Winter Break III: Guatemala

December 26th: The 26^th turned out to be a very long day for a number of reasons. We hopped on a combi at 7am and headed to Frontera Corozal, the jump off point for Guatemala and 2 sets of ruins, set on the banks of the Usumacinta River, the border between Guatemala and Mexico. So a combi, as a refresher for those that don’t know is basically a van that acts as a bus. You can get on it for the whole distance or hop on and off as needed. This time, we were in for the long haul as we set out along the Careterra Frontera (border highway, shown in red) for a 5.5hr trip.

The scenery was amazing as we passed curvy mountain roads, rain forest, pretty fog, and small villages. However, because it runs the border, that also meant 6+ military checkpoints along the way. We finally arrived at the intersection of the highway and the road to Frontera Corozal, got a taxi to town, paid the $15 peso/person highway maintenance fee (more on this later), and arrived in the tiny town that is Frontera Corozal. Unfortunately, it was a lot smaller than we had initially thought and like the last gas station we had seen 6 hours before in Comitan, it appeared that the last atm or bank had been there as well. While we weren’t out of money, no one could assure us that there was an atm where we were headed in Guatemala, so we got on the next combi heading out of town and continued 3 hours north to Palenque, the nearest place with banks (and as we were later to find out, doctors).

December 27^th: Restocked with pesos and assured that there was an atm in Flores, Guatemala as well, we headed back down to Frontera Corozal early the next morning. From Frontera we took a boat down the river about 35 min and over to the Guatemalan town of Bethel.

I use the word town loosely here. There isn’t even a dock where the boats land and then it’s a scramble up a small, muddy hill (not sure how well that works in the rainy season) to 2 small stores and 4 people wanting to change your Mexican pesos for Guatemalan quetzals. We filled out immigration papers while we waited for the bus to come, and as we guessed, the one that showed up was a chicken bus. From the landing, it was a 10 min ride to the immigration office where we thoroughly confused the officials because our work visas, not our passports were the only stamped thing when we left Mexico, but finally got through.

Then it was 4 hours on our chicken bus, although no actual chickens got on we did have a dog or two.

We finally got to Flores at about 2:30, only to find that the last van to Tikal (the ruins we were going to see) left at 2. While we weren’t really planning on going to the ruins much that afternoon, Tikal has a rule that if you get to the entrance after 3, your ticket is good the next day, so we were planning on taking advantage of that and camping there as well. Oh well, on to plan B, which wasn’t such a bad option. Flores is a cute little town, actually an island in the middle of a lake, with almost a Caribbean feel to it with the buildings and colors. And because the island is so small pretty much every hotel has a good lake view and balcony.

December 28^th: One of the main draws of Tikal, the largest set of Mayan ruins in Guatemala, is the chance to see the sun rise will sitting atop one of the giant pyramids. Unfortunately that would mean leaving Flores at 4:30 since we weren’t able to camp. So instead we opted for the 6am van and arrived at the park (the ruins are also situated in a natural protected area) at 7:15. While I have now been to over 25 ruins in Mexico and sometimes they are starting to loose that same feeling of amazement that you get with the 1^st couple, Tikal was incredible. The pyramids at Tikal are the highest (and steepest) in Mesoamerica and while you can climb almost all of them, they are so steep that for safety reasons the park as opted for ladders up the side instead of allowing you to climb the stone stairs. I should apologize for using the word “ruin” here in reference to Tikal. Whereas in Mexico the word ruin is widely used (example most transport headed to an archeological site here in Mexico will have a sign saying RUINAS), evidently it is a little offensive to use it in Guatemala. Kurt asked a little boy how he liked the ruins and his father promptly replied that ruins refers to a dead culture and the Mayan culture in Guatemala is not dead, so they really are temples and pyramids….oops.

The other great thing about Tikal is that it is big. Some of the temples are a good 10 to 15 min walk from others, and through gorgeous rainforest, a nice change from the well manicured, grassy sites of other ruins. In addition, since it is a natural protected area, there is an abundance of flora and fauna and even some small trails that get you away from people and temples. On one of these trails we were lucky enough to see toucans, trojans, a paca (think over-grown guinea pig), spider and howler monkeys, and some other random stuff.

After a long day at Tikal, the back patio at our hotel was especially appealing.