Survivor Guatemala

I can’t speak for the whole of Guatemala, as our experiences were limited to Flores, Santa Elena, and the Tikal area. However, if the rest of the country is at all similar, then this is somewhere that should not be missed.

I read the warnings about Guatemala before I left and was aware of the dangers. Most tourist crime seemed to be centered in Guatemala City, which we wouldn’t be near, but several others did hear about bus hijackings close to the Belize borders, as well as robberies and rapes in the Tikal area. We went with an open mind, but were cautious in the beginning, choosing to fly in, and then once we were comfortable with our surroundings, branched out to the local buses.

In our few days there, we only ever experienced friendliness and warm-hearted people. The towns are remarkably poor, and sometimes there felt like a danger did hang in the air, like with the ever-present ‘boys’ with rifles guarding places like mini Rambo’s. However, as you walk by, they turn and give you a cute smile and wink, so the fear factor dissipates some!!

TIKAL is not to be missed, and I’ll go into more detail later. This Mayan sight is deep within the jungle, and with the temples reaching out high over the tree canopies, it’s a must-see.

FLORES was our staging point, and a quaint little town that is a mecca for backpackers.

SANTA ELENA, described in many travel books as a dusty town with nothing to see, is just across the causeway from Flores and, in my opinion, well worth walking to and exploring the dusty streets, especially on market day.

We took the small six-seat plane into Flores (from Belize City) and the bus out (back to Belize), and though the plane is more expensive, it was a great experience to do both forms of transport.

Quick Tips:

• Try to learn a little Spanish before you arrive, as very few people here speak English and it’s always best to have a few phases up your sleeve.
• The mosquitoes are vicious. I had on 100% Deet and long trousers and they still got to me, often biting through my clothing.
• Take the local transport whenever possible. Don’t feel like you are safer on a tour bus full of Americans. It’s quite the opposite really, as these are more likely to be targeted by guerillas.
• Walking around Flores’ back streets early in the morning or late at night felt safe, so enjoy.
• If you are in Flores, be sure to walk across to the dusty town of Santa Elena.
• Pace yourself at Tikal, as it’s exhausting running up and down all those temples and extremely hot.
• Take water with you to Tikal by all means, but don’t worry about carrying litres of the stuff, as they have random stands and restaurants at the entrance where you can stock up.

Best Way To Get Around:

It’s very easy to get around in this area of the country. We book a bus from Flores to Tikal, which runs every hour starting from about 5am!!

You can walk the whole town of Flores in about 30 minutes, as it’s just a small "island" joined to the land by a causeway. You can also walk very easily across the causeway to Santa Elena and explore that town by foot.

We arrived by plane via Tropic Air, and this in itself was quite an adventure. The airport is within walking distance, but it’s a long and hot walk, so we took a cab ride into Flores.

There are buses everywhere, and they are all old American school buses painted bright colors or old prison buses. I fell in love with them all.
Leaving Flores, we choose to take such bus, which is an experience in itself. It was 3 hours of bumpy road through the jungle and small villages, but I loved it and saw so much.

We had trouble finding a place to stay before leaving the US for our Guatemala leg of the trip, because to book anything online, they asked for your credit-card details, as well as your signature faxed to them, which, quite frankly, I just didn’t feel comfortable with. I have since learned that this is quite normal for that country, but still, in this case we decided to just wing it and show up.

Right on the edge of town, we found the VILLA DEL LAGO, which, from the ground about halfway up, looked wonderful. The exterior walls were bright red, with two white columns on either side of the doorway. Look any higher and you would notice that the whole top floor was missing or still under completion (we never found out which). Our room was the most expensive in the hotel, as we had to have air-conditioning this time.

The room ended up being $35 for a night, and with a fan, TV, A/C, private bathroom, and balcony overlooking the lake, we were more than happy. The room was clean, the bed was a little creaky, the A/C was really loud, and the ceiling fan scary as hell, wobbling all over the place, but we really liked our little oasis from the heat.
The staff was really nice and friendly, even though any conversation was limited due to them not speaking any English and the Spanish dialect they spoke being nothing like the Spanish you get from a book, so there was just lots of miming, waving, and smiling, but we got by fine.
On our first night we had rather an odd experience. At around 3am, we heard a loud speaker saying, "Attension. Attension." and then lots more muffled words. I got up, looked out the window, and saw a truck going by with about 10 armed guards and this one guy with the loud speaker. I told Karl that it was just nothing and went back to sleep, a little more nervous this time. We never did find out what the truck was all about, so that is just another mystery.

We stumbled on El Perigrino whilst looking for dinner. I don't know the address, but if you walk the town, you will find it. Its located in the hotel of the same name.

The front was all open to the streets, making it great for people-watching, and when we entered, there was a large table full of local teenagers playing cards and drinking. The decor was nothing special, as the paint was peeling and the tables looked shabby, but the smells coming out of the kitchen were wonderful.

We took a table by the open doorway, as the whole wall facing the street folded away to leave the restaurant open-air on that one side.

Karl ordered flank steak, plantains, black beans, and rice, whilst I went for the homemade spaghetti with tomatoes. We had a beer, a bottle of water, and some tea all for 77 quetzals (about $10).
No English at all was spoken, and the menu was all in Spanish, so some of the ordering was a little hit-or-miss, but it all turned out good in the end.
Although the seating area was quite big, at times you could see back into their living quarters, and it was what seemed to be typical here: just a small basement room with beds, furniture, kids and grandparents all lumped in together.

This find was a backpacker’s paradise and had slightly more adventurous home-cooking than all the other cafés. International dishes, such as shrimp tempura and green curry, were listed on the menu, as were plenty of vegetarian options.

Outside, the Maya Princess looked quite posh with its blue walls and fancy art, but once inside, the hot-pink walls and cushions made you feel very comfortable.

At 9 every night, a movie, which was listed outside, came on the big TV. During our visit it was a badly pirated copy of "Star Wars" that looked like someone had taken their video into a movie theatre, taped the whole thing, and added the English.
As Karl is a huge "Star Wars" fan, he sat through it, loving every minute whilst I laughed at the very bad dubbing.

Regardless (or perhaps because of the dodgy movie), it was a great night and a fun place to meet and chat with other backpackers.
As we just came here for the movie and the drinks, I can’t comment on the quality of the food. Everything that I saw on other tables looked wonderful.
It was slightly more expensive than other places, but worth the splurge for the quirky movie factor and the chance to swap stories with fellow travelers.

The first night we arrived, this restaurant was closed and we were pretty sad, as the Lonely Planet had really recommended it so highly. However, we struck gold the second night, when we walked past and saw the lights on and smelt the wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen.

On the outside, La Luna looks very artsy with blue exterior walls painted with a moon. There were shutters across the windows and flowers growing up the walls.

We knew this place had gotten good reviews, but it was also more expensive than the other restaurants. Still, when a place is called the "best restaurant in Flores" you really can’t pass up the opportunity to go, now can you??

Well, we weren’t disappointed. The inside was as pretty as the outside with artwork and coconut and wooden masks along the walls, candles burning on each table, and a friendly atmosphere.

I ordered spicy pasta that was so delicious and not too spicy, but with a wonderful flavor. Karl ordered a creamy steak. All was washed down with red wine (Argentinean) for me and two local beers for Karl. Dessert was a simple fare of bananas, ice cream, and honey, finished with local rum that our waitress brought us for free.
All this for 250 quetzals ($30) made this our most expensive meal in Guatemala, but still, I’m sure you will agree that it was not bad at all.

From Belize City we wanted to fly into FLORES and then take the bus out once we were done, just to see the sights from both land and air. It was a good choice, as both modes of transport were quite an adventure.

After boarding the small propeller plane in Belize, we took off, did a circle, and landed again. Where we here already?? Surely this looked just the same as the airport we just left??

Well, it was the same airport. We had returned, as the pilot had forgotten two travelers. Can't imagine American airlines doing that, can you? So, now we were finally all aboard. That made six of us, and it was back into the air to try this again.

I’m not a nervous flyer, but my knuckles were a tad bit white at the end of the hour I can tell you. The pilot (who I was sat directly behind) would bank and dodge the fluffy white clouds like this was a NASCAR race. Sharp right. Sharp left. Up. Down.

Once we did finally bank to land in Flores, we had the most stunning sight of the "island" below us, with all the quaint streets and red roofs. We got a $3 cab ride from the airport to our hotel, dumped off the bags, and had time to explore.

The streets are all cobbled and hilly, with pastel-colored buildings and a laid-back feel. I was immediately at home here. The town is easy to walk around, as it’s only about 6 streets wide and 7 streets long. There were no Americans that we met, but plenty of European backpackers and Guatemalans on their own vacation.

Flores is set on the lake, and all the local kids were swimming and having the time of their lives. You can swim in the lake at your own risk (the water looked a bit mucky), or you can got on various boat trips.

The backpackers were wandering town, drinking Gallo beer and buying up the cheap goods. I could easily have been in any old European town, except that once in a while I would see something quite odd. Men (well, boys it looked like) would be guarding random buildings with huge rifles bigger than themselves. There was one outside a bank. Okay, that I understand, but then there was another guarding a grocery store and yet another guarding a Pepsi truck. How weird. I wondered if the Pepsi truck would be a big heist for robbers.

I wondered these streets with Karl or sometimes just alone to shop, early in the morning and late at night, and never felt threatened. The shops have all kinds of jewelry, woodcrafts, and clothing, and it was all really cheap compared to what I later saw in Belize.
Buses ran all through Flores, though the main bus station was just over the causeway in Santa Elena, but all the hotels, however small and cheap, would arrange for the bus to pick you up from their front door, which came in very handy with the early starts.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight

We took the early bus to Tikal. I say bus, but really this was a van with busted-up windows and missing pieces, but it got us there. The ride took about an hour through small villages where women still carried their laundry on their heads, men were on horseback, and cattle wandered in the streets. The homes were mainly sticks with palm fronds for the roof, but every once in a while we would pass a richer town with cement walls and iron roofs.

We would round a corner and then slam on the brakes to avoid the cows, horses, and kids wandering in the dusty streets. Amongst all this, though, I couldn’t help notice how a few of those women had cell phones held to their ears and how the kids playing in the mud had Nike trainers—now that’s progress !!

Even more exciting (well, for me) was when we passed the entrance to Yaxha national park, which was closed for tourists and in fact guarded by guys with rifles. This park was where the Survivor crew was filming their latest reality adventure, Survivor Guatemala.

I have watched that show for many seasons and yearned to be on it. I even applied, but because I’m not a US resident, got turned down. Since spending one day in Tikal, which is the very same jungle, I have a new respect for the guys who will be living out there. It’s rough. The heat and humidity was stifling, just like stepping into an oven. The mosquitoes were awful. The wild animals that you could hear were unbelievable. I loved my day there, but could not ever imagine living there for 30 days like they were.

Anyway, Tikal is amazing. We paid the 50 quetzals entry and had the whole day to explore. Its much bigger than I ever imagined and all set amongst the jungle, so you have to keep reminding yourself as you walk from temple to temple that here you are in a real Guatemalan jungle.

There are 4,000 ruins to explore, which, until 100 years ago, had been eaten by the jungle. I can’t even imagine why the Mayans would have abandoned such a place and how exciting it much have been for those Guatemalan explorers to have been sent to dig all this out. What a rush they must have felt as they uncovered the first few. The temples have been cleared, but still the jungle is everywhere. Paths wind through the trees and suddenly in the middle of the jungle is another HUGE grey stone temple.

We didn’t use a guide, even though it was recommended. For safety reasons, they like you to stay in a group, as rogue guerrillas have been known to prey on lone tourists on the quieter trails. We walked many paths between the temples where we didn’t see anyone for ages but didn’t feel nervous. There was constant activity from the jungle critters. The leafcutter ants were a favorite of mine, huge ants that all carried equally huge leaves in a single line across where we would be walking, causing us to stop in disbelief at their sheer size.

The howler monkeys were adorable swinging from the treetops, some chattering gaily whilst others scared us to death sounding like a lions roar from above our heads. It was worth being there just for this experience alone, but I’d better not forget the real reason we went into this jungle today, and that was to see the Mayan temples.

Having done Mayan sights through Mexico, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer size of these. Temple IV is the tallest at 64m, and it’s a steep climb to the top, but you can do it.

Karl was ecstatic, as he got to see the temple view, which they filmed "Star Wars" (rebel base) from. Ho hum!!

I think the numerous liability laws have taken all the fun out of America. Being 64m up with no rail was enough to get me hooked on the whole temple thing (and unlike Karl, I’m not a history buff, so I need a little added incentive). I mean, if someone wants to risk the climb and fall to their death, they should be allowed that, right?
It was scary, though, and even worse coming down, as it’s a vertical ladder and a long way!!

Some of the ancient rulers’ names did make me giggle: Great King Jaguar Paw, Lord Smoking Frog, and King Moon Double Comb (Lord Chocolate). There are restaurants (expensive) near the entrance to the site and plenty of places to grab drinks, so you really don’t need to carry a whole day’s water with you. We managed 6 hours of hardcore climbing and walking, which I hoped burned off those plantains I’d become addicted to. Some areas were busy with tourists, but in other sections, we didn’t see anyone for ages.