Guatemala: Part I

First off, LET´S GO HAWKS!

Okay. Finally, we have been able to upload Rich´s pictures. They are fully updated through Lanquin (and the incredibly beautiful Semuc Champey - more info in our next post). We have been in Guatemala almost 2 weeks, having spent most of our time in the north and eastern parts of the country. The northern and eastern areas of Guatemala are less developed and more rural. Most tourists are heading to and from the ruins at Tikal. But we lingered a bit longer to take in the beautiful green hills, lakes, and outdoors activities as you´ll see from our pictures. Today, we are in Coban, a medium-sized town, and we head to Guatemala City tomorrow where we have a free apartment thanks to a very generous friend!

For now, since it´s been a while since we´ve updated, we´ll give some info on our first 2 stops in Guatemala, then we´ll update further in another day or two.

From the moment we left for our trip, we talked to other travelers about the ruins at Tikal. Everyone we talked to said they were some of the most spectacular ruins you can visit. Scores of travelers come from Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala to visit them. Most stay in the town of Flores, a built up, touristy city on an island on Lago Peten (¨Lago¨ means ¨lake¨!). We decided to forego the city of Flores to go to the more tranquil lakeside town of El Remate, it´s very quiet and closer to the ruins. We had incredible views of the hills and of the lake from our room.

We visited the ruins from El Remate, leaving incredibly early in the morning, 5:30, in order to get there when the park opens at 6:00. We also decided to save some bucks and work at our own pace by not hiring a guide. This is debatable, but when you get to spend 30 minutes alone at the top of Temple 4 instead of 5 minutes with a big group of gringos, the decision feels justified.

We were in no way disappointed. Tikal, like Palenque before, sits in a very dense jungle. The park is enormous! When you enter, spider monkeys swing off the branches over your head as you walk the paths to the main plaza. Crazy looking birds hoot and holler and fly everywhere.

You have to walk quite a ways to get to the Gran Plaza, but it´s worth every step. Enormous Mayan temples seem to appear from nowhere out of the thick jungle, and a big grassy plaza with temples on all 4 sides surrounds you. We were there early in the morning and there were only a handful of other visitors there, much unlike the cattle-herds at the ruins of Tulum and Palenque. The temples at Tikal are the most impressive we´ve seen.

You can climb most of the temples, and the views are amazing. Don´t believe us? Check out the top of Temlo IV:



From the main plaza, we spent another 4 or 5 hours wandering around the enormous National Park seeing temples and building complexes. We hiked through beautiful trails in the jungle to every set of buildings we could find. Our legs burned from climbing uneven temple stairs and we sweated our faces off in the jungle heat, but Tikal was certainly one of the highlights of our trip, and definitely the most engrossing Mayan temples we´ve seen.

With not much else happening in El Remate besides Tikal, we decided to take off. We can´t tell you how many backpackers completely skip this entire region of Guatemala. Most zip between Tikal and Antigua in the west, a few go to Rio Dulce to take a boat trip up the river and catch the ferry to Belize. But we´re in no hurry, so we decided to make a couple of stopovers.

Our first stop was the fairly unremarkable, though purely Guatemalan town of Poptun. About 2 miles from town is a beautiful organic farm and working ranch called Finca Ixobel. We thought it would be full of backpackers like us, and there are some, but mostly it´s a nice vacation spot for Guatemalan families.

Finca Ixobel is quiet and sits in the hills near Poptun. You can hike, cave, and swing in the many hammocks. In our 3 days there, we hiked through the hills to a beautiful cave where we wandered and took in the rock formations. We also hiked an enormous mound called ¨The Pyramid,¨ where it was so steep you literally have to pull yourself up using trees and roots. On the way back down, the Central American rainy season unleashed its full wrath upon us and we got completely soaked! The pics are great, and it was really a ton of fun.

The other highlight about the Finca was the food. It´s a working organic farm, and there´s an onsite restaurant where you eat all your meals. They use all of their own ingredients to cook and make amazing food, and for incredibly cheap prices. We ate like kings and queens and really dug it. In Guatemala, we´re back into the realm of tortillas with everything, so it was a nice change of pace!

Currently, we chill in Coban, then on to Guatemala City to live in a local apartment in one of the city´s nicest neighborhoods. Will be able to watch the Stanley Cup Finals, so don´t fret! Very excited to get into the Western part of Guatemala, with its volcanos and mountains and cooler temperatures. We intend to stay in the region a few weeks so many more updates to come, but we´ll make sure to catch you up on El Estor and Semuc Champey soon!