Mobs and Religious Processions

The mob

The cow truck we got stuck behind-makes you want a burger-yuck!

Antigua Procession

Volcano

Antigua old churches

Antigua at night

Sunday, March 25 2012

This morning we left Coban to drive to Antigua.  It was a long drive that took us around six hours and should have taken around four hours.  We don’t have the best map in the world for Guatemala and we didn’t know if we were on the right road for most of the day.  We also were waylaid by several acts of man. 

Our first delay was on a hill before Ciudad de Guatemala.  This road was under construction and it seemed that we were still moving at an acceptable pace until we came upon a large mob.  This mob was carrying flags and banners and wearing lots of red capes.  These individuals were peaceable enough but they were taking up a whole lane of the mountain road.  This caused us to wait in line for about an hour before we were able to pass one lane, then the other.  The entire time this mob took up a whole lane!  I don’t understand what they expected to achieve by this protest except to cause a lot of people to be inconvenienced. 

Our second delay was when we drove through Guatemala City.  We did not have a good map and the GPS isn’t completely accurate in cities.  Jon followed the dashboard compass and eventually got us going in the right direction after coming to several dead ends. Guatemala City was bad but not as bad as all the hype has made it out to be.

Our third and final delay came when we entered Antigua.  We should have known as soon as we pulled up and there were many individuals standing in the street asking us for money.  We pretended not to know what they were talking about and they waved us on through.  The roads were blocked off and we were not able to get to the area of town where we wanted to look for a hotel.  We still didn’t know what was going on but eventually realized that there was another religious procession in town.  This could go on for hours!  We tried several different ways but eventually got stuck behind the actual procession.  So we parked the truck and I walked up to take some pictures while Jon waited in case we moved.  We were probably stuck here for about an hour.  When we were finally able to move we realized we couldn’t get around town very easily by truck so we parked and walked to find a place to stay.  The first place told us they were booked and we wouldn’t find anything because of the procession and all the prices would be much higher.  Luckily we didn’t stop after that because we found a place that was everything we needed at a reasonable price on our 4th try.  We are considering staying another night in Antigua to hike up one of the volcanoes before we head onward.

*A little bit about Semana Santa:  considered Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. It includes the religious holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It does not include Easter Sunday.  Today’s activity was a procession with music provided by a marching band type, scents provided by flowers and incense, and bearers of a large coffin like object with depictions of Jesus and a cross.  It was quite a spectacle and I am glad to have seen Antigua’s famous Semana Santa processional but as always when we go somewhere people stare at us because we are also a spectacle.   

Guatemala

Pizote

Defecate on the heads???

Ants

Tikal Map

Flores Sunrise

The ferry we had to take across the river

 

On the ferry

Coban

Semana Santa Parade

Flowers at our hotel

 

Friday, March 23, 2012

Our first two days in Guatemala have been quiet and relaxed.  We had major expenses at the border crossing including exit taxes for Belize, loss of money because of an exchange rate, personal taxes for Guatemala, vehicle tax for Guatemala, mandatory insect spray for our tires, and a city tax that we had to pay as soon as we crossed the border.  We went way over our daily budget so we’ve been trying to recoup our funds by living cheap these last few and next few days.  Other than the taxes, the border crossing went fairly smooth.  There are military checkpoints in Guatemala but we have been waved through every single one.  It’s usually a few kids standing in the shade in a ditch with machine guns.  I give them a wave and they give me a nod.   No problemo. 

We are back to speaking Spanish again and the currency is called the quetzal, which is about 8Q for every $1.  Gas is a little less expensive here than Belize, about $5/gallon, but the rooms and food are really cheap.  We feel safer here than in Belize because we aren’t being hustled at every corner and if anyone does try to sell you something it’s because they made it and once you tell them “no neccisito,” they go away. 

After entering the country yesterday we went straight to Tikal by recommendation of our friend, Bradford Harrison Walker who is really into visiting Guatemala and seeing Panic on tour.  It was a very spectacular sight.  We’ve seen seven ruins now and we think that Tikal might be the last of our Mayan ruins.  Tikal is immense and really requires at least 2 full days of walking around, but we needed to move on.  We did spend several hours exploring and it was nice to be somewhere that wasn’t crawling with tourists like our previous ruins visits.  I was alarmed and somewhat interested after arriving and reading a sign that said to watch out for monkeys that liked to throw poop at your head but luckily we didn’t have that experience.  Unluckily we didn’t even see any monkeys but we did spy the weird raccoons that they have called Pizote and several industrious lines of hormigas (ants) carrying leaves.  However, we were both very tired for some reason and needed a siesta.  Later we realized it was probably because we started our no meat diet the day before and were a little low on calories. 

After Tikal we drove onward to the Isla de Flores in Lago Peten Itza which was a nice little island that you can walk around in about 20 minutes.  We got a cheap hotel and crashed for the evening after swimming in the lake and cooking a no meat dinner. 

~Marcie

Saturday, March 24 2012

There was a beautiful sunrise over Lake Peten this morning.  I got up early and walked around the town of Flores, Guatemala looking for a road map and some water.  After finding both we packed up our truck and hit the road.  We drove a little on the wrong road out of town but soon our course was righted.  We also came to quite an interesting break in the road.  We had been following the main road on the map which all of a sudden dead ends at a river.  We waited in line for about 15 minutes while the ferry took a load over and back and then it was our turn to drive on.  The ferry had a few motors on it and was able to carry about 5-6 vehicles depending on size as well as passengers.  We paid 15Q to ride the ferry.  It was the most fun we ever had paying a toll. Our truck has been having on again off again electrical problems since that one fateful road south of San Felipe, Baja North, Mexico.  Today the problem was occurring frequently, but temporarily.  So 4 hours later we were in Coban, Guatemala looking for someone to run the diagnostic check on the truck, but it was Saturday, so no go. 

We checked into a cheap 112Q ($15 US) but nice hotel in the center of town next to the main plaza. I topped off the truck’s engine oil and the stove’s cooking fuel.  Then we went walking around the city’s extensive tented marketplace.  There were hundreds of small stalls with mainly women selling all kinds of crazy fruits, vegetables and spices.  We bought some chocolate and some peanuts.  As we walked around today we saw a little old lady coming out of a hole in the wall shop carrying her purchase of a non-descript plastic bag of clear but yellow tinted liquid.  Curiously, we looked into the shop and saw that it was a liquor store where in addition to bottle sales the shopkeeper would fill up any bag you had with a little under the counter home brew.  We saw a Semana Santa type procession of about 20 men in hooded purple robes, burning incense as they marched up the street accompanied by about 100 children who were carrying full-scale coffin replicas.  At least I think they were replicas.  We were just as big of an attraction to them as they were to us.  Lots of people were staring at us wherever we went.  When I returned their look with a smile the men would nod and grin back like we are in on some secret knowledge together and the women will usually giggle and look away. 

Tonight was pretty low key.  We had a great vegetarian dinner of some kind of rice/bean type thing that I don’t really know what it was and some sugar/snap peas and avocado.  Also, I watched American Idol for the first time ever.  We were finally able to see our friend Elise sing even though it was a really old episode.  GO ELISE!!!!

~Jon