When i arrived in Antigua I really landed on my feet which was a stroke of luck as my first stop on my tour. Guatemala is such a rich country with very friendly locals. I spent my first week in Antigua, a beautiful town a few hours from the Capital, Guatemala City. I felt safe. Aside from doing some Spanish lessons i visited my first ever live molten lava volcano, Pacaya volcano, with molten lava pouring out everywhere (video below). Just amazing. The town itself is very clean, safe and colorful, the school kids all in there uniforms. It was a good first place to come to and get a feeling of the country. A bit of a fairy land town i thought ;-).
San Marcos, Lago de Atitlan
From Antigua i took the bus to Lago de Atitlan. It is this most magical mountain lake i have ever seen, surrounded by volcanoes on all sides, crystal clear water. I stayed at San Marcos and just chilled the hell out although i did do a three day guided meditation course which was an interesting starting point. Learning to listen to the silence thereby hearing your heart and being, ...on to your path. I hope to do more. I visited the huge local market at Chichicastenango and bought some lovely Mayan bits and have now sent them home. Hope they get there! You really saw the true Mayan village people here as you did in Antigua, it is a busy market. All going on i tell you!
Semuc Champey
My last and final week in Guatemala was spent partly in Semuc Champuy where i swam in underground rivers in caves. We were given a candle each because it was pitch black and then went for ages swimming into the caves, jumping of rocks into pitch black water. Of course all with a guide thank goodness. Treading carefully behind a waterfall in the dark, grabbing a rope and safely coming out the other side. Then in the same day these Israels and i went on to these limestone rock pool formations, like steps, crystal clear fresh water in a huge mountain valley. Turquoise rock pools. Nature just simply being beautiful, again.
TIKAL
Finally i visited the mother of all Mayan ruins, TIKAL. Tikal is in the North of Guatemala, located in the rain forest. The Mayan civilization went from 2000BC to around 800AD. There domain ran from the middle of Mexico to Costa Rica, basically all of Central America. Of the 2.5Mil Mayans, 100,000 lived in and around Tikal, the HQ of the Mayan civilization. They built all these temples without any use of the wheel, any metal tools or animals. Just human sweat. (no doubt just to keep the people busy so they didn´t think - ring a bell?)
I did the sunrise tour leaving at 4am to get there in the dark. We walked for about an hour through the rain forest, all you could hear were howler monkeys making what sounded like mating calls. Really loud. We walked an hour to get to the ruins and sat on top of one of the temples waiting for the sun to rise. You could see and hear Howler monkeys, all kinds of birds, all the noises of the forest just getting louder as the sun rose. Really peaceful and beautiful. We had a very good guide who told us about all the Mayan civilization, how it died out (due to no rain for about 40-120yrs) and many other things. Now today you see the indigenous people of the Mayan civilization thriving in modern Guatemala.
I really enjoyed Guatemala. It has a rich and varied landscape and lovely people. I am so happy this was my first country, however i am now onto Belize in the Caribbean to Dive and Snorkel on the second largest barrier reef in the world (after Australia).
