can hang on to it, stationary in the middle of the river as the seemingly neverending bat swarm rushes over your head and by your face, often swerving at the last moment to avoid collision. It's kind of creepy and freaky but at the same time a very cool and unique experience.

Seems to be a different group of revelers every night, and even though it gets a bit annoying going through the same questions/answers time and again (Where you from, going, been? How long? What do you do back home? etc?) it's still cool to meet new and different people every night. Still on my 1-man mission to try and show people that Americans are not some monolithic and homogenous culture, where every single person is a bible-thumping and war-mongering demagogue. Actually won a game of Texas Hold-Em Poker!!! I never win.

Last night in Lanquin I walked up to the actual bat cave to check it out. Pretty spooooky. Some 16 year old kid smooth-talked me into agreeing to have him ¨guide¨ me through the cave, but the buck fifty tip was well worth it just to practice my Spanish and have him take pictures of me. It´s incredible how many bats there are, a neverending stream of them flying madly around and out of the cave. I know they´re not likely to hit me but it really is hard not to flinch when they´re flying right at your face. Was very cool though, they turned off all the lights in the cave and have you stand in the entrance in pitch blackness and you can feel the thousands of bats just whooshing right past you.

Sonofabitch tried to put that spider on me! Uh uh!







Finally managed to drag myself away from Lanquin and headed to Rio Dulce, a small town on a Lake, with it´s river namesake leading out to the Carribean Coastal city of Livingston, my next destination. Spent a two nights in Rio Dulce at a Hostel on the Lakeside, accessible only by boat. Was nice, though the hostel seemed to be a bit inland from the lakeshore in what can only be described as a swamp. Small cabins and dorms connected by dockways over the swamp along with rather gloomy lighting conspired to give the place a bit of a horror movie waiting to happen feel. This wasn´t helped by the large taciturn Swiss guy who ran the place, closely resembled a walrus, and seemed to communicate only in grunts. Did manage to make a daytrip to the only hot waterfall in Central America. Natural hot springs bubble up from the ground into a small river which then pours over rocks into a normal river. You can stand in the cold water as the hot waterfall pours down on your head or climb to the top of it and soak in the pools up there. Was very pleasant even though you´re unable to safely jump off of it!










Just arrived in Livingston, it´s like a whole other country, with a lively mix of West African slave decendants, Maya, and regular Spanish speaking Guatemalans. Will head to Belize next to spend some lazy days on the white sand beaches of the Keys. Getting down to the last couple months of my adventure, will be good to head home and see everybody. Take Care! -Azi