Flores and Tikal
9/27/2001
The first sight of Guatemala offers a very beautiful and diverse
landscape. The hilly terrain has all kinds of plants and trees,
jungle-like areas change with more flat and wide areas. Many animals
live here as well, especially I am able to see many birds and horses.
Flores is popular with tourists since the archaeological site of
Tikal is nearby. Flores is actually a nice place as it is located on
a lake, hence, the city is almost completely surrounded by water. The
city itself is pretty nice as well, with small streets and shops. I
meet a French guy here who travels by himself and we have dinner
together. The French guy recomments going very early to Tikal to
avoid all tourists...
9/28/2001
5:30am, I catch the shuttle in front of my hotel. About 7am, we
arrive at the site of Tikal, which is an ancient Maya site. I decide
not to take a guide since I want to explore on my own. It was a good
decision to come early since there is almost nobody else here and I
have time to stop and study some monkeys I met on the way. Tikal are
interesting ruins but the real great thing about them is that they
are in the middle of the jungle and there is a great variety of
plants and animals here. The ruins are well restored and preserved,
and some of the temples are really tall. So Tikal is not just a site,
but also a hike since you need to walk far in the forest from temple
to temple, and also spend energy on climbing the temples. The view on
top of the temples is spectecular, you see the temples standing out
the jungle, a mysterious feeling accompanies this place, with birds
circeling around the temples. Actually, it is almost more important
to listen than to look, since the voices of the jungle and the birds
create this special atmosphere.
After walking around for more than four hours, I take an hour break
before going back to Flores.
Antigua
9/29/2001 - 10/11/2001
Early in the morning of the next day, I catch the bus to Guatemala
City, from where I want to go to Antigua. I choose not to take a
comfortable tourist bus, rather a normal bus.
Going by bus in Guatemala is an experience of its own. The buses are
usually very crowded, with three people sharing two seats. The bus
stops at every corner to pick up people or to let people out of the
bus. The bus is managed by two people: The bus driver himself and
another person who collects the money and deals with the luggage.
This other person usually shouts out loud the destination of the bus,
in my case today something that I only later identify as "Guate",
which is the short form for "Guatemala City". The whole operation is
usually very hectic and the bus often already starts moving while the
last person leaves the bus. Luaggage is often placed on top of the
bus which can really suck in case of rain. The buses are usually very
old and almost dying; nevertheless, the bus driver reaches a good
speed in the tightest curves. One bus I went with, the person who
collects the money was not able to go to the back of the bus to get
the money from those people; hence, what he did was to leave the bus
trough the main door (while driving!) and climbing up outside the bus
at the window, reaching the top, and climbing back down at the back
side of the bus, finally entering the bus through the back door!
Also interesting is the way to take gas - the bus just stopped
somewhere at a little shed, a boy came out the shed, carrying lots of
containes with gas, and the busdriver filled those into the gas tank.
The ride takes long 10 hours, and finally arrives in Guatemala City.
Guatemala City is pretty ugly and big, and nobody I have met so far
likes it. I just walk down a couple of blocks and find the bus to
Antigua. This is a city where many people do cheap language courses
in Spanish - which is my plan as well.
In the bus I already meet someobody advertising his language school.
What he says sounds good and I decide to go for it. The language
school is accompanied by a so-called homestay with a local family,
all food included, plus the opportunity to practise your Spanish in a
real life. After finishing the formalities at the language school,
Carlos from the school gives me a ride to my family. The mother is
out of town today, but I meet two of her sons and Florence, a girl
from Switzerland, who lives at the same family and studies Spanish as
well.
Ok, now.. Antigua. I will summerize this a little since I haven't
kept really track what happened each day, because this is a part of
my trip where had a regular day-to-day life for two weeks!
Antigua, the place where many people you meet in Central America want
to go, especially for language courses. And, I think, it is really
one of the cheapest place to learn Spanish.
My language school is the school Antigua. For two weeks I pay $260.
This includes 5 lessons per day Monday to Friday, homestay at a
family, three meals per day Monday to Saturday. The lessons are one-
to-one, which means your teacher is just there for you.
My family...
was pretty lifely. It took some time to figure out all the people...
There is the mother, Maria, ok, but then there were her sons, and
many kids running around. Basically it was 3 or 4 families in one,
including all their kids, some being always there, some showing up
occasionally. So it took me some time to figure out who belongs to
who. You can imagine a lot of things were always going on there,
people coming, people going, kids crying...
In the morning, 7:15, Maria calling my name, the breakfast is ready.
Which is always great, sometimes eggs, pancakes, or just a plate with
fruits, papaya, banana, pineapple...!
My class...
It's a 15 minute walk to the language school, my class starts at
8:00am.The schools have a couple of rooms, but many teachers and
students, so people sit close to each other. Which doesn't really
matter if you are focused ;) In the class, there are always "breaks"
in which I just talk to my teacher. For example, I learn the
word "comer" (= to eat), and this leads to an discussion about German
and Guamaltecan food. These breaks are great to relax, and this way
five hours are ok (btw it is possible to the less hours per day).
Luckily, with my little Spanish that I already know and the
dictionary, I can make simple conversations.
Antigua...
is a really nice city. Small streets, not to hectic, with a very
touristic touch, but still not too touristic. A couple of nice
churces make Antigua really pretty. As a dominant landmark, the
volcano de aqua is visible from many places in the town, and its
appearance is different from day to day - sometimes very clear,
sometimes with a hat of clouds, sometimes completely in clouds.
Activities...
are planned by the school everyday. Among others, I went to a museum
of music of the Mayas, a coffee plantation/museum, and to the local
market, where bargaining is a required survival skill. Also, one day
we spend in the big market of Chichikastenango (3 hours from
Antigua). The markets have lots of nice stuff, but... $50 later I
have to think hard where to put all that stuff in my bagpack!!
One activity organized by the language school was at the so-
called "day of the kid" (1st of Oct.). We all went to a local kid's
school, and it was big fun. All the kids were in a big hall (the
gym?), waiting for us. All the students of the language school got on
stage, and we were announced by the principal by our country. The
kids were cheering, it was almost like we were rock stars :) Later,
we did some fun stuff like, how do you call it, it is a race, but you
jump and your legs are in a sack... Or you get blindfolded and have
to hit a dummy. Most funny things, the kids were walking around and
asking us to write our name in their notebooks, in our native
language.
Another nice "activity" was that three of our teachers and a couple of
students came together in a bar in the afternoon to play guitar and
drink vodka with coke. I played some German songs, one teacher was
pretty good in playing and he played a lot of classic rock songs,
however, we didn't know all the lyrics! He played some Mexican and
Guatemalan songs as well which was very nice. Even two old guys
sitting at another table joined us, one even wrote some own songs in
the past and played them, politically critical/funny songs, and
everybody lauged except the ones that didn't speak Spanish that well
and didn't have the political background. Later we met two other guys
with guitars outside and tried to play together - Funny their guitar
and our guitar were really out of tune, but noone really cared. ;)
Finally, I was planning my onward trip, and my girlfriend Virginia
told me that she was able to get a ticket for fall break to join me
somewhere... We selected Costa Rica, and I started to look for a
ticket. It's difficult to get a cheap ticket within Central America,
especially if you don't know where the cheap travel agencies are. The
real difficulty started when I tried to pay - I think I went four
times back to the agency, first it took half a day to check my credit
card, then it was still not ok, and they needed my passport and
stuff. The ticket was about $130 from Guatemala to Costa Rica, but
additional taxes, credit card fees etc made it almost $200... plus
$30 tax at the airport for leaving the country.
10/12/2001
A shuttle takes me to the airport of Guatemala City. In the shuttle I
meet a girl that takes the same flight - but got it for $30 cheaper :(
We arrive at the airport after long waiting in traffic and we
experience first hand new airport safety. The search through our
carry-on luggage, ask information from our passports, and it takes
forever to check in. Finally, 3 hours later, the airplane leaves and
arrives in Nicaragua, Managua an hour later. On the way I'm able to
see one vulcano. After a 20 min stop in Managua, the airplane leaves
the ground again in 30 min later arrives in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Virginia is already waiting for me, since she arrived much earlier
that day.
On to Costa Rica...