Its been a long time since I have updated this blog so this could be a long one or I could get tired of typing and cut it short. We'll see how this goes...
Happy Winter Solstice!
I am in San Pedro la Laguna on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. There's a Solstice/ Full Moon Party at the beach on the lake tonight that Briony and I will probably attend for a bit. There's some like minded folks around the lake. Working toward reforesting the mountains around the lake and growing their own foods. There's many yoga retreats and ecovillages in the lakeside towns. Most of the native people look to be of Mayan descent, wearing traditional garb but there are also heaps of tourists; some are here for long stays, either taking Spanish courses or volunteering.
Again, I will work back in time from where I left off to now.
After my week stay in El Panchan, at the gate of the Palenque ruins, I went to San Cristobal de las Casas. I walked all over the town before I found the hostel I wanted to stay at so I was tired and pretty cranky by the time I arrived. That night I didn't so much but I did meet Briony. Briony and I hit it off right away. I was complaining and she listened and then vice versa. It was nice to chat with another solo female traveler and talk about all the challenges of traveling alone. Briony is from Sydney, Australia, she's vegetarian and loves to do yoga. We have turned out to be quite a good match for traveling. We both have high standards when it comes to food and low standards in terms of accomodation. We both pee a lot and love animals! So it works out quite well. San Cristobal is a lovely town in the highlands of Chiapas, at nearly 7000 feet. It was so cold at night and in the shade during the day. I had to buy gloves, hat, scarf, and a warmer jacket. I was wearing all my clothes by the time night hit. It was actually quite miserable being so cold but at least I had company in the misery. Briony and I went to some yoga classes and found all the vegan/vegetarian restaraunts in San Cristobal. San Cristobal has the best food in Mexico. They ae focused on local products and community intergrity. There's a large population of Zapatistas there as well as many small Mayan villages. I rode a horse to San Juan Chamula, a Mayan village an hour away. It was a great time to be in Chamula because the 12th of December was the following day so there was a huge celebration going on for The Virgin Guadalupe. Many men and women dressed in wool skirts and tons of loud fireworks going off for minutes on end. The church was elaboratly decorated for Guadelupe, many candles and flags. There were people running with torches all through the country some starting in Mexico City and working their way all the way to Chiapas, it was really intense. They had bandages on their feet and were being closely followed by decorated vehicals.
Briony and I decided to go to Guatemala for a few weeks before she has to return to Mexico for her studies and I meet with Joey in El Salvador. We wanted to make the border crossing exciting so we got on the bus to Palenque. We missed the bus we wanted so we had a bit of a wait, at 1am. Arrived in Palenque at 8am and then played 20 questions to try to find the next bus to Frontera Corazal, the border town. We eventually found the collectivo that would take us the 3 hours to Frontera Corazal and borded with some machettes, piñadas, loads of boxes on the roof and quiet a few Mexicans, typical bus ride. The immigration office quickly stamped our passports for exit and we got on a small boat to cross the river over to Guatemala. The boat ride was only a few minutes and there was a chicken bus waiting on the other side to be filled before making its way to Flores. After stopping every 30 seconds for 1 hour we eventually started to make some progress toward Flores. That would be the first of many terribly long and uncomfortable bus rides.
Flores is an island, of sorts, its actually connected to the mainland by a road but people call it an island so maybe the road was an addition. Flores is the popular taking off point for Tikal, a Mayan Ruin. We had a chill day in Flores where were took a boat around the lake, Lago de Peten Itza. Went to a wildlife reserve where they have endangered species held captive for breeding purposes. Such beautiful animals! Many different cats and monkeys. The lake is large and didn't look to be very polluted. Lots of people were swimming in the lake or kayaking.
The next day we went to Tikal at 5am. It was about an hour ride to Tikal.
ugh, I'm so tired of being on the computer. I will finish this another day. I've actually had a really frustrating internet experience. I've been trying to upload my photos onto the internet so they are safe just in case something were to happen to my camera but its taking forever and I can't read anything on the webpage so I will cancel the upload and figure out another way to remove my photos from my memory card later. Suggestions? I think there's no convenient way without having my own computer.
Adios!!
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