My trip to “Guate” started with two ferry rides from Belize… Well, ‘ferry rides’ is an over exaggeration. It was really just a couple of speedboats, and with 1.5 meter waves it was some rough riding. To calm my nerves I spent eight days hammocking and getting drunk at a hostel in Livingston, almost taking up an offer of becoming a staffer there for a month.
Afterwards, the time was spent on more regular travel activities like river-tours, busing, and Mayan ruins – where I almost succeeded in bribing the guards at Tikal to let me sleep on top of one of the temples: a top reachable only by free climbing a 55 meter high latter in a 85 degree angle..
My next adventure was getting from Tikal to the town of Cobán.
The bus driver dropped me and a local guy off 45 km before our final destination, at a gas station in the middle of no-where, just because we were the only people left on the bus and he wanted to go home. Night was coming, and with Guate not being a place where you wanna get stuck after dark, we took up an offer to be driven to a village 25 km further down the road, where we could sleep at a local family's house who was friends with the local guy.. The ride there would be a nerve-racking. It was in the back of a pick-up, with 80-90 km/h on a bumpy highway – statistically the most dangerous form of transportation.
After finally reaching Cobán I went on to place called Lanquin where the menu was set on diving through underwater caves, jumps from a 12 meter bridge, and caving. Caving is pretty much just exploring a cave – with the little twist of only having candles to light the darkness of the caves. Me and the other people went in and most of the time we had to walk in waist-deep water. A handful of places we had to swim, with one hand keeping the candle above water, the other holding ourselves up. If all our four candles went out at the same time we would have to stumble and swim our way back through 700 meters of total darkness!
After all of this was done, it was time for what is called the “Death Road of Central America”. 40 km of mountain road that has been taken out by major mudslides, and with no official attempts to repair, the locals have had to make some drivable tracks in the mud, centimetres from vertical drops of up to 500 meters. The views where both terrific and terrifying, of scenery and drops respectively. Most of the trip was done with a heart beat a lot faster than normally, only to stop completely when our bus had to pass a vehicle going in the opposite direction, literally putting our wheels on the edge of the cliff (read: mudslide).
But we made it, thanks to the Rambo of a bus driver, and I once again managed staying alive. But Guate still had a challenge up its sleeve, a city often featured on the “Most dangerous cities in the world”: Guatemala City. And it all started well, on my way into the city was my MP3-player stolen from my backpack on the top of the bus, making this steal just one more in the statistics. Statistics telling, among other horrible things, that 20 persons get murdered every day in Guatemala City!
My biggest concern, however, was not avoiding getting killed (as that usually is limited to outskirts and gang members), but was not getting robbed, losing more valuables, so no flashing my camera (hence no picture) and having the least amount of cash on me as possible when leaving the hotel. Luckily the only two near-action situation I got into didn’t result in me losing anything.
The first was on the main plaza. A place I really would have liked a picture off, but right next to me were a couple of guys heavily tattooed with gang numbers and symbols, making me think twice before taking out my camera. I actually fell into conversation with them, being very happy when three school girls came by and asked me for a charity donation, giving me an execution to flash my wallet with less than five bucks in it in front of the gangsters.
The other situation had a little more action. On the main street of the city tried a seven year-ish boy to pickpocket me less-than-discretely, resulting in me smacking him on his head and serving him a couple of impolite phrases in Danish. After that treatment he looked like someone who wanted to pick a fight, but given his size I pretty much ignored him. That said, I did sneak into a café around the corner for the next hour, just in case he would come back with a knife or more tough friends. Always prepare for the worst and expect the best!
Next time the stories will be about cliff-jumping, climbing active volcanoes, a robbery attempt, landmines, and guerilla soldiers in El Salvador.
Guatemala
