What have we been doing? I`m not actually sure, but we`ve been very busy.
Once we left Semuc Champey, we headed off to the Biotopo del Quetzal. What is that you may ask yourself? Well, the Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, and the Guatemalans are really mad about this bird, so much so that their money is in fact called, Quetzales and has a picture of a Quetzal.
And why wouldn`t you love the Queztal, just look at it:
Unfotunately, no matter how much they love Quetzales in Guatemala, their habitat is being destroyed. Most Guatemalans never see a Quetzal in their whole lives. One of Ian´s Spanish teachers has been to the Quetzal reserve 15 times and never seen one, apparently he´s been trying to see one for 15 years.
We didn´t see any when we were at the Quetzal reserve, but we did have a lovely hike for a few hours. We were lucky enough to see two Quetzales in Tikal when we were there. Unfortunately, I didn´t appreciate how rare a Quetzal sighting is and I foolishly deleted the picture I had of one because it was pretty bad quality. Ah well, at least we were lucky enough to see them.
When we left the Quetzal reserve, we went on that memorably horrific bus journey to Huehuetenango. (See other post). And from there we headed off to Xela for our first week of Spanish lessons.
We were studing at a place called Casa Xelajiu. Although the host family we stayed with was lovely, and Maria is an excellent cook, the school wasn´t a great fit for us. More High School Musical than Lonely Planet backpacker hoang out. We ended up moving to a new school, Celas Maya and a new host family with the lovely Marisol.
After one week of school and before we moved to our new school, we decided to take a break, relax and get away from it all by hiking Central America`s highest volcano. At 4, 220m above sea level and just on the border with Mexico, Tajamulco is a pretty tough climb. Its not the actual path that´s difficult, most of it is paved path and some walking though forest. What´s phsically heart wrenching is the altitude. You can walk for ten minutes and after a fifteen minute break, you still can´t catch your breath.
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| Path up to Tajamulco |
We set off on a bright Sat afternoon with our guide Juan, a German girl Maria and a French girl Julia. It took us four hours and three buses to get to the base of the volcano. We stayed with a local family sleeping on the concrete floor in the basement of their shop. Ian was absolutely in his element, Bear Grylls eat your heart out. Ian O´Gorman, Man of The Wild is about to come to a volcano near you. Anyway, the accommodations were basic at best. The toilet has to be seen to be believed.
I´m shamelessly stealing the German girl´s photo because I can´t get my own photo on this. You get the idea.
Anyway, we were supposed to start the climb at 12 midnight, but it was lashing rain so we couldn´t leave. We waited until 3am and then we set off on our merry way. From the get go it was tough. I was eating an apple as we set off, but I had to disgard it pretty quickly since eating, walking and breathing was too much. You can really only walk and breath or sit and eat. Any more than that and breathing becomes impossible. It was tough, even when you were standing still you could feel your heart going nintey and you were just trying to catch your breath.
Although it was hard, myself Ian and Juan seemed to be a good bit ahead of the two girls a fair bit of the way. After an hour and a half the French girl couldn´t go up any further so we rather chivilrously left her behind on the volcano in the middle of the night to descend alone. The poor girl had pretty bad altitude sickness. She got sick and then went to sleep on the volcano for a few hours before heading back down when it got bright again the next morning. In retrospect, leaving her on her own probably wasn´t the most sensible thing to do, but her friend and the guide seemed to be ok with it so it didn´t seem like a problem at the time.
Anyway, onwards and upwards we struggled until the German girl started to fade. Again we fearlessly abandoned a poor girl to the fates (although this time we left the casualty in the capable hands of the guide) and we continued on our merry way to the top of the volcano.
We were officially Central America´s highest huggers. (Sick, I know). You could see all the way to Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. We missed the sunrise because of all the delays, but the feeling of finally getting to the top was pretty satisfying nonetheless. The views were really impressive.
Well the descent wasn´t nearly as bad, but the next day we had to go and meet our new family and we were officially dead to the world! I´m pretty sure I said two words to the poor Bean an ti the first day which were Hola! and Buenas Noches! I can´t remember the last time I was that tired. Ian wasn´t much better.
Settled into our new house, we met the absolutely lovely Tom who shared the house with us. Tom was at the same language school and is probably one of the most instantly likeable people I´ve ever met. He´s just outrageously postive and chirpy. Lovely man. Anyway, Tom introduced us to fun things like the local Guatemalan Hot Chocolate and the Salsa night in the nearby salsa school.
Our new school, Celas Maya is without a doubt a brilliant Spanish school. You sit around a garden, learning spanish one on one, and your teacher makes a language plan completely tailored to you level of spanish. Myself and Julio (my new Spanish teacher) got on like a house of fire. We had a great laugh. But one of the best things about Celas Maya is the wonderful people we met there. From ex-army service Matt from California who´s undoubtedly the biggest Mujerzuela in the village and travelling Guatemala with his Mum. To English Rob, with his umbrella, James Bond accent and ever exciting career in International development, Rob was a pretty interesting guy. We may have called him Charles in the beginning because we couldn´t remember his name and he sounded so much like Prince Charles. (Sorry Rob!)
Anyway, Xela was full of characters, kareoke and craic!
After our second week of Spanish classes, we realised that the only way of chilling after 25 instense hours of Spanish classes, is by climbing a volcano. So up we went on a full moon to Volcan Santa Maria. From the top of Santa Maria, you get a perfect view of the smaller yet active volcano Santiaguito exploding.
The climb was phsically harder, but becuase the altitude wasn´t nearly as bad, myself and Ian were well able for it. There was a big group of us and our good friend, Mujerzuela Matt was there too and he unfortunately had a bit of a mishap.
Matt, being ex-army and full of ´Let me tell you about a little place called Iraq´, was eager to get to the top first. He even took off his tshirt to make himself more aerodynamic. (For which he was duely dubbed ´Tits´). Anyway, when he started to fall a little bit behind myself and Ian, Ian may have suggested that he might like me to carry him. Being beaten to the top by a girl was not going to go down well with Matt. In an effort to cut a corner, he cut a corner, slipped and dislocated his shoulder.
It wasn´t one bit funny to be honest. We were 15 mins from the top of the volcano, in the pitch black with a fairly well built (therefore heavy) guy with a disloacted shoulder. Carrying him down wasn´t really looking that appealing. Fortunatley for Matt, this time we didn´t leave anyone behind. It just so happened that Dr. Sam from an ER in Chicago (I´m not kidding) was there to save the day. With the coolness of a cat, Sam said ´Its alright, I´m just going to take your arm and do this and, oh yes its back in now. God I´ve never done that before!´
We were pretty glad he told us he´d never relocated a shoulder after the fact. Anyway, Matt was more or less right as rain and to his credit, he continued to the top and got there not last. Which given what he´d just been through was impressive. Matt, you´re an impressive fool.
The view from the top was spectacular, and this time we didn´t miss the sunset either! We were all pretty chuffed with ourselves given the climb that we´d had.
You can see some pictures on the picassa album here if you haven´t already seen them.
That´s about it, we did some other cool things in Xela like visit natural Saunas where the steam literally comes out of the ground. All down the side of the road, all you see is the hillside next to you smouldering. We also visited an artisanal pottery where they showed us around someone´s house that doubles over as a pottery factory. One side of the room is the bedroom, the rest is full of moulds and half finished pots awaiting decoration.
We took salsa classes (I did, Ian sat that one out). We visited Central America´s first christian church. We generally had a brilliant time. Anyone looking to learn Spanish on the cheap, Celas Maya in Xela Guatemala is probably the best place to do it.
Anyway, that´s all for now. You can look forward to hearing all about Lago de Atitlan and the nicest hotel I think I´ve ever stayed in on the next post.
Hope you´re all planning your visits soon!
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