Guatemala/ Honduras (Winter 2006)

I picked up this book “Best American Travel Writing” at a Honduran book exchange and I’m really starting to regret it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great book, but it’s full of all these amazing, inspirational stories that make my own travels seem almost boring in comparison. Then again, what made some of these stories so amazing was the trouble the writer got into along the way. While my own travels weren’t life changing or anything, I’m also happy to say they were pretty trouble free. After all, Guatemala and Honduras don’t have the greatest reputation for safety. Guatemala’s civil war ended only about 10 years ago and there are still guns everywhere. I couldn’t tell you how many soldiers I saw on patrol with machine guns and in front on any store of value you had a guy with a shotgun. In a lot of convenience stores you couldn’t actually enter the place. They had steel bars across the whole front and you had to just peak in and order what you wanted. To be fair the people were friendly and I didn’t see any problems but with signs like this you know they are there. You also couldn’t avoid hearing stories of pickpockets, robberies or even simpler problems like unsafe water and food. Considering the places and went and the things I ate and drank, it’s ironic that the only trouble I had was from eating Wendy’s in the Houston airport on the way down. As for pickpockets, I wasn’t too worried ‘cause for one I used my money belt religiously and second, I didn’t really have much of value anyway. Not like this French Canadian couple I met who were distracted for just an instant only to find that their small equipment/money bag had disappeared. They figure there was about $3000 worth of equipment and money inside. What!?…who travels with this much anyway? Another favorite story was a guy on the local bus who had this old lady sitting next him that kept fidgeting and moving around on the journey. Sometime after she got off this guy noticed a huge gash in his jeans pocket where the lady had patiently razored into his pocket and stolen his wallet. Of course these were random, infrequent occurrences, but they got me thinking and helped me save what little I brought.

So my trip started in Guatemala. I spent the first week out west in Xela (Quetzaltenango). This little town is famous for its language schools and since it’s been 13 years since I took high school Spanish, I felt like a little refresher was probably a good idea. Basically, for about $140 a week you get a private lesson 5 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and a room at a local family’s house with 3 meals a day. On top of that my school had daily activities which were a great chance to meet the other students from around the world. Some of these activities were salsa lessons, a visit to the local hot springs, and an all day trek up a volcano. We’ll just go ahead and pretend like the salsa lessons never happened. As for the hot springs, we caught a bus up into the mountains, through the clouds to this natural pool that was fed by a waterfall and half surrounded by jungle going straight up the mountain (really amazing but sorry, I didn’t bring my camera). For the volcano trek we started early. This volcano towers over the town so it was far from being an easy climb. Near the top it felt like we were practically climbing straight up but the view from the top was definitely worth it. You could see the town below, and both the Pacific Ocean and Mexico off in the distance.

From Xela I headed east and first stopped at Lake Atitlan. This is a huge lake (actually in the caldron of an old collapsed volcano) surrounded by volcanoes and small towns along the shore. I spent most of my time in San Pedro which was the big party place. The most memorable thing though was getting electrocuted twice, one while leaning against a broken wall socket in a Mexican restaurant, the other while in the hotel shower (yeah, I know). The hot water (if you’re “lucky” enough to have hot water) at these hotels comes from this little electric heater showerhead attachment. I had noticed the (metal) shower faucet was half taped up but didn’t realize why until later when my arm started going numb. Apparently you’re supposed to only touch the faucet on the taped part since the other part is conducting electricity (duh, what was I thinking?) It was in San Pedro that I met up with Eric and Dennyse, fellow students from Xela, and we did a couple side trips to Santiago (where the locals worship a wooden saint who smokes and drinks alcohol) and a 3 hour hike to San Marcos. It wasn’t until we arrived in San Marcos that a local guy said we were really lucky. Apparently there are “banditos” that hide along the road and jump out with machetes. Hmmmm…obviously my huge muscles scared them away. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded staying in San Marcos. It was very chilled out and had some nice big boulders to jump off of into the lake below. Just stay off the road I guess.

Next up was Antigua. Actually, I had heard bad things about the place due to the massive amount of tourists and travelers that had apparently taken over the city. Maybe I was expecting the worse, but I can’t say I saw a ton of foreigners. In fact the streets seemed completely dead at night and it wasn’t until the second night that Eric and I discovered everyone was crammed into the Mono Loco bar. Antigua was ok but I really only stuck around long enough to explore the city for a day (which to me was just about enough time). There were a lot of cool, old churches and a few in complete ruin which were fun to climb around. The old cathedral’s roof had completely collapsed in, but you could still walk around inside and even go down into the old catacombs below.

From Antigua I headed further east and visited a couple more towns before crossing into Honduras. In Quirigua I was practically the only foreigner there and the look of the local’s faces when I got off the bus in the middle of nowhere was pretty funny. Quirigua is famous for these huge Mayan monoliths covered with carvings of former kings and ancient hieroglyphics, the tallest being about 20 feet high. I luckily got there late and had the place practically to myself. From there I went to the pilgrimage town of Esquipulas, famous for its huge towering church and “Black Christ” inside. Pilgrams come from all over Central America to see this Christ figure carved out of black mahogany. What impressed me almost as much as the figure though was my “hotel” room which was basically an old storage room next to a kitchen that honestly had to be worse than a prison cell. My own fault really and I kept telling myself “it’s only for a night”.

Crossing into Honduras was painless and Honduras was a huge step up in comfort. What it lacked though was the traditional way of life that I found in Guatemala. Most of the Guatemala I saw was pretty rural and it was amazing to see the people (especially women) dressed in colorful hand woven materials. On one trip from Xela I had the chance to visit a family who still weaves using ancient techniques and wool dyed from natural sources like plants, stone and insects. There were even places like San Pedro where the common language wasn’t Spanish but rather some old Mayan dialect. I missed these things in Honduras, but definitely appreciated the (relative) cleanliness. I started out in Copan, home to this ancient city in the jungle. It’s famous mostly for its carvings (like Quirigua) but also the pyramids and large scale ruins of the city. Being surrounded by jungle also meant that there were animals around like scarlet macaws and few strange rodents hiding out in the forest.

From Copan I headed north and the plan was to spend the final 2 weeks on the north shore beaches and Utila island. While I definitely found some nice beaches at Tela and Trujillo, I unfortunately also found a lot of cloudy, rainy days. In Tela I biked it out to Lancetilla Botanical Park but was forced to ride the hotel’s only bike…a brand spanking new women’s hot pink mountain bike. I guess the would-be muggers were too busy laughing to rob me? In Trujillo my bus to the local Garifuna village was briefly delayed when a guy wearing a bird mask and spear jumped out in front of the bus. The next day I decided to hike up the big mountain behind town. While I didn’t start out to climb to the top, my ambition got the better of me and I kept telling myself just a little more. I found some sort of jungle cat tooth and near the top I had to run the gauntlet, avoiding a huge scorpion and snake along the path. I finally arrived at the radio tower on top and then nearly stepped on a bright red coral snake hanging out. Is someone trying to tell me something? All I know is that the view of the seashore and bay below was definitely worth it.

I was hoping Utila had more sunshine but the clouds seemed to follow me there. On the plus side though I made some new friends and met up again with Dennyse from the beginning of my journey. She was taking a Divemaster course and since there wasn’t much to do without the sunshine, I decided to join her underwater, getting my Advanced certification. Actually, that worked out well ‘cause the dive shop gave me free accommodation and the course was basically 5 different dives including a wreck and night dive which were both really cool. The night dive was also under the full moon and felt for a minute like a whole different world. The only downside to the diving was the boat trips to all the dive sights. Between dives we had to wait at the surface (on the boat) and I just couldn’t help but feed the fishes (I hope they like partially digested chicken burritos). Anyway, the rain was too much, enough to flood my room in fact, so I headed south for the final week.

I divided my time between the small mountain towns of San Juan and Gracias, made a few more friends, and managed to work in one more all day trek before heading to Tegucigalpa and a flight home. Before going I was starting to wonder if I could really fill up 6 weeks, but in the end it turned out to be not nearly enough time. There’s so much I didn’t see in both Guatemala (Pacaya, Semuc Champey, Flores, Rio Dulce, Livingston) and Honduras (Roatan, Mosquita) and I’m just going to have to go back someday. Thankfully it’s just a short trip away. Maybe next time I’ll even have an amazing, inspirational story to share?