The last day in Central America – trying to sum it all up

And today is the last day, not only in Panama City, but also in Central America. I’ve just spent it at the hotel, sleeping for long (I hit the bed at 5 am this morning), doing laundry, repacking (the customs in all the countries between Guate and here REALLY liked to unpack the box with my souvenirs... :-( ), and of course finishing the last blog entries.

So what did I think of Central America then? Well, in one word: excellent!

Everyone you meet is extremely friendly and always do their best to help you out. I don’t recommend coming here without learning some Spanish before though; not only will it be much easier to get around, but you also make friends so much easier. I found it really easy to get to know people in Belize, and I have no reason to believe that it would not be as easy in the other countries as well, as long as you know the language.

The landscape is very beautiful, with everything you could ever want: great beaches, wonderful mountains (with great trekking opportunities), although I definitely recommend to come here between November and April in the dry season. Most days have been cloudy for me, and even though the variation in the weather has been welcome, I have no doubt that the landscape will be even better looking when the weather is better!

I guess that the best recommendation is that I will definitely come back; there’s a few places I want to come back to (like the Cenote dives in Yucatan and the hikes in the Guate mountains), and then there’s all the things I never got around to do, like the diving in Honduras. And I hear SO many good things about Nicaragua that I just have to go there some day!

But now I soon need to get going to the air port – I’m really looking forward to come home to Sweden and meet all my friends, although I will surely miss all the new friends I’ve met on the road. And then there’s Kyrghyzstan – it’s now only three weeks until I board the plane to Bishkek for further transportation to a really small village in the eastern parts of K-stan were I will build houses with Habitat for Humanity - I can hardly wait.

But first: Sweden – here I come!

P.S. There's been 15 (fifteen!) new posts the last two days, and this time, on popular request, I've added lots more pictures than I've done before - I hope you like them?

So go down to the "Lanquin, June 7-11" post and start reading already! And don't forget to give me comments!!

Panama City, June 26-28

At least I was able to shorten the bus trip by 24 hours by some clever bus changes, and that gave me one more day in Panama City. I really like the city here; it is very much like a real city – skyscrapers, lots of traffic jams and a hectic tempo. It is so very unlike all the other towns I’ve visited previously; I guess that the biggest town I’ve been to before had 30.000 people: Panama City has around a million.

The bus ride down here had the effect that I came to totally focus on coming back to Stockholm, so I’ve had a hard time to get very excited about doing Panama”properly”. Being here has been much more like taking a weekend trip to London than being on the other side of the world.

Bright Lights, Big City...

But I’ve met some nice people at the hostel where I’m staying, and we’ve been walking around town for two days, checking out the touristy stuff, looking at people, and just generally enjoying being in a big city again, with all it’s shops, bars, McDonalds(!), and clubs.

Sebastian and Anne in front of the Panama City skyline.

I’m explaining to Anne why it’s so great to spike your smoothies with rum.

TICA Bus, June 23-25

Well, the less said about this the better – who wants to sit three straight days on a bus? :-( But I had to do it, since after trying to call Iberia for several weeks to change my ticket so that I could fly out of Guatemala instead of Panama, I had to give up and get down to Panama as fast as I could.

Iberia Airlines: stay away from them if you can!

Antigua, June 20-23

Latin America is the very popular in general for learning Spanish; there are schools in almost all decent-sized towns. But Antigua is by far the biggest of them all – there are around 70 schools in a town of around 20.000 people, and the whole town is very dominated by them and their students.

For some people this is great – it is a good way for 18-year old kids to hang around with people from all over the world, and go to school in the mornings and just party and have fun the rest of the time. But if it the genuine Guatemala you want to see, this is definitely not where you want to go. Having said that, I did enjoy the more western-style feeling that you get here. Many people spoke English (weirdly enough...), there were plenty of bars, restaurants and discos, and I had a great time with some of the kids that stayed at my hostel.

The waterpipe is ALWAYS a good way to start your clubbing.

Also, the town is really beautiful, in a distinctly colonial style that you don’t see much down here, where the towns generally are VERY ugly regardless of size.

But the reason I came were the volcano hikes. Unfortunately, with the combination of low season and the soccer world championships on TV, no one else was interested in that, so the 2-day hike I wanted to do to Acatenango (4000 meter high, more than 2000 verticals on the hike) wasn’t possible (3 people minimum). It still irritates me somewhat, but a nice thing about being in these parts of the world is that you get very tolerant about how things work out. I hope that the same feeling sticks when I get back home, because I really like how I’m much less irritable now than when I left home.

Bonus picture for all my fans :-): the world’s ugliest and fattest dog lives(?) in Antigua!

Lake Atitlan, June 18-19

I did think a lot about whether to do Atitlan or not, but in the end I just decided that I had to. Lake Atitlan is the place where all the backpackers go in Guatemala, and for good reason. The guidebooks talk about it as one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I tend to agree. The Lake is fairly large, 8 km long or something, and is surrounded by three enormous volcanoes, just begging to be climbed.

Unfortunately the security situation right now is somewhat unsafe, so I chose not to do any of the volcanoes, instead saving the steep hikes for Antigua. But I did do a wonderful one-day hike between some villages on the north side of the lake. It’s really hard to do the landscape justice with pictures, but I did some panorama pictures, a few of which that I’ll try to share here – don’t forget to click the pictures to see them in something at least approaching full size.

I spent two wonderfully relaxing hours in this little secluded spot outside Santa Cruz.

Looking down at one of the villages around the lake.

Along the route, I came to a Hotel called La Casa Del Mundo, and that must be one of the neatest hotels I’ve ever seen. Perched on a cliff above the lake, the rooms consists of Cabañas (small houses) that hangs out over the lake, making it feel like you are flying or something. Down by the lake, they have built social areas for sunbathing and drinking piña coladas, where you can check out the boat traffic on the lake, and the ambience is wonderful.

Not extremely luxorious in any way, but the owners are really nice and you are very well taken care of. Definitely recommended to stay a night if you are in the area. Maybe not more than that, because there really is nothing to do except to sunbathe and swim.

The place is for sale – the asking price is 3 million US$, but he was willing to go down to 2!

Weirdly enough I spent my other day at the lake in Panajachel (the main town), mostly shopping(!) – and quite enjoying myself I might add! I really don’t like shopping back home, but maybe it is the added joy of bargaining? Not only do you get to buy something beautiful, but also (at least if you’re good), you get the feeling that you’ve mad a bargain. Of course you always get cheated by the locals, but it’s more fun if you delude yourself. :-)

It started when I found the most wonderful presents to give to John and Majvi at their wedding, and I didn’t really know how to stop after that! :-) I finally wound up buying so much stuff that needed to buy a BIG plastic box to ship it in, and to pay for the extra weight when I fly home. But it wasn’t completely random, careful study reveals that Pana is very likely the best place in Central America to buy handicraft and other souvenirs – it is the perfect level of decent quality of the goods (almost all markets only have absolute crap) and good prices (places like the capitals and Antigua has at least as nice goods, but at twice the price)!

Just don’t forget to leave your gun home when you go shopping!

As for the volcano treks, I have no doubt whatsoever that they are wonderful, but you will find it really hard to find a group to join unless you go in high season. Me, I saved the volcanoes for Antigua…

A bunch of posts again - and more coming soon!

I'm slowing down in my travels again, this time as a preparation for my trip back home in two days. And this gives me time to update the blog again - for the first time in almost three weeks I see now!

There's been 9 (nine!) more posts the last few hours, and this time, on popular request, I've added lots more pictures than I've done before - I hope you like them?

So go down to the "Lanquin, June 7-11" post and start reading already!

/ Peter

P.S. read fast, because I expect the Atitlan and Antigua posts to be up tomorrow or at latest on Wednesday!

P.S.2. As always I love comments - especially when you sign them so I know who wrote them! :-)

Hiking in Guatemala – where to go?

Anyone wants to climb a volcanoe?

Guatemala is a very beautiful country with many high mountains, volcanoes and a very varying landscape, and as such it is as if it was made for hiking. And yes, the Guatemalans take advantage of that and offer quite a few hiking opportunities. Here’s a summary of the most talked-about, and my recommendation.

Antigua: Antigua is of course the center for Spanish-langauge education in Guatemala, but it is also situated in the shadow of three really big volcanoes and a smaller (but active) one. Unfortunately in low season there are very few people interested in trekking, so I couldn’t do the more extensive hikes. Read more about the Pacaya hike in the Antigua entries.

Lake Atitlan: Atitlan is truly one of the most beautiful places yhat I’ve been to, and the volcanoes surrounding the lake really calls to you. One-day hikes by yourself would be excellent, but unfortunately it is still huge problems with robberies along the hiking paths, so it is not really recommended. I did do a very short hike between two villages (see the Atitlan entries) and that really wet my appetite, so I just wish it was possible to do more!

Quetzaltenango: the second biggest town in Guate and the biggest one in the mountainous northwest, Xe-la (as it is known) is mostly famous for it’s growing language school scene, but it is also home to the most respected trekking company in the country, Quetzaltrekkers. Unfortuantely I did not go there myself, but I only heard great things about them, and they also do treks to nearby regions. Also, since they are big, they almost always have treks going. I wish I had gone there...

Nebaj: A new and rising star in Guate trekking, Nebaj is a small and very rural town in northern Guatemala. It has only one place that arranges treks (Guide Ixil), but if they were good it would certainly be enough. The landscape was beautiful, but unfortunately the guide that we had anyway was a big disappointment. The trek in itself was good enough, but if I were to go back, I would head for Quetzaltrekkers...

Nebaj day 2-4 – the Maya hike

When I got back to the hotel I was lucky enough that there was another gringo that had gotten into town. Johnny DeLello was like a caricature of an american. He was pleasant enough to begin with, but when you spent more than 10 minutes with him, you quickly realized that he was as loud, ignorant and full of himself as they come. Johnny, if you read this, I’m sorry man, but I’ve never met anyone so full of shit like yourself!

Normally I try to distance myself from (north) Americans as much as possible down here (Canadians excluded of course!), and Johnny is the type of American that I would run from, but in this case he had one redeeming quality: he knew Spanish! So I quickly dragged him to Guide Ixil to help me set up a trek. And now that there were two of us, we actually met the minimum number of people to go on an organized trek as well. Unfortunately Guide Ixil decided to close early that evening, so we had to wait until the next morning...

When we got there, we were lucky enough that there were already a Spanish couple and an Israeli couple that had set up a three-day trek, so we quickly decided to join them. Johnny’s main argument was to get the cost of the trek down, but it was so cheap that I didn’t really bother. But two or three days alone with Johnny and I was afraid that I might have to kill him before he drove me insane. :-)

We didn’t have more than half an hour to decide to join them and then pack our gear, but as it turned out the others were really nice people and we had three great days:

Eva, Marc, Efrat, Israel, myself, and Johnny, before we set out for the mountains - we were to be much more tired and less perky three dats later.

Day 1: To the Mayan village
The first day was a relatively light hike (steep at places, but no more than 1000 verticals in total) to a remote mayan village. There were no roads to the village, and since it was a long hike to the nearest road, they had very little contact with the outside world. This was evident when you studied the village: there were pretty much no outside items (like radios, modern-style tools, etc.) that they traded any agricultural surplus for.

Which meant that in our eyes, it was a really backwater place. And since the Maya has their own languages, no one spoke Spanish either, so contact between us and the locals were really minimal. This was something of a disappointment in the beginning, but it did allow us to get to know each other much better, as well as play a lot of Tiki (or something similar, I don’t quite remember the name), a really fun Uno-like card game.

But as always in these situations, the kids got to our rescue. The adults kept their distance, but kids are always curious, so we spent quite some time playing with them. And with kids, you don’t really need to know the language either! But all in all, Guide Ixil needs to improve their relationship with the villagers a great deal. Not only were we not welcome in their homes, this is what greeted us when we opened the door the morning after:

When your neighbour takes a dump at your doorstep during the night, you KNOW it means “get the hell out of here”... :-(

Luckily enough, the view when we lifted our eyes a few feet were much better: the morning fog kept changing in the valleys below at an amazing rate, and made for some exciting morning scenery!

Day 2: To Cotzol

The morning fog thickened, and it got quite spooky at times.

The second day, we continued to climb the mountain, and by lunch time we hit the highest point on our trek. At around 2800 meters we were no more than 900 meters higher than Nebaj, but behind us we now had 1200 really steep verticals. But still not high enough to give me any idea for how Kilimanjaro will feel in eight months or so – I really need to hunt for some real heights in Kyrgyzstan!

Cotzol, the village where we were staying the second night was completely different. When we got there we were greeted by lots of kids cheering us on, and we almost felt like celebrities. These people were also fullblood mayans, but they had clearly embraced modern society in a way that the people in the previous village had not.

Kids very curious to find out how a digital camera works.

First of all, most of them spoke Spanish, very likely related to the fact that all kids actually went to school. Secondly, you could see that they was longing for western-style modernities: even though everyone had dirt floors, quite a few of them had cell phones! And of course, to pay for that you need to trade, so you need to work harder on the fields to produce a surplus, which in turn means that modernities like gasoline-driven mills were suddenly useful.

And so on: the comparison is definitely the best hands-on experience of the advantages of trade I could think of, and definitely put all those boring lessons in business school in a new light!

We were also invited to have lunch (a very late one, but still), dinner and breakfast in a number of different houses in the village. It was very interesting to see the inside of their houses, but also quite sad. To the untrained eye at least, they looked far more unsophisticated and less developed than the houses from the 1700’s that you see in Swedish museums, and it felt sad to know how easy diseases would spread in those environments. I later heard from a journalist in Antigua that child fatalities could be halved in Guatemalan rural villages just by installing stoves with actual pipes to the ceiling instead of just letting the smoke out in the kitchen.

Efrat and Eva having dinner in at a local home in Cotzal.

And just to illustrate that point, me and Johnny had a discomforting experience in the family where we had dinner. When we were almost through our dinner, we heard some incoherent ramblings and cries from the room (all the houses we were in had only a kichen plus one room). When we asked, we got to know that there were a sick child in the room next door, and that the relatives had gathered to pray for her, lead by an old matriarch (or maybe she was a shaman, we did not really know).

I still don’t know whether the girl made it through the night or not, but to be honest my hopes aren’t very high. She had a really high fever, she was rambling, and there simply weren’t any doctors for miles around. Not that I know if these people actually would let a western doctor look at their kid, and even less if they could afford one.

Those who know me, know that I am certainly not a very religious person (to say the least), but that evening I prayed. There was nothing else that I could do (my first aid kit only had things to fix cuts and wounds and could do nothing for a fever) except fall on my knees and prey... Oh, and I gave the family 100 Quatzales (or about 12 US$, more than a week’s salary I guess) for a doctor, but I think that even made less use than the prayer.

All in all the most gripping experience during the whole trip, but unfortunately not in a good way. :-(

Day 3: Back to Nebaj
The third day was definitely the most strenuous. Especially for Efrat, who had forgotten both her asthma medicine, and to tell us that she actually HAD asthma! This irritated Johnny a lot since he wanted to go faster, which strained the relations in the group somewhat, but on the whole I must say that I’m proud that I kept the situation together.

Me? Yes, because unfortunately our guide wasn’t exactly the best there was, and as the oldest of the group I did feel a certain responsibility. That was fine, but the bad part was that our guide was extremely passive the whole time, and instead of him telling us about the history and other facts about the region we had to drag every little piece of information out of him, and that really made for a less than relaxed trek sometimes.

But the trek the third day was excellent! The landscape was even more dramatic, and we were doing on average 6-700 vertical meters per hour the whole day, going up and down the mountains and valleys as we approached Nebaj.

Resting for a few minutes before the final assault of the last peak before Nebaj.

But it had been a hard day, and without any lunch we were more or less starving when we had dinner late in the evening – and never has a pizza tasted as good as that night...
All in all, I was both very satisfied with Nebaj, but also very tired, and quite happy to be leaving for the quieter surroundings of Lake Atitlan the day after…

Nebaj day 1 – the waterfall day-hike

Since I wasn’t able to purchase the trekking guidebook, I did the only hike I knew anything about – the Cataracas (or waterfall) hike explained in the Lonely Planet book, and let me tell you that it was great!

It was certainly not exhausting, only being two hours long. And it certainly wasn’t hard, with less than 200 vertical meters. But man was it beautiful!

Hard to make the landscape justice in pictures, but you could do worse for yourself than being a cow right here...

Someone later likened the landscape to lowland Switzerland, and I guess there’s something to that. The hike was along a road winding along a small river at the bottom of a narrow valley, where cattle, sheep and horses were continually grazing along the riverbank, every now and then interrupted by a couple of waterfalls small and large.

25 meters may not exactly be gigantic, but compared to Swedish waterfalls it’s not shabby...

The hike was even shorter than I had expected however, so when I saw a narrow path leading off from the road a point, I immediately jumped at the chance. Even though I didn’t have a map, I DID have my compass (built into my trusty Techtrail watch), so I felt reasonably safe. And what do you know, when I got higher up on the mountain, lowland Switzerland DID turn into highland Switzerland. Except for the jungle vegetation I guess. :-)

And up on the mountain there was quite a lot of life. The mountain was full of criss-crossing paths where I met lot’s of people. I met a small family on their way to the market, I met sheep farmers at their small isolated farm, I met forestry workers on their way home from work, and I even got hunted by angry dogs!

Guatemalan cowboys – not as glamorous as the North American ones!

And when I very very tired returned to Nebaj, I was convinced that I had to work harder to get further up into the mountains somehow...

Nebaj, June 12-17

Early on I had decided to do some hiking in Guatemala. The one-day hikes in Lanquin was a good start, but they were only 22 km per day and no more than 800 vertical meters up. I wanted some more challenge, and after careful consideration I chose the Nebaj area.

For one thing they have never had a reported tourist crime, which in many countries is normal, but NOT in Guatemala. Also, the trekking industry is very undeveloped here and the only trekking company is owned by locals, so my money would go to the local people. And of course, it is maybe the most beautiful part of the country.

But things did NOT start out good. First I had the worst possible luck on the way from Lanquin. That the journey took a lot of time was no surprise (10 hours to get 80 kilometers!), but that I had the bad luck of constantly sitting on the wrong side of all the four vehicles I took along the road that is regarded as the most beautiful in Central America, that really pissed me off.

So sorry everyone, I have no pictures from the journey, even though I can confirm that it WAS extremely beautiful when I was peeking between people’s heads, armpits, etc. If you are ever in the region, this road is HIGHLY recommended!

The main street in Nebaj. Yes, it really WAS that boring!

When I got to town I meant to go to the local trekking company (Guide Ixil) and set up a trek for the following day, but instead I fell asleep at the hotel and slept from five o’clock to eight in the morning! I guess I needed it, but I lost a whole day of trekking.

Then when I got to Guide Ixil the following morning, it turned out that the trekking guidebook promised in Lonely Planet was out of print. And the promised 1:50000 scale maps were not available either. And to top everything off, there was NO ONE available that spoke English in the whole town of 11.000 people! Most of the time down here I can always get translation help from other backpackers or voluntary workers, but here even they weren’t around – this really WAS way off the beaten track!

By this time I was REALLY close to just give Nebaj up and go south to Lake Atitlan or something and the main reason I didn’t, was that it was too late to make it to Atitlan the same day by bus! Luckily enough I persevered, and Nebaj turned out to be one of the most memorable places on my journey...

Starting a local business?

As I might have told some of my esteemed readers before I left Sweden, something that’s definitely nagging me is the possibility of getting hold of a local business somewhere in the world. I think I described it as “buy a cool bar at a Caribbean island and marry the beautiful twin daughters of the tribe chief” or something! :-)

Well, sitting here in Lanquin, I’m half-seriously considering starting a place like this backpackers joint in Nebaj to cash in on the possible increase in tourism there. Or any other business down here really...

I’ve also met this guy Brendan today that was offered to buy a sixth of a restaurant in San Pedro (on Lake Atitlan) for 2500 US$. The interest on that would be $10(!) per month only, and for that he would also get a room to stay in as well as food each day. Sounds like a decent deal, and if it wasn’t for my trip to Kyrghyzstan I would be very tempted indeed...

Or maybe I should buy a Tuk-tuk (only 4500 US$ for a new one!) and start a taxi business? :-)

4th day in Lanquin – The Peters and rafting

So who’s Don Pedro? Well, it turned out that we were three people named Peter staying at El Retiro at the same time, so we needed some way of telling us apart. I honestly don’t remember what we called the third guy, but the reason that I remember Don Pedro (apart from him being a really nice guy) was that he joined us for the rafting trip on my fourth day.

The group before heading out – Don Pedro is the third from the left.

Since the rumour about Lanquin an El Retiro seems to be spreading, there’s a few things happening around here. The new cave in Semuc is one thing and another is rafting. Martin, a dutch guy came by here a few months ago and saw the business opportunity: to set up a rafting business. He and his friend Adam has spent a few months surveying the nerby rivers in kayaks, and the week that I got there it was time for the grand finale: getting some paying customers on the river!

Martin before we set off on the trip. Or Adam? Or Martin? One of them at least...

Of course we didn’t go in kayaks – me and the other beginners would probably had been killed or something! As it turned out the rains the preceding days had made the river really hard. We stopped at one place and checked the water depth – at a place where the guides had never seen more than 180 cm before, the water now was at 270 cm!

The rapids had gotten at least one class harder, so the first real rapid was now a 5+! For those that know there rapid classifications, that is NOT a rapid where you take a boat full of beginners, especially when there is a 4+ right behind it! So we started the rafting by carrying the rubber boats 200 meters downstream. :-(

Myself with some of the easier rapids in the background. And yes, this was before I fell in! :-)

But after that it was GREAT! I fell in two times, one of them when the boat flipped and the other time when I didn’t go down fast enough when we went through a BIG wave. They tell me that I’m not supposed to admit that I fell in twice since the idea is NOT to fall in, but hey: where’s the fun in that!? But to be honest I was a bit afraid at one time when I got caught in a backdraft and had problems getting up again. But all’s well that ends well I guess... And I had the adrenalin running pretty much constantly for two hours – GREAT!

If you never tried rafting before: definitely recommended!

This scary-looking creature is actually very nice: Heather Kenison is a resident ski-bum in Squaw Valley that really made me want to come there for a visit (for the skiing only of course! :-)).

3rd day in Lanquin - Trekking to Semuc-Champay again!

During my long day in Lanquin hiding from the rain, some of the other people at El Retiro told me about something that I had missed in Semuc – some really adventurous grotas (caves) that sounded really fun. So the day after I got up early, shook off the hangover (I was REALLY bad at that drinking game!), and set off again. I don’t know what the locals thought about the strange Swede that came walking by their villages AGAIN, but at least they got some business that day – my poor head needed massive amounts of Agua Pura (drinking water)!

And the caves really were worth the trip! We started by swimming into the caves, carrying only candles, and then it just got better. We spent something like two hours climbing ropes, diving, walking past waterfalls, swimming against, and drifting with, currents, and generally just having a LOT of fun! The guide we went with was not very security conscious, and maybe even a bit crazy, but it all added to the experience!

Unfortunately the camera was fogging up in the cave due to the cold water, so here’s a picture of my two companions when we were tubing down the river afterwards instead.

I also picked up a companion (left in the picture above) in Semuc; Brendan Kellogg is an artist/artisan (among other things he makes furniture) from Manhattan, and we had a great hike “home” to Lanquin – it’s amazing how much easier it is to hike when you have someone really nice to talk to! I lured Brendan back with me with the promise of all the great girls at El Retiro (well, he was more their age, so I thought I could be generous and give them away :-)), and he seemed happy enough when we got there, even though he seemed to spend most of his time with me, Don Pedro, and the other guys.

1st day in Lanquin - Trekking to Semuc-Champay

I arrived here in Lanquin the day before yesterday after a whole day on the bus, so yesterday was the first real day here. Since there was supposed to be a Saturday excursion to the Lanquin caves, also including some rappelling (never done that, dying to try) as well as river tubing and canopy gliding (riding steel wires in the treetops), that really left me with the other main excursion target here: Semuc-Champay.

Semuc is a really small village 10 km east of here (over a mountain pass), whose main attraction is a set of natural water pools, where you can go swimming. Not only that, but the main part of the river flows underneath the pools, so you are actually swimming in pools that are on top of a natural bridge!

There are arranged excursions from the hostel and there are also some of minivans or trucks that you can take, but I wouldn’t be adventurous enough if I did that, right? So instead I put my sandals on a little harder, loaded my backpack with 3 liters of water (unless you already knew it; you need a LOT of water in these parts of the world) and some food, and set off over the mountains. The first two km was almost straight uphill and more than a little hard, but after I reached the summit it was pretty smooth.

Yours truly, after the hike to Semuc – note the trekking poles.

No sun, but that’s just fine when you hike anyway, and I had a really nice 2.5 hours journey. I saw a lot of wildlife that I would certainly not have seen on a bus, including two chameleons (which was a first for me), as well as a rather nasty snake! I also got to use my hiking poles for real for the first time and they were great! Although you feel a little silly around other people, they are really great when going downhill in slippery terrain and also helpful when going up. They are going to be GREAT on Kilimanjaro!

A part of the pools, with an insert of some of my companions.

When I got there, the pools were really as exciting (and relaxing!) as everyone was saying. They were just deep enough to dive in, and the water was just the perfect temperature also. So, I just spent a couple of hours hanging around by the pools, swimming, relaxing and chatting with some other people that had come with the bus from Lanquin (whimps!).

Unfortunately, after a while the weather quickly got worse, so I didn’t get any good pictures. Also, I had to hike my 10 km back home in pouring rain – not exactly the best of conditions. I DID bring my rain gear (full points to my Patagonia Stretch Elements shell jacket btw!), but in this heat it really doesn’t matter that much since you get soaked in your own sweat anyway. :-(

But that just makes you feel slightly more like an explorer, so that’s OK anyway! :-) So, that’s when the rains started, and now they have been going on for 32 hours and counting [Update: they stopped after 38 straight hours!]. The clock is more than ten in the evening and it is time to decide: should I join my English roommates in their drinking game or go to bed? Even though they have the linguistic advantage (it’s that kind of drinking game), they ARE girls, so I SHOULD be able to hold my own, right?

[This is where all feminists should start throwing bottles. Careful of the computer screens girls! :-)]

The social area from the inside.

Well, I did decide to do the drinking game, which in retrospect might have been a bad thing for the next day...

Lanquin, June 7-11

Today is the morning of Friday the 9th, and it is my 2nd day in Lanquin. The rainy season has REALLY started now, with the rain starting at two o’clock yesterday and still going. Everyone says that there’s not going to be any letup today, so I’m staying at the lodge today, just hanging around, maybe see a movie or two, chat with the other backpackers, and of course watch some football: today is the first day of the World Championships, so I’m going to watch Costa Rica beat the crap out of Germany later today (yeah, like THAT is going to happen! :-)).

The trip from Flores to Lanquin was a bit more problematic than I had originally thought. I overslept :-( so I missed my 5.30 bus straight to Cobán, so I instead had to take the “chicken buses” (chicken bus is backpacker talk for the local buses, more or less dangerous to ride and quite often with chicken cages tied to the roofs, hence the name), and change four times, including once to a boat(!) before I got there.

Inside of a typical Guatemala mini-bus – also typically crowded.

And then there was yet another bus to Lanquin which means that the trip took more or less the whole day – traveling here is really slooow. Here I’m staying at El Retiro, because it is the only backpacker-place in town.

The cabaña where I’m sleeping.

But that don’t matter too much, because it is a great place. I pay 35Q for a bunk in 4-bed cabaña, which is probably expensive as dorms in Guatemala go, but you DO get excellent service for that. Lonely Planet describes it as a backpackers dream, and I would agree. The cabañas are in a shady area between the road and the river, and by the river is a BIG building with thatched roof and open to three sides that works as a restaurant/social area.

The social area of El Retiro beckoning to you when you arrive.

Today the social area has been quite full because of the bad weather I guess, but otherwise it really only crowds around dinner time. But if it gets too full, there is also a lounge with beanbags on the floor right under the roof. I’m going to spend some time there today, since that’s where the TV is (for football!), but otherwise there’s too much making out going on between the couples for me not to miss you and feel sad, so I stay away from there. Talking about football – time for the first match!

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Well, of course Costa Rica didn’t stand a chance against Germany, despite all of us rooting for them, except two poor German girls that looked liked they thought we would heap the whole WWII guilt trip over them or something. But of course they had the last laugh in the end – Germany won with 4-2. :-(

It is now 6 o’clock, so it has been quite some time since I wrote last time. I’ve spent the day, first beating some Israelis in Risk, and then playing cards with some other guys. The rain refuses to stop and is now up to 28 hours in a row. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really have a problem staying here a week or so either. :-) The food is really good, the cabañas are good, and it is really easy to get to know people and just generally have fun. No single girls in even remotely near my age bracket yet though. :-( But who knows, there’s bound to be more people showing up later in the evening.

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Now back from yet another delicious dinner – vegetarian only here which might not suit everyone, but it is great for me! Time is flying, so I better get around to tell you about my day at Semuc-Champay, don’t I?

Tikal, June 6

Parts of Great Plaza in Tikal. It is Templo I to the left in case anyone is wondering. :-)

The only excursion I've done from Flores is to Tikal. Tikal is the largest Maya ruins in the world, has great wildlife and flora, and certainly deserves more than I have time to write here right now. Hopefully I can complete this post later.

It was great anyway, and comes highly recommended!

And don't miss my post on Flores below, as well as the Belize Summary post some way down. It seems like I forgot to publish it last time... :-(

Flores, June 4-7

The view from my hotel - and the lake makes for a great swim as soon as you get hot too!

I rode in to town on a Sunday afternoon...or at least that what it feels like many the locals did. It’s been a while since I saw this many cowboys in one place, and with the number of stores for agriculture goods to match! On the main street there must be several hundred machetes for sale...

Or at least that’s the feeling you get in the Southern part of town – Santa Elena. Yes, once again I am in a divided town, and once again it is the northern half that has taken all the tourist trade while its southern brethren got none.

But in this case, there is an excellent reason! The town of Flores lies on a small Island, less than 500 x 500 meters in a beautiful lake in northern Guatemala. Although the town is very lovely with a lot of cobblestone alleyways and winding streets, most people don’t seem to stay here for long, instead heading for the main attraction in the area – Tikal (more on that later). Also, since this is definitely off-season, there aren’t many tourists here at all, which in turn means that it is a rather desolate village right now. But on the positive side, it seems to be quite easy to barter for living and excursions.

I’m staying at La Casa del Lacandon (no, I have NO idea what Lacandon means – the phrase book fails me there, and I have not thought about asking), a simple little hotel, but right on the water, and on the sunset side nonetheless!

I’m sure that the sunsets would normally be exquisite, but the weather we have been having is far from perfect – I probably need to realize that the rainy season is over us now. Although we rarely have rain except in the night so far, it is cloudy most of the days.

Despite the lack of beautiful sunsets, Flores would be worth spending a few more days in, but I need to move on. Before my darling Raquel left me, she gave me a few tips on Guatemala (she had spent several weeks here before we met), and I am going to take advantage of those. My main purpose of going to Guatemala was Spanish studies in Antigua and hiking at Lake Atitlán. As you may remember, I do not have the time for any Spanish classes, and as it looks now, I’m gonna cancel the Atitlán hiking as well.

You see, Guatemala is not exactly the safest of countries, and especially around Atitlán and Antigua there has been several robberies reported lately. I’m still going there (they are both supposed to be absolutely beautiful!), but I’m probably not going to do any hiking there. Instead Raquel tipped me off about an almost unknown area around the town Nebaj between here and Antigua.

Almost completely undeveloped for tourists, they have recently started a Community-Based Tourism system set up, with local guides, horses and accommodation in the villages surrounding Nebaj – in other words just like there will be in Kyrghyzstan!

Oh, and Mom, you will be glad to hear this – not only is the trekking supposed to be excellent (and VERY cheap!), but there has supposedly NEVER been a tourist related crime reported there! The more I’m reading about it, the better it sounds, and I’m really looking forward to it - thanks Raquel!

Oh, and while I am in the area anyway, I will do Grutas de Lanquin (a giant cave system) and Semuc Champey (natural swimming pools, by many rated as the most beautiful place in the country), once again as a tip from Raquel. In fact, she gave me so many ideas that I could probably stay for another month at least. But I need to head south soon unless I want to miss my flight from Panama, so I’m just going to quickly take in Lake Atitlán and Antigua on my way to Guatemala City and then probably skip Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and go directly for Costa Rica – or maybe even Panama?

In hindsight it was of course very stupid to try and do the whole area in only two months, but I never had the time to read up on the area before I had to order the airplane tickets – I didn’t even know how big the countries were! But on the positive side, it gives me a very good reason to come back, which I most certainly want to!

I can see that I have not written much about Flores itself, and that I guess reflects what I’ve been doing and thinking about. I met a lovely Australian couple on the bus from Belize, and we have spent a lot of time discussing our previous trips (and they have shown me some EXCELLENT pictures from Galapagos), world politics and so on, and not really taken the time to enjoyed the town per se. And when I’ve been alone, I’ve been looking forward and planning the rest of the trip.

And on that note – time to finish the last of my beer hear at Capitán Tortugas, and go and post this to the blog. Tomorrow I have an early (5.30!) bus to Cobán/Lanquin! It feels like I’m starting the journey home tomorrow, and although I still have more than three weeks of adventures left, I’m already looking forward to coming home and meeting many of you!

Pictures online now

Whew - Blogspot has some issues with uploading pictures, and they've had some sorts of issues around it probably the whole time I've been using it.

I think I've found a way around it though (using Picasa), and it has also given me an idea as how to post more than one picture per blog entry, so you should hopefully see more pictures in the future.

Assuming I can manage to post at all in the future - I've spent more than 10 hours to put the last 16 Belize posts in there! Don't forget to start with "The Mohawk" post and work your way upwards.

Best Regards / Peter (who's leaving on the bus to Guatemala in half an hour)

Belize summary

Well, I’ve now posted 16 blog entries (including this one) the last few hours, so you better go down to ”The Mohawk” and start to do some reading!

Unfortunately, Blogspot has some issues with uploading pictures to their server right now. I've tried to divide the material between more posts than before to accomodate for more pictures, and then this happens...i'll post a note here when the pictures are online [UPDATE: They should be working fine now!] - it might take some time though, I have no idea how much Intenet I'll do in Guatemala. At least some of the pics made it, and some of them are sweet I think...

When you get back up here, you can then read my little summary of what I thought about Belize.

Belize in just a few words
I hope that you already have realized this from reading my other entries, but: I really liked Belize! The country is in many ways still a very charming “banana republic” like what you can see in 50’s movies, which is a special kind of charm in itself, and excellent when you just want to relax. But there is also a good tourist infrastructure in place, so there are plenty of activities available if you prefer that.

Here’s a short list of some of the good and the bad:

Recommended

• Ride the Chicken buses (normal buses) and be open to people – a great way to get to know people.
• Snorkelling in Hol Chan and Shark Alley, and go with Carlos’ at Caye Caulker. I’m sure that the diving is excellent also, especially at the Blue Hole, but I did no diving this time.
• Stay at Val’s Hostel in Dangriga and talk to Dana, the owner.
• ATM cave excursion outside San Ignacio; go with Snooty Fox Tours.
• Eat the grilled snapper at Serendib in San Ignacio. Certainly one of the best fish I’ve ever had!
• Stay at the Hi-Et in San Ignacio and spend the evenings at theie wonderful porch!

Avoid

• Mayawalk tours in San Ignacio. Recommended by Lonely Planet, but did not work for us. Also uses very questionable business tactics according to other locals.
• Belize City. Yes, it’s at least as bad as everyone says. If you NEED to be there, make sure that you go to Bird’s Island for lunch, coffee or dinner however.* The cab driver’s calls of “Taxi, sir?”. No wait, you can’t avoid THAT. :-)

Goodbye to Raquel Dubois

Raquel, what can I say about Raquel...hopefully some of my feelings has come out in the things I have already written, but here are some closing thoughts on her as I try to summarize our time together.

Well, out of all the great times we had and all the fun things we did, what stands out is something that I haven’t even realized until she left. My gap year was supposed to be mostly about inner contemplation, but before I met Raquel, that had started to slide. I was beginning to turn into yet another of these 20-something’s, only cruising the coastline for fun.

But Raquel has been a true friend, a conversation partner, a great listener, and has been great at getting me on the right track again.

She has also given me some insight to worlds largely unknown to me, and although I cannot say that I have changed my beliefs (or rather my lack of beliefs I guess!), I have found our discussions to be very entertaining as well as thought provoking.

As an example, Raquel gave me a great card reading (similar to tarot cards, at least to me :-)) as we were getting to know each other. I know that she wants to give the credit to her little angels, but to me it is clear that it was her extraordinary loving and insightful persona that worked together with me to make me think things through and contemplate.

Oh, and Raquel is possibly the best massage therapist I’ve ever tried – that combined massage and healing session she gave me...I can only say wow! Raquel plans to eventually set up shop in India for some time to make some money to continue her journey, but if she is THAT good with others as well as me, she will probably stay there and get filthy rich!

Raquel, if you are reading this (of course you are!), I wish you all the best on your journeys, both your physical journey, and your journey of self-discovery.

The Weather

Before leaving Dangriga for the mountains, I checked the weather for the region, and got really depressed. It was thunderstorms all around central America – I even checked Panama, considering a quick flight down there, but the forecast was the same everywhere.

In reality, the weather has been very nice. We’ve had no rain at all, except the day we went to the zoo, and about evey other day is cloudy and the other sunny. Really nice to get a pause from the burning sun sometimes I think!

So, the rain jacket and pants got used at the zoo, and now that I’m leaving for the highlands of Guatemala I may even get some use from the fleece? The nights are supposed to be cold, so maybe even the sleeping bag will get some use? Would be nice to know that I did not carry it in vain...

For Flores (my first destination in Guatemala, close to the magnificent Tokal ruins) the forecast is once again (scattered) thunderstorms and lows of 70 degrees Fahrenheit which should still be more than 20 Celsius. My second destination, Antigua and Atitlan could however go down to 60 (and still with those scattered T-storms...), so maybe the fleece at least?

Language and possible loneliness

Or maybe you never need to be lonely if you speak the language of the animals? :-)

Another reason that I have stayed for so long is probably that I like the fact that everyone speaks English. I remember from Mexico that it was not very easy to get in touch with the locals because of course I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m sure that I am subconsciously afraid the same thing will happen in Guatemala.

Originally you might remember that it was my plan to stay in Guatemala for two weeks or so to learn Spanish? Well that plan has now changed. For one thing, I have barely started the CD-ROM course I have on my computer, and on top of that everyone I talk to is saying that unless I take at least six seeks, there’s not much idea at all. A little bit depressing, but on the other hand it gives me great motivation to come back to the area sometime in the future!

My original plan for Central America was to come here from November to February, which would certainly have given me time to take Spanish. But I am glad that I came here now instead. The weather is not as hot (even though I can not really imagine how it could be any hotter!), but most of all there’s so few tourists. I seriously doubt that people here in Cayo (as San Ignacio is often called) would have taken the time to talk to me if there had been business waiting around the corner!

Oh, and going to Belize and hanging out with Raquel has improved my English a lot, which I am very happy about.

I am slightly worried that I will feel a little lonely again as I get to the Spanish areas, but that’s just something I need to deal with then. My friend Esteban tells me that I need to find myself a beautiful local girl that knows Spanish that can guide me, but he fails to tell me how I could pick her up when I don’t know the language! :-)

Esteban’s work – mostly conch

One example of Estebans work - there's at least 80 hours of work in there...

Esteban is working in many materials. As an example I have bought a very touristy shark carved from bone that I have in an leather strap around my neck. Although touristy, it is of a higher class than the others I’ve seen people sell all over the country and I really like it. I have also bought a ring made from couhun (a local hardwood) and with designs of steel wire. It’s nit quite my size, but I still like it. He’s also working in stuff like coral, but his main material is conch.

Conch is a big shell (around 20-30 cm) found on the ocean floor. The mollusk itself is really delicious, reminding me somewhat of octopus, that is often served in a Ceviche (like a thin salsa served with corn chips as snacks or appetizer) or soup.

We picked a few and ate on our boat journey to Placencia, but we just threw the shells away. I don’t know if they had been useful to Esteban since he only uses the best, but it irritates me somewhat – it would have been cool to have picked my own conch and then commission Esteban to make something of it!

The process goes something like this:
1. Select the right conch shells, based on such things as luster and lack of fault lines.
2. Examine the conch for which type of jewelry could be made from a certain part of the shell. For an example, there’s a certain place that is suitable for butterflies, while beads can be done from pretty much any parts, but then you choose the place to take the bead from to get the right color instead.
3. Cut it with a diamond rotary blad to approximately the right size and shape.
4. Grind it, once again with a diamond blade, to get it in the exact shape you want.
5. Polish it, with four different gradations of sandpaper and then with cloth.
6. Drilling a hole. At this stage 1 out of 20 breaks because of a hidden fault line, and you have throw it away.
The whole process takes from one hour for a simple bead, to several hours for something bigger like the butterfly or a dolphin! Some of the items will be sold just like that; typically it is the more touristy stuff, that I am convinced that he’s doing jut for the money.

But sometimes he gets to make something more complicated, like a bracelet and a necklace, and then they can contain upwards 80 or 100 beads and drops – just imagine the work going into that! Oh, and in that case it’s of course yet another step – pairing and combining the beads and drops in exactly the shape, color and patterns that will come out best.

It’s all amazingly beautiful – sometimes I am convinced that Esteban actually manages to store some of his own warmth in each and every one of the pieces he makes – amazing! He hopes to have a web site up soon with some pictures (some of which I and Raquel took for him), where people can commission work from him, and as soon as that’s up, I’ll post the address right here.

Belizean food – boil-up, cow foot soup and more

Finally I could see it - the mythical Boil-up!

Food in Belize is maybe not the most sophisticated of experiences, but it is still very good sometimes. In one way it reminds me of Sweden in that most food served in restaurants aren’t local dishes. Instead there’s a lot of standard international food, like pasta, pizza, hamburgers, and of course Mexican!

There are some regional specialties, but those are better enjoyed in the restaurant shacks catering for the locals rather than the backpackers. The ubiquitous standard is “rice & beans” with something. It is exactly what it sounds like; rice, most of the time boiled in veggie bouillon, mixed with some black beans. It is then served with some sort of meat in a seasoned sauce, and a salad or other veggies.

In other words “rice & beans” says pretty much nothing and can be anything... In some roadside stalls, they serve it with grilled chicken or pork which can be good if you find the right place. In the restaurant shacks it often comes with a chicken stew.

Just to make it completely confusing, I’ve actually had “rice & beans” with chicken, but with potatoes instead of the rice and the beans! But it was still called “rice & beans”...

Another local specialty is the cowfoot soup. Yes, it actually is a soup, based on veggies, potatoes and such, and with the foot of a cow in there. The cow foot has been boiling for hours so as to make everything soft and juicy. I did not know exactly what I was eating from the side of the cows foot; whether it was skin or something else – but I did not care – it was excellent!

The big specialty down here is however boil-up; I don’t think they have an official national dish, but if they had one – this would be it. I’ve heard it explained as a stew, but it reminded me more of a soup. BIG pieces of veggies, potatoes and stuff, and then topped with a pig’s tail! Not too much meat on the little piggies’ tail, but it was salt and tasty. Served with a large piece of very tasty boiled dough (called a dumpling here, but the Chinese would declare war if they knew! :-)).

All in all, I haven’t thought about McDonalds in weeks, which if you know me must be a good thing!

As for drinking, the local beer, Belikin, is really quite good, not only as a thirst-quencher. They also make what they call a stout (distinguishable from the beer ONLY by the color of the cap, so watch out in the supermarket!) that is really good. I wouldn’t call it a stout, but it IS a rather good ale.

I take it VERY careful with the umbrella drinks, because they are so darned expensive, but I’m sure they would be good... I have a new favourite grogg however: papaya milkshake with dark rum – bring a flask to McDonalds and try to mix some in a banana shake or something. Mmmm...

Oh, and there’s a Ginger Fanta which is d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s – certainly my new favorite soft drink!

Tourist security(?)

The day before yesterday was not a very good day for tourism in Belize. There has been isolated robbery attacks in this area before; Kristina told me that a robbery of four tourists in the Caracol region (the most distant excursion and the towns star attraction, at least before ATM) had created a lot of discussion about how crime was on the increase and what should be done about it.

Well, this time the bandits hit a group of FIFTY tourists close to the ATM caves (much closer to civilization), held them all upp at gunpoint and made their way with all their belongings! The town is buzzing with the news, and this morning I actually saw Wanted posters in the city, just like in the wild west! There’s now a 10.000 $US reward for these guys! (And that is a lot to these people, although it only seems to buy you two washes of your car :-) - see the Canoe trip entry.)

The ambience in town is very subdued and everyone is gossiping about what happened! People seems convinced that there are bandits from Guatemala that crosses the border to do the robberies, and that is probably correct – crime in Guatemala, especially against tourists is MUCH worse than in Belize.

And I’m moving on to Guatemala? Well, just another reason to be even more careful then...

San Ignacio daytrip – to ATM

One of the locals in Aktun Tunichil Muktal

What is this – do you need to do a daytrip to find an ATM ("Bankomat" in Swedish) in San Ignacio? No, it’s not that type of ATM... In this case ATM stands for Aktun Tunichil Muktal, which means Cave Rock Holy or something like that in mayan – quite a descriptive name.

ATM is part of a system of caves and underground rives stretching at least 6 km underground – some of the locals even claims that it goes all the way to Guatemala and that it is the way that the bandits (see security post) comes, but experts say that they don’t go that far.

The system has been closed to tourists until quite recently – archeologists didn’t discover the area until 20 years ago, and it has taken them quite some time to get done!

The cave is a one-hour drive plus 45 minutes trek from San Ignacio – just enough to prepare yourself mentally for the experience to come! Or you could just do like the couple in the back seat of the van and totally make out back there. To each his own I guess! :-)

During the excursion we did not go further in than 500 meters or so, but it still took around an hour to get in. There is a lot of water so sometimes you swim. There are large caves, so sometimes you almost don’t see the roof of the caves despite strong flashlights. There are narrow passages, so sometimes you pull in your stomach and squeeze. And there is generally a very magic feeling with excellent stalactites, stalagmites, and other rock formations that I don’t even know the name of.

One of the coolest rock formations on the way in must have been a curtain-shaped one that you could play xylophone on! I don’t know if it was hollow or not (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t however), but if you hit it at different places you could get at least one octave of notes out of it!

After 500 meters of that magic (took an hour, remember?), we had to climb six or seven meters up to a small small entrance to a whole other cave system – and here is where the “Holy” part of the cave’s name comes in. In front of us an enormous cave system opens up, used as a holy place by the Mayans for hundreds of years, from before BC to around 900 AD!

That means that it is full of offerings to the gods, mostly it’s pots (and shards of pots, evidently the shaman broke the pots to release the energy of the food) that contained food offerings, but there’s also a handful of skeletons left behind after a human sacrifice to look at! And of course the wonderful rock formations continues all the way inside also, and so dresses these archeological gems in the best of gowns. Stalactites, stalagmites, yes, but there’s also the stone curtains hanging from the high ceiling and the walls covered with glittering stones (which in my imagination of course are diamonds!), and, and...

The archeologists has in some cases removed the artifacts for preservation, but if so, they have put them back in the same place as before, so when you go in there, it looks exactly the same as it did when the last Mayan shaman left there more than a thousand years ago...spooky!

Well, there’s really no way to describe it. It’s like a museum, a church, an architectural masterpiece and a nature’s wonder at the same time. And it’s just...really really fantastic.

One of the best times in there was when we turned off the lights completely and just sat there in complete silence. Raquel and I had done that in another cave (see Blue Hole blog entry) before, and the sudden silent effect was eerie this time as well (isn’t it strange how LOUD your own body becomes at those times?), but there was definitely something else as well. Everyone who knows me knows that I pretty much don’t believe in anything that don’t show up on an instrument, but I definitely think that there was some sort of energy that I could not quite touch but still feel somehow...

On the way out, I think everyone was touched by the experience, since we pretty much kept quiet all the way, just enjoying the scenery, and hurrying before the lights on our helmets went out!
What a day it was. Although there is a special certification for guides before they are allowed to take people to ATM, I can highly recommend Gliss from Snooty Fox Tours. Gliss gave us lots of information on Mayan history in general and on this site specifically the whole time, and he has been making the ATM tour right from the beginning in -99. He also knew what he was doing with regards to the caving, which is not completely unimportant – we saw a couple of bad examples from other guides we met on the way in and out.

San Ignacio resident #2 – Kristina Skiadas

Kristina at her favourite spot in the corner of her restaurant.

The odds for running into Kristina were never great – according to her, she is one of three(!) Swedish people living in Belize.

Kristina is yet another person who is doing that which most of us never dares. She left Sweden in the 70’s to marry a greek living in the US. While in the US, Kristina has had several restaurants (at least that’s what I perceived them as – some sort of establishment anyway). During that time she often came to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize on vacation, and when things didn’t work out with her husband, she decided to move to Belize, and after a while ended up in San Ignacio, owning and managing a restaurant, Chingo’s Bar & Grill. It suddenly dawns upon me that I forgot to ask who Chingo is – bummer!

Kristina has very much been my inside mole to Belizean society, as someone who has spent a lot of time not only in Belize, but also in the neighboring countries, she is in a perfect position to spill the beans on how things are working here, especially since she can make some comparisons to Sweden. Well, Sweden in the 70’s at least! :-)

She’s been telling me all these great stories and anecdotes on how Belize society and business life works, especially in San Ignacio of course. I hope that the allergy medicine I left with her is payment enough for the valuable insights she has given me. If anyone has any Aerius left over, send them to krissan8@yahoo.com! :-)

Belize business life – Marie Sharp and other women

A local businesswoman - in this case running her own little restaurant (with excellent cowfoot soup nonetheless!)

I think that Belize’s future to a very large extent lies with the women, but let me get back to that.

To understand Belize’s economy, it is important to understand that it is a very small economy – not more than 260.000 people live in the whole country! As such, they don’t really have the economy of scale to even have any decent-size corporations, and even less so a decent government!

But then most Belizeans don’t believe they have a decent government either... They have two parties here that have been taking turns winning the elections since democracy started in 1981. But no one seems to care that much, since it’s so corrupted anyway. Getting to power seems to be more about grabbing as much as possible to your self during your mandate period, rather than doing anything good for the country – at least that is the opinion of most people that I talk to. No wonder they get kicked out every other time!

It’s not really possible for me to make my own judgments in the short time I’ve spent here, but all external sources seems to agree that corruption is rampant here.

The only large companies they have here seem to be the infrastructure monopolies. There’s one for electricity, one for communication (buses), another for telecoms, etc. All privately owned, and the general public’s opinion is that their monopolies are protected by a corrupt government. Me I’m not so sure, the market is so small that the market might simply not be big enough for any more players?

So, the country seems to be run by corrupted fat white guys in suits, with the economy run by their likewise cousins. Where’s the hope then?

Well, in the women of course! It seems like most men are content with being employed by someone else in the industry or agriculture, but not the women. It might be that they simply aren’t welcome to the traditional jobs or that they prefer to run their own businesses, but one thing is clear: it’s with the women you can find the energy that this country needs.

Many of the women I meet are very resourceful, clever, and are doing good business. They might be lacking in ambition sometimes, but they have a very good positive role model for that: Marie Sharp.

Marie started to make her own pepper sauce (like a Tabasco, but MUCH much better) in her own kitchen and traveled herself to restaurants and sold them. These days she has a fair-size factory producing the stuff, some 100 employees, distribution in the states, and of course a web site. The stuff is on the tables of EVERY restaurant I’ve been to here, and it comes highly recommended!

She’s also diversified into chutneys and jam, but I haven’t tried those so I can’t say how good they are.

Marie now runs one of the biggest corporations in the country (yes, I SAID that the country was small!), and certainly the best known. Quite some role model for all of Belize’s hard-working women indeed!

San Ignacio daytrip - Canoe trip to Rainforest Medicine Trail

Raquel next to a two-dimensional palm tree - it has forgotten to grow in more than one direction it seems. :-)

The Mopal River (or Belize River, or Old River) runs right through the twin town and separates Santa Elena and San Ignacio quite effectively. It makes for a nice place to take a swim when it’s hot (like, always :-)), or why not wash your car 10 feet from the sign saying that it will rend you 2500 US$ in fines and 12 months in jail, and 500 meters from the police station...? Everyone’s doing it anyway!

It also makes for a really nice canoe excursion upstream. 2.5 hours upstream, passing by some fairly quick rapids (we had to get out only once, but then I was ready to pass out at two other) and a lot of beautiful jungle on the way, there’s some nice places to visit. We went for the Medicine Trail.

Sometime in the 80’s(?) an American botanist (or chemist or something – I really don’t remember), Dr. Rosita Arvigo, came here to work with Eligio Panti, a famous Mayan healer. She learned much of the old man’s trick of the trades before he died not long after at the age of 103, and combined them with some modern knowledge to create Rainforest Remedies, a set of herbal medicines for everything from stomach problems to light insanity.

I am somewhat skeptical of that type of medicaments, and prefer things created by chemists to that which has been grown, but Raquel is completely sold on the stuff.

Regardless, the Medicine Trail was very interesting: whether you believe that there is more effective modern medicaments available today or not, the old remedies has undoubtedly been used by the Mayans and the Bay-men (the white men who ruled Belize, first as Pirates, then as traders) effectively in their days, and as such was very interesting.

But to me, the main focus of the excursion was the canoe trip itself. I don’t know what was best, the hard exercise going upstream or the very leisurely trip down the river where I could focus on the wildlife and the flora that our guide was showing us. Among many other things I saw what must have been the biggest Iguana I’ve ever seen, high up in a tree!

San Ignacio resident #1 – Esteban Cano & family

Esteban, with lovely wife Iris and adorable 7-month old Diego.

OK, so on the bus to Belize Zoo, we met this guy Esteban. I really don’t remember exactly how it happened. Maybe he approached us to sell some of his wares, but I don’t think so. He probably saw Raquel’s homemade necklace and asked about that. You see, Esteban is something as rare as a combination insurance salesman and jewelry designer/maker working in conch.

Raquel and Esteban immediately hit it off, talking about different kinds of jewels, settings, metals, and all kinds of stuff that I know NOTHING about. I can’t say that I took much part of the conversation, but I still came to like Esteban. He has this very calm exterior, but still with an inner energy that burns brightly. Not completely unlike Ernesto back home, I guess.

Esteban invited us over to his house the day afterwards to talk even more about the jewelry, materials and techniques, and although I was a bit afraid that I would be bored out of my skull, it was a very entertaining evening. Esteban is a very charming guy, but the enjoyment was in no small part due to his wonderful wife Iris, and their lovely 7-month son Diego.

Both Esteban and Iris is two of the most warm and kind persons you could possibly think of. It’s visible in their warm smiles on the outside, but even more so in the actions they take. Although they are by no means rich, definitely not by Swedish standards, but not by Belizean standards either, they are very kind and generous.

Esteban engages himself in voluntary work for local schools, trying to spread the enthusiasm for his job. He also lets young kids from around the neighborhood hang around his house to see him work, and even try to make something themselves sometimes. He has even taken ahigh-school drop-out on as a sort of apprentice for free, trying to teach some of the tricks of the trade, firstly to keep the kid off the streets, but secondly to possibly teach him how to make a living.

Iris was also in the insurance business when she met Esteban, working for a competitor, but since having little Diego, she is at home taking care of him. What a way to remove a competitor from the market, eh? :-)

Since Esteban could get more jewelry work than he could possibly manage, I have tried to float the idea that Iris could take over the insurance business and Esteban could be staying home with Diego and working on his jewelry. Not completely surprising, they don’t seem to be able to even think about that question. It’s simply one of those things that you don’t do here it seems. At the same time, most small businesses seems to be run by women, so I don’t really know what to think, but more on that later.

Anyway, I have met with the three of them (as well as their cats & dogs) on several occasions, both with and without Raquel; sometimes at their house in the outskirts of town (a 30 minute walk from downtown San Ignacio), sometimes at a restaurant in town, and I am proud to now be able to call them both my friends. As I am writing this, I am leaving tomorrow morning for Guatemala, and already I can not wait to see them again!

San Ignacio daytrip - Belize Zoo

Lesson #1 today: when you go to a zoo in the rain, the pictures will be boring. Anyway, here's the national bird of Belize - the Toucan.

Belize Zoo is somewhere in between Belize City and Belmopan. Most people think that Belize City is the capital (I know I did), but it is actually “only” the largest city as well as the business center. When a hurricane in the 60’s more or less destroyed downtown Belize City, the government decided to move the capital to a small village called Belmopan.

At the time it was around 15 families living there, and some people say that there is no more living there now! Seems like someone forgot to tell the government officials that there jobs would be moving or something, because most people who works there still lives in Belize City. The upside to that is that there are lots of buses going between the cities, so doing the daytrip ourselves was very easy.

Belize Zoo has a slightly weird background. Sometime in the ‘80s they shot a wildlife movie in Belize. When the movie was done, 17 of the animals used for the film was half-domesticated, and their caretaker during the movie knew they would not make it on their own in the jungle. So she took it upon herself to create a safe environment for the animals, and what better way than a zoo!

Today the zoo has expanded of course, but all the inhabitants are animals that has had a hard time in the wild and would not make it otherwise. There’s several animals (including a jaguar!) that people has had as pets, but they were somehow mistreated.

It’s not a “sensational” kind of zoo, like San Diego or Busch Gardens, but rather what I would like to call an “eco-zoo”, focusing very much on educating people about ecology and the animals’ role in maintaining our habitat. I guess that is very useful for the (many!) schoolkids who come there, but for me it was more about the animals!

The obvious cool ones is of course the Jaguar and the Toucan bird, both sometimes mentioned as the national animal, but although both the crocs (except for a baby one and they don’t really count :-)) and the puma was hiding from the rain, we saw many other lovely animals. (But then I had already seen crocs in the wild, so... Nyah, nyah nyah, Raquel!)

One of my favorites was the Baird’s Tapirs I think. Looks like a large pig, but with a snout that looks that is a short version of an elephant’s trunk. People say the tapir is related to the horse and the rhino, but form the way they were using the snouts, I am convinced they are related to elephants!

Since this was our only day of rain, I was first somewhat disappointed that we did not postpone for another day, but on the bus we met Esteban, and without him, our experience of San Ignacio would have been nothing like what it became!

San Ignacio, May 22-June 4

Main street of downtown San Ignacio. Eva's on the right and Mayawalk on the left - fistfights has been known to happen between them right here!

Wow, looking at those dates, there has been quite some time that I’ve spent here now, certainly far more than I had expected too!

San Ignacio is a lovely little mountain town, around 16.000 people lives here and in it’s twin town, Santa Elena, on the other side of the river. The competitive spirit between the twin towns is quite strong, although there are no tanks on the streets like there was in Mostar, there are rumors about fights between street gangs. It’s sort of cute though, since everyone here is still so friendly to everyone.

I guess that the start of the rivalry might be that for some reason San Ignacio gets all the tourist trade, and Santa Elena none. It seems like the tourist industry started a long time, with this restaurant called Eva’s working as the contact point between tourists and guides. Well, 15 years later, Eva’s is still around, but the guides have opened their own businesses all over town now.

Downtown San Ignacio is very much dominated by backpackers, or at least I guess it is in high season. Right now, when the rainy season is supposed to start any day now, the number of tourists is VERY small. Walking around town I very seldom see any of them, except at Eva’s that is.

There’s not much to do in San Ignacio itself except hanging out, but people come here for the excursions. The following is just an excerpt of some of the excursions on offer, and as far as I can tell they all seem to be of a high quality.

• General caving
• Repelling
• Caving in Mayan caves – like a museum at the end of a one-hour caving excursion
• Mayan ruins of all sorts and sizes
• Tubing (floating on innertubes) in caves and/or rivers
• Canoeing
• Botanical Gardens and medicine trails
• Belize Zoo
• Waterfalls and cascades to go swimming in
• Horseback riding

I’ll get into more details of a few of those in later blog entries.

But somehow surprisingly, I haven’t done too many excursions. Partly it is a question of the cost (a full day excursion can run up to 80 US$), but mostly it is because I have so much enjoyed just hanging around and getting to know people. I’ll give you a more detailed presentation of Esteban the insurance agent / jewelry designer and Kristina the Swedish restaurant owner in later blog entries, but there’s more to it than that.

It’s more about almost living in town, like when people you’ve met before greets you in the street and so on. And there’s never a dull moment, if I ever feel lonely I just need to walk a block or two and I am sure to find someone to chat to for a while. Except at night time – there’s another crowd out at night time that I don’t really want to get to know...

It was somewhat like that already when Raquel was still here, but since she left a few days ago, it has really dawned on my how easy it is to make contacts with Belizeans – they are a genuinely friendly people!