February 19th

Hello!

Currently writing from Lago Atitlan in southern Guatemala... I realize it´s been a bit longer than usual since my last update, so this one will likely prove to be long.  I´ve had so much fun, though, and so much going on, that it deserves the time it will take to write this.

So, I begin with my arrival to Guatemala.  After Panama, had to fly through Bogota for my connection, and then through San Jose, Costa Rica before arriving in Guatemala.  While walking through the San Jose airport during my layover I ran into Harry.. my longtime Peruvian friend (met him 5 years ago when he was the guide for the trip with my mom, sister, and brother in Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu Peru. We have stayed in touch through the years via email and skype and are now very very close friends).  Though I knew we´d be passing through Costa Rica about the same time, I didn´t think we´d see each other until Guatemala, so it was a nice (surprise!) reunion. Harry and I are traveling Guatemala together for the next 3 weeks, and then I´ll be in Cusco Peru (where he lives) for the following 5 weeks working etc.

In Guatemala city our first night (Feb 7th), we took it easy, but the following day decided to start the travels and found a bus heading to Puerto Barrios -- a port city on the (small) Carribean coast of Guatemala.  We were hoping to stop at the ruins of Quiriguá (old Mayan ruins, small in size but famous for intricate carvings and artifacts not really found in other Mayan sites throughout Central America) on the way, but we learned that day that buses take forever and the terrain is tough, so we had to spend more time in bus than we hoped (a lesson that has been reinforced continually throughout this trip).  The ride was interesting as we winded through the mountains and saw various terrain from cloud forests to farming communities to hot and sweaty lowlands. The trip itself was pretty uneventful, though we did have to take our first ´´chicken bus´´ for part of the way -- basically anything between a minivan to old school bus that´s elaborately decorated and painted and stops on the road whenever anyone needs on or off the bus.  Moves slowly, but provides a touch of culture and makes for good people watching.  On this ride I remember there was a young man about my age who, during our ride, stood up in the front of the bus and proceeded to tell a story of a crippling accident he had suffered and was now without a leg, using old crutches, and still heavily indebted to his medical bills. He pleaded for money from the passengers and we complied.. why not help a man in need?  I couldn´t imagine how my life would change if something like that happened to me.. and as we watched him hop away on his crutches I couldn´t help but wonder if that was the only way now that he´s able to make money.

We finally arrived in the coastal town of Puerto Barrios after almost 6 hours of bus travel, only to find that the final water ferry to the Garífuna town of Livingston across the bay had left like 15 minutes earlier. (The Garífuna are the Afro-Carribean people of coastal Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras... the same that I had encountered during some day trips while I was in Honduras).  So, instead of taking the ferry we hired a private ´´lancha´´ --small fishing boat-- to haul us and our luggage to Livingston.  And it was quite the trip.  Open ocean water with waves and wind... at sunset...mountains and jungle in the background...bouncing along, watching the birds frolic over the fishing boats coming into shore with their catches for the day... it was really quite magical.  After finding a hostel in Livingston we ventured out to get some grub.  And I was very excited because I had read that Livingston is famous for their ´´tapado´´, or spicy seafood soup, and I couldn´t wait to try it.  And that night I did eat it, and it was awesome.. kind of a curry/coconut milk/seafood mix with a kick. Also got some ceviche and tasted the beer of Guatemala.. named (can you imagine??)... El Gallo.  The Garífuna culture is also known for their dancing and rhythm (like I had seen in Honduras), so we asked around to the locals about where to view such things and they directed us to a bar called Ubafu.  It didn´t disappoint.  That night we watched (and participated in!!! They gave me the maracas!!!!) three hours of drums and dancing. And it was awesome.  We also chose to indulge in the locally made liquor which they called ´´Gífiti´´.  Supposedly made from the roots of the Palo Alto tree, as well as various herbs and who knows what other secret ingredients, it came as sort of a whiskey drink and tasted sweet like cinnamon but burned like hell after swallowing.  One was plenty for me and we finally ended the night, exhausted but happy, well past midnight.

Early the next morning, Wednesday Feb 9th, the diarrhea began.  In full force.  I´ll spare you the blended black bean explosion details. But let´s just say that during the next 3 days I went through two packages of Pepto and completed a full course of Cipro -- and wanted to die through it all.  Harry hadn´t eaten the tapado soup the night before and he never developed diarrhea, so I blame it on that. It was paralyzing.  Though I was the only one with diarrhea, we both felt like absolute crap... to which I attribute mostly to the Gífiti.. so it was a crappy (haha) morning.

In the early afternoon I mustered the courage to leave the room (it was terrifying as I knew that I was leaving the comfort of a clean bathroom 10 feet from my reach).. and we decided to take a walk on the (pristene!, gorgeous!, but heavily polluted with garbage) beach to a natural formation about a 45 minute walk from Livingston called The Seven Altars.  It´s supposed to be a really nice area where a river leading to the ocean makes a great place for swimming in 7 different pools with small waterfalls in between them. However, I wasn´t that impressed, as the area has been without rain for some time and the pools were nearly all dried up. I could imagine, though, how impressive it could be when there´s actually water.  After our trip I was done with walking and simply wanted a bathroom and bed. Didn´t eat much of anything the entire day, and that was fine with me.

The following day (February 10th), we decided that despite my continued bathroom problems and general malaise, we had to move on.  We decided to take a ferry from the coastal town of Livingston, up a large river --heading inland to the west-- named Río Dulce. The boat ride passed through a canyon full of birds, stopped briefly at sulfurous hot springs spewing into the river, and then through a large lake surrounded by beautiful hills and countryside, before ending up in the town of Río Dulce. The trip, though beautiful, was painful.. as it was a slow 4 hours without bathroom, in the hot sun (hello, sunburn!), on an overcrowded boat where our view of the landscape was largely obstructed by the luggage of the passengers.  But, we finally made it and I couldn´t have been happier. We found a restaurant for lunch, and after one bite of a sandwich and almost barfing I decided that Rio Dulce town was as far as we were going that day (though we had plans to continue on much further into the country). I spent the day in bed, and Harry explored a bit.. but overall it was a wasted day, filled mostly with cursing tapado soup, cursing Gífiti, and cursing the bathrooms that lacked toilet seats and toilet paper.  The only good thing about the day was that we splurged on a nicer hotel, and the room had cable TV and showed a series of good movies throughout the day, ending in one of my favorites -- Amores Perros.  I seriously think someone from up above felt sorry for me... as I was a pale and dehydrated mess.

The following morning (Feb 11th), I slept in a bit, and then we found a very ´´gringo´´ restaurant on the lake where I had the best chicken sandwich of my life.. and was able to hold it down without problem. The diarrhea continued (I know you love the details), but it wasn´t with the urgency as before so we boarded a bus (again.. though this time it was at least a Greyhound type), and took a 4 1/2 hour ride to north-central Guatemala to a town called Flores. The ride was blessed with a flat tire (which proved very interesting to watch being changed) and a 10 minute stop where we had to get off while government officials searched our bus for fruit, as there apparently is an epidemic of some type of fruit fly that is damaging fruit throughout the country and they´re trying to keep it out of the north.  Many tourists stay in Flores (located on the largest lake in Guatemala) as a base for heading to the famed Mayan ruins of Tikal, but Harry and I decided we wanted to stay away from the busy touristy area and instead head to a smaller, quieter village (also conveniently closer to Tikal), named El Remante. There we stayed at an awesome hostel run by a friendly French guy where we had a nice cabin (placed next to an old cemetary.. a fact I tried to ignore), a great hammock outside, a lake view, and absolutely delicious food.  The first night in fact I ordered a fish for dinner because the guy told us they had literally been caught hours before. I told him I wanted a ´´small to medium´´ sized fish... and my plate came with a fish seriously 14 inches long and fat and oozing deliciousness.  It was heavenly. 

The following day (Saturday Feb 12th) was our day to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal.  And it was fantastic.  We took a shuttle that left our hotel at 530 in the morning, and we arrived at Tikal about 45 minutes later, at sunrise, with 5 other tourists in the whole place.  Tikal is massive, and we literally had it to ourselves.  We purchased tickets and walked into the site not knowing what to expect or see.. and this just added to the excitement of it all. It was kind of scary actually because it was barely dawn and the birds were starting to go crazy and we were basically just walking into a jungle.. and we were by ourselves.  And then we heard monkeys.  Harry and I grinned at each other and took off running to the noise with our chins in the air looking skyward.. and found six Howler monkeys playing around at the very tippy top of tree branches, having little spats, throwing things, munching on fruit and singing in the dawn´s light.  It was amazing. When we finally had our fill of monkey fighting we continued on and stumbled into the Gran Plaza of Tikal... a large square surrounded by two large temples and two acropolis complexes.. likely all used for religious ceremonies.  And we had it to ourselves.  We ran around, posed for pictures, imagined the daily life of Mayans, explored every nook and cranny in the buildings, and then continued on.. this time to Templo 4. An impressive structure, Templo 4 looks a bit like Chitzen Itza in Mexico.. a large templo with steep stairs up the entire front facade.  People say you must climb the stairs of the templo (or rather, the slippery wooden STEEP ladder on its side) in order to say that you´ve been to Tikal.  We endulged, but not without shaking legs and quite a few ´´what if´´ thoughts.  We continued to explore for the entire morning, climbing structures, wandering around the giant complex.. trying to imagine the purpose and expanse of such a site.  We heard that only 15% of the entire place has been uncovered...it´s hard to imagine what more they will someday find.  By 1 o´clock, after nearly 7 hours of exploring, we were thoroughly exhausted and made our way back to the hostel where we spent the afternoon relaxing, reading, and eating. It was a great day, though it was off and on raining and VERY humid making for odd conditions... but we expected it to be very very hot, so I was thankful for the clouds.

The following day, Sunday 2/13, was a traveling day from El Remante, basically straight south for 6 hours in a bus without leg room and only one pit stop for bathrooms and junk food, to the large coffee town of Cobán (the only highlights from the trip were a car ferry across a small river and some delicious ChipsAhoy-like chocolate chip cookies that I found in a little store), and then another 1 1/2 hours to the northeast on a curvy and bumpy road to mountain town called Lanquin (a much more exciting and beautiful trip). From the town of Lanquin we jumped on the back of a pickup and took an exhilarating plunge into the river valley through farms of bamboo and corn to a hostel named Las Marias near the entrance to the National Park Semuc Champey.  On the ride up and down hills, through potholes and sharp curves, we picked up local girls and older folks making their daily (long) walk to and from home and town.. and I couldn´t help but wonder what they thought of me.. a GIANT! (all of the women are seriously shorter than 5 feet tall) yipping and hollering and giggling while traveling on a road they´ve known their whole life. I also can´t really imagine a life so isolated and so... self-sufficient.  They truly do everything for themselves to survive.. it was quite striking and remarkable.  Anyway, Semuc Champey and the nearby caves came highly recommended by my med school friend Tyler who has done some traveling in Guatemala, and it surely did not disappoint. It literally has so far been the highlight of my trip.

The following day, 2/14, was our Semuc Champey adventure. We bought an all-day and all-inclusive tour for like $20 and by the luck of the draw landed a private guide as well.  Our guide, Juan, took us into the National Park and we climbed straight up 1000meters to the Mirador (or viewpoint) in order to understand the natural phenomenon. The Park is basically a largely forested and mountainous area that, at its most exciting point, is bisected by a full and fast-moving river that has over the years carved a tunnel through rock. Additionally, from the surrounding mountains come various warm springs and streams that drain toward the river. However, instead of going directly into the river, they converge literally on top of the river just after the river plunges into the tunnel, and they have created 6-7 gorgeous turquoise warm-water pools for swimming.  After the mirador, we went down to the river and pools and spent a few hours exploring the different pools and the waterfalls and slides between the pools.  It was amazing... except for the little fish in the pools that like to nibble on humans and seriously freaked me out.  We jumped from high rocks into the pools, and swam into mini caverns carved at the sides of the pools, and basked in the sunshine.. and it was beautiful.  We then left Semuc Champey, painted our faces with local seeds called achiote that create this red looking war paint, and walked 10 minutes down the road to caves that are privately owned by our hostel, Las Marias, and shortly after lunch began the greatest adventure of the trip.  The caves are spectactular... you can apparently walk more than 5 hours deep into the caves (we only walked about 1 1/2 hours deep, and the smallest diameter we went through was at least 20 feet, sometimes opening up to as wide as 30 or 40 feet in diameter... they´re huge!). They have a fairly full stream/river running through them (adding to the adventure).. and they are full of stalagmites, stalactites, bats, weird rock formations, and waterfalls.  So begins the tour. They basically tell you.. get into your swimsuit and take this candlestick.. this is how you´re going to get around.  And we stepped into the caves and slowly lost the daylight. We lit our candles and shortly thereafter were told we had to swim because the water gets deep... holding our candle above water with one hand and swimming in near complete darkness with the other.  The entire trip was like that... barely seeing anything because the candle hardly gives light, swimming, walking in shallower water, getting out and climbing up and down slippery ladders to rock ledges which you climb around on or down into different pools, looking around at bats perched above, pulling yourself up a 15-foot rock wall with a single rope and a waterfall in your face, and, as the ultimate test, mustering enough courage to climb a rock and jump 20 feet down into a fairly small pool with the correct placement of your jump loosely instructed by the guide with his headlamp..´´just jump where i´m shining my light, but don´t miss because there are sharp rocks and shallow areas all around!!´´  I did it, and it was awesome.  Harry was terrified to go into the caves (not for the least because he´s a pretty terrible swimmer.. being born in the Andes mountains in a town that doesn´t have a swimming pool doesn´t lend itself well to early age swimming lessons...).. but he survived and we were both shaking with adrenaline by the end of it all.  Absolutely fantastic, and a huge highlight.  After leaving the caves we were able to go off of this really tall rope swing into the fast moving river (another highlight), and then we tubed down the river back to Las Marias. The only bad part of the whole day was that by the end of the day it had clouded over and started to rain and the air temperature dropped.. by the end of tubing we were all shivering in our swim suits and after showering (which was also ice cold) and putting on every piece of warm clothing I had, I still could not get warm.  But, it was worth it and something I´ll never forget.  And dinner that night never tasted so good.

The next day (2/15) we took a very early morning bus back to Cobán through the crappy roads and spent a relaxing day in coffee country.  And for those of you who know me well, I´m proud to say this day changed my life -- I started drinking coffee. Harry says the coffee in Coban is the best that he´s ever had in his life... and it tasted pretty darn good to me too.. so I´m continuing to indulge. All of the highlands around Coban are just full of coffee plantations, so frankly I´m not surprised. They apparently ship a lot of their products to the US too.  That morning we dropped off some laundry and spent a great deal of time trying to find a Mayan museum that I had read about.. only to finally discover it and find that it was closed (I don´t know.. maybe because it was raining, just like the clinics in honduras!!!?!?!?!?!!)..  We then found a Papusa shop for lunch (papusas are delicious tortilla like things with meat or beans and cheese from El Salvador, but also sold in Guatemala).. and then went on an interesting tour of a coffee plantation in town, complete with free samples at the end.  Because of the rain (and we were still tired from the Semuc Champey and cave adventure the day before), we found a theater and watched a movie, then had a pretty nice dinner and called it an early night.

From this point on, it was time to head south. On Feb 16th we boarded a bus headed out of Cobán and to the Biotopo del Quetzal.. or Quetzal Reserve. The Quetzal is the famed and elusive national bird of Guatemala, known for its green feathers, bright red breast, long and gorgeous tail, and floppy flight pattern. They were considered sacred by the Maya, and are still revered throughout all of Central America. I´m not really much of a bird watcher, but Harry and I decided that if we were going to be in Guatemala for 3 weeks, we HAD to find a quetzal.  We got dropped off the bus at the reserve and dropped our stuff at the next door hostel and then proceeded into the reserve to take a 2 1/2 hour hike around to find our quetzal.  You should have seen us... the hike was straight up a mountain and we were both panting from exhaustion with burning legs, but tip-toeing as well and glaring at each other if we so much as disturbed a pebble on the trail and made a noise.  We were both intent on seeing SOMETHING, our eyes peeled and hyper alert... but the gods were not with us. The clouds came in (it is a cloud forest, afterall), rain started, wind blew.. and the birds hid.  No luck.  Really didn´t see much of anything, and certainly no quetzals.  It was a nice hike, though, and we were the only ones in the park.. so I still really enjoyed myelf.  Nonetheless, we returned back to our hostel, bummed out, and watched the sunset overshadowed by the unrelenting croaking of loud and obnoxious brakes from the trucks on the nearby highway.  That night as we were heading to bed, I was distracted doing something while Harry pulled back the blankets on one of the beds in the room. Suddenly he started yelling a bunch of profanity in spanish and jumped back away from the bed.  Reflexively I also screamed and cursed, not knowing what had happened or what he had seen, until I looked up and saw him pointing to a massive, creepy, long-legged silver spider crawling on the bedsheets -- I´m not lying nor exaggerating when I say that the spider literally was the size of the palm of my hand.  And it was fast.  We both danced around the room like crazy chickens, making quite the commotion, until I convinced Harry that it was either me or the spider that had to go.  Afterwards commenced a massive interrogation of the room (a log cabin), where we (well, Harry... as I stood on the floor of the tile bathroom ready to jump onto the toilet seat if need be..) overturned every sheet, blanket, mattress and piece of furniture until we convinced ourselves that there were no other spiders in the room.  As we finally timidly turned out the lights I saw Harry out of the corner of my eye, hyper alert under his covers with his headlamp turned on and with eyes totally focused on a 2-inch hole in the wood to the outside... just waiting for something to come through.  I couldn´t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all .. but I don´t do well with the little friendly spiders from Minnesota, let alone the silver mongols in Guatemala.  We awoke the next morning, free of spider bites and decided not to push our luck and move on.

We had been advised by the lady who runs the hostel that the best chance for seeing Quetzals is at dawn... so we awoke early (Feb 17th) and were down by the main cabin at 6am eating breakfast and enjoying delicious coffee.  As we were talking and rehashing the spider experience, out of the corner of my eye I saw a bright red flash and looked up.... and by God there was a beautiful Quetzal perched on a tree trunk about 30 feet from our breakfast table.  My mouth dropped open and I pointed, and Harry spotted it as well.. and then the lady of the hostel came running with her camera too.  And so it was.. a beautiful morning, sunny, nice breeze but warm.. and we proceeded to run around the complex chasing no fewer than 5 different quetzals who were feeding on berries and nuts in the surrounding trees and bushes.  And absolutely incredible experience, and judging from how excited the lady of the hostel was, we knew that we had lucked out and really had an unusually spectacular morning.  And we have some great pictures to prove it.

After 3 hours of blissful bird watching it was time to move on.  We decided to skip the 5 hour roundtrip hike to the largest waterfall in Central America -- it was a bit chilly for swimming -- and we took a bus to continue south.. this time to pass through Guatemala City and head to Lago Atitlan, a large lake in southern Guatemala surrounded by three huge volcanoes and known for its small villages of traditional Mayan people.  From Lago Atitlan, and a city called San Pedro La Laguna, is where I know write.  We´ve been here for 2 days now... and have had a great time... but I´ll wait to write about the lake in my next blog as this one has gone on much too long.

So much fun and adventure in Guatemala... reflecting on it just reminds me how blessed I´ve been. I hope life back in the states has been great as well.  I´ve gotten word that things may be warming up in some places, and I´ve heard from some med school friends that they´re preparing their final lists for the match for residency and are enjoying a more relaxed schedule.  Que bien!!!!!!

I think about home, and all of you who are so important to me, often.  I´m sorry that I haven´t been able to respond to personal comments or emails as much as I´d like.. the internet service has been pretty shoddy in most of the areas I´ve been in the past 10 days or so.... but please know that I cherish the updates!!!!!

Talk soon, and pictures to come soon!!!!!!!!!!
Tarita