Richard and Jetti's Land Trips in Central America
Trip 3 - Mexico
We have just come back from another week off, only this time we went north into Mexico. First we took the chicken bus to Flores, about a three hour drive. It's a much quicker trip than it used to be as the road is now asphalt the whole way. But unless we missed something, Flores was a disappointment and not really worth visiting. It was also very hot there as it's not much higher than the Rio Dulce, and it seemed to us to be just a dusty building site rather than the "Venice of Guatemala" that we had been expecting. They were either putting in cable TV or main drainage (both seemed equally unlikely!) as every house had a trench in the road leading to the front door. The town is small, it only takes 20 minutes to walk all round it, so after finding a bar that was open, we spent the afternoon sitting out of the sun and looking out over Lago de Peten Itza. Even in the cool of the evening the town seemed deserted, apart from other bemused tourists like us.
We had an early night, which was just as well, for we had a long journey the next day. Our bus left at 5am so, as I always want breakfast before anything else, we were up at 4am…. Then into another chicken bus, but this time one that slowly bounced and lurched down a very rough dirt road for several hours. After a 7am coffee break we eventually arrived at the border post at 9am.
In theory there is no fee to leave Guatemala, but the customs officer asked us for 5US each. One passenger queried it, but was told he couldn't leave without paying. A nice little earner - 150US in 15 minutes. We think the bus driver got a cut. But it didn't spoil things too much as there then followed the highlight of the trip, a great boat ride through the jungle down the fast flowing Rio Usumacinta to the Mexican border.
From there a minibus drove us the100 miles to Palenque. This part of Mexico is very different from the "Clint Eastwood shoot out in the desert at El Paso" that we've grown used to in the movies. Scenically it actually wasn't much different from Guatemala, and, although this is one of the poorer areas of Mexico, it was clearly wealthier than either Guatemala or Honduras. Indeed it was the first time we could say that we might have been in rural southern Europe. This Chiapas area is also "Power and the Glory" country, for those who read Graham Greene, and the site of the 1994 Zapatista uprising led by Marcos when thousands of Indians lost their lives. The legacies of those troubles are numerous military road blocks and T shirts emblazoned with a ski-masked Marcos.
We had come to Palenque to see some more Mayan ruins. It was very different from Tikal (which is all in the jungle) and Copan, (which has only small buildings, but intricate statues and carvings). It was easy to see why it was so popular. It had a bit of everything and it was all out in the open, with dramatic views all round. Mind you, it was very hot work climbing all the staircases, and much more organised for tourists.
We spent some time in the museum, where the highlight was some amazing Jade burial masks. Then it was back to our air conditioned, thatched room at the nearby hotel.
Next day we had another all day trip to San Cristobal de las Casas. Fortunately, Mexican buses are much more luxurious than the ones we'd got used to in Guatemala, yet were not much more expensive. We sat in the front seats and had a panoramic view as we drove, ever upwards, through the mountains. Our day was broken up by 3 great stops. The first of which was at the waterfall at Agua Misol-Ha, where we did little more than stretch our legs and admire the pool and waterfall.
Not much further on was Agua Clara set in a beautiful gorge. We spent longer here, walking over the rope suspension bridge and watching the local "ferry" take tourists for a ride.
Our final stop was at Agua Azul where the river opens out below some large rapids resulting in a shallow area where we went swimming in the warm aquablue water (along with lots of other people of course!).
Higher and higher into the mountains we went (up to 8000 feet), where we found we needed sweat shirts for the first time in a month. Finally in late afternoon we arrived in San Cristobal, where we found a basic hotel as all the better ones were full. There was no air conditioning this time, but it didn't matter as now the nights were cool, but the concrete slab of a mattress kept us awake, as did the fireworks which went off all night (to celebrate a saint's birthday).
Next morning we set out to explore. We found the town was built in the usual Spanish colonial style and had a main square with a café in the bandstand. Unfortunately, unlike Guatemala and Honduras we found evidence of the western disease everywhere - graffiti. One of the cathedrals had the usual ornately carved front facade (but unpainted this time). The other had its interior walls completely covered in gold leaf. If you are at all interested in 16th century churches then Spanish colonial America is the place to go!
We took a short bus ride to San Juan Chamula with its famous church (and not much else apart from very dirty beggars). Here traditional Mayan beliefs mix with Christianity in a beautiful candle lit church. Pine needles were strewn on the floor and round the walls were old statues of saints in glass cases that are carried through the streets during festivals.
Our final visit in San Cristobal was to the Na Bolom (House of the Jaguar) museum. Founded by Franz and Trudi Blom, it is more of an education/research centre than a museum and is dedicated to the Lacandon tribe, who were the only Mayans to escape major confrontations with the Spanish Conquistidores. Hence, although only a few hundred of them remain today, they are the nearest living descendants of the original people of Central America. We were told that the Lacandons used a cross (below right) as a religious symbol. It totally confused the Spanish when they arrived. But their cross is not a symbol of death, instead it represents the world. The top points to sky, the bottom to earth while the arms point to sun rise and sun set - it all seemed very logical to me.
It was another all day trip back to Guatemala. Despite needing two taxis and a minivan to get from border post to border post, crossing the border back into Guatemala was efficient, and we spent only a few minutes in the very crowded border town (the Saturday market was in full swing). It was a dramatic trip to Antigua from there, on a chicken bus going through gorges and over mountain passes, but with a real manic driver at the wheel who tried to race another bus until we were almost pushed off the road by an oncoming truck. Then he saw sense and slowed down.
We had spent a couple of days in Antigua a few weeks ago, so, as this time we were just passing through, we stayed in a flea-pit hotel (it was the nearest one to the bus station). So we had a good meal in the best restaurant in town to compensate. It's not often that a meal costs more than a hotel room, but at 12US a head for the meal (the hotel was 15 US for us both) we weren't complaining.
After a final short minivan trip to Guatemala City we got in our coach for the five hour trip back to the boat. To our surprise we saw that it was air conditioned AND had a video player!! - just like the UK - wrong!! For neither worked. It was a long time before the driver believed our complaints about the heat and allowed us to open the bus windows.
So back to the boat and planning our San Francisco trip.