We've been true road warriors lately.
From the tropical island of Flores, a 5:00 AM departure took us an hour north into the sweltering Central American jungle where we visited the ancient city of Tikal, some of the most impressive Mayan ruins in the world. It's a little mind-boggling to imagine a thriving metropolis some 2,000 years ago that disappeared to such an extent that the city was "lost" and completely covered by jungle until restoration efforts in the past few decades.
In the evening of the 1st, we searched for a good dance club to unwind a bit. Our taxi driver took us to the little town of San Benito, one of the most decrepit and sleazy aggregation of bars I have ever seen in all my travels. I left Pascal in the taxi to check out Club Lemont, which was down some dirty, dimly lit gravel back alley. An armed guard opened the metal grill and frisked me, with my hands against the wall. Ironically, he found my travel toothbrush but somehow missed my 6-inch folding all-purpose "Rambo" knife. Very reassuring.
Inside was a motley crue of grimy local patrons, with all of six teeth between the lot of them. They were ogling a collection of what must have been the ugliest, most skanky looking girls in the entire country of Guatemala, who unfortunately were all in various stages of undress. This place was unreal! I walked around for a minute, just to get a feel for the local flavor of the seedy underbelly of Guatemala, then returned to the taxi. There was no way I was going to bring Pascal in there!
I asked the driver to take us back to Flores, as obviously we were in Dump-o-Land, but instead he brought us to another, "better" place. Not quite. I knew there was no way in hell that we were going to spend any time whatsoever in this town, but curiosity did get the better of me so I got out of the taxi to check it out.
The street was like from an old western movie, with ramshackle two-story buildings lined up on either side of a scruffy dirt street. The modern touches included the neon glow of dirty beer signs and the dimly lit windows.
I walked in through the door through two old wooden saloon-style swinging doors, and time-warped right into a 19th century saloon. Obviously our driver didn't understand the meaning of dance club. The place looked like it had just experienced one of those fabled bar fights, and indeed perhaps it had. The wooden floor was littered with overturned chairs and empty tables, and the smell of drying alcohol filled the air. No way. Strike two: back to Flores!
On Saturday, our original plan had been to take a 5-day excursion deep into the jungle to reach some other ruins close to the Mexican border. But Pascal had developed a cough during this vacation that had gotten progressively worse, and I didn't feel it would be wise to do so in his condition. He wasn't dangerously sick or anything (in fact, he felt fine other than the occasional deep cough), but being several days' strenuous walk from medical help should he get worse didn't strike me as particularly smart.
So we changed plans and took a 5:00 AM bus southeast. Five hours later, we dropped off in the river town of Rio Dulce. From there, we boarded a rickety old boat. I really dislike these, especially those who are so close to the water that when extending my arm overboard my hand is right in the water. Plus, our packs in front looked like they could roll over and fall in at any second.
Anyway, a boat it had to be, as our destination was only reachable by water. As we boated downriver, we saw some striking jungle scenery, including an island swamped with thousands of crows, massive cliffs reaching up from the river covered in trees and green moss, a whole section of river covered in floating flowers, and an untold number of small indigenous wooden houses on stilts. Wow.
Two hours later, we arrived in Livingston. I thought we'd reached Jamaica. This tiny little Caribbean port town isolated from the rest of the country by water and jungle is a complete anomaly. While all of Guatemala is either of indigenous Mayan or Spanish decent, Livingston is of primarily African decent, a throwback to the ancient slave trade that once dominated the islands. The people even talk like Jamaicans, and reggae wins out over salsa in the evenings. A fascinating little place.
Nighttime in Livingston was sweltering hot. Our room didn't even have glass on its windows, with only a bug screen filtering the super-humid air from outside. It didn't take long for the mosquitoes to recognize fresh meat, and I was soon being eaten alive left and right. It didn't take too many bites for me to immediately soak myself in 95% Deet, as mosquitoes in this area do carry malaria and dengue fever, neither of which are high on my to-do list.
This morning, we boarded another boat to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala's thriving port town. Upon arrival there, we saw gigantic container ships being loaded with truck after truck of Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita containers. Bananas, mangoes, papaya, pineapple and other tropical fruit leaving by the ton en route to your local grocery store.
From Puerto Barrios, we bused for 5 hours back to Guatemala City. I'm currently sitting in the grungy basement of our hotel in a tiny internet cafe lit by a single neon bulb, separated on either side from local Guatemalan patrons by dirty pieces of white foam board leaning up against the narrow computer tables. On the top of my monitor is a taped sign in Spanish advertising the availability of gay, lesbian and bisexual CDs. Obviously, we're not at the Ritz!
All right, we're off to dinner!
Cheers!
Gabriel
