Under the Shadow of the Volcanoes

Following our whirlwind trip back to UK to celebrate Alan's big birthday we returned to Guatemala on 20th September for a rest! Indeed a rest was forced upon us for when we contacted Raymond, our Land Rover contact in Guatemala City, we were informed that whilst the Land Rover mechanic had fixed the problem of the white smoke and flames coming out of the exhaust pipe, he had identified that Lucy was sorely in need of new front brake discs and wheel bearings. So, he was duly instructed to carry out this essential work.

Guatemala City was not somewhere we particularly wanted to be, it's big and dangerous, however we did manage to find a very nice place to stay at a small hotel in Zona 10, reputedly one of the most up market and safest zones.

So, we chilled out for a couple of days and then went to collect Lucy from the mechanic's workshop an Friday afternoon, 23rd September, then reorganised and repacked everything in order to get on the road again the following day.

We set off on Saturday morning for Antigua. Lest anyone thinks we decided to swan off to the Caribbean for a further rest, Antigua is the former capital of Guatemala, abandoned in favour of Guatemala City after a devastating earthquake in 1773.

The 45 km drive from Guatemala City to Antigua was very much up steep hills and down deep valleys and as we breasted the last of the steep hills a great cumulo nimbus came out of the exhaust pipe together with smoke rings and all the other glorious pyrotechnic displays of Lucy in distress. We stopped for a little while and Alan cursed, Sue examined the ceiling but finding no comfort from the cursing or from the ceiling we continued on our way until we arrived in Antigua.

Antigua is a delightful old colonial city surrounded by a number of volcanoes, two of which are still active. The streets are all cobbled and there are lots of marvellous crumbling ruins, relics from previous earthquakes, and rather more gringos than we've seen before.

We arrived in the pouring rain and all the cobbles were wet, the puddles were very splashy and the first couple of hotels we tried were spartan, seedy and not very clean. Having had lunch in a very pleasant little Italian restaurant the world seemed slightly brighter and then we came upon a very nice little hotel called El Antano, a lovely old colonial building with a central courtyard and little garden area at the back. Alan struck a very good rate for the week with Carmen, the hotel manageress who rewarded us with what looked like the bridal suite and also arranged for a fridge to be delivered to our room.

The sun shone for us on Sunday and we spent much of the morning wandering around the Parque Central, which is the square in the centre, and generally familiarising ourselves with this lovely old city. In the afternoon we trotted up  to the Hill of the Cross which is accessed via a very long set of steps that made us puff and brought us out on a promontory with a wonderful view over the city and the volcanoes beyond which were covered in cloud.

Church ruin, Antigua

Colums at Parque Central, Antigua

Street scene with marimbas

Cheeky fountain, Parque Central

Church ruin, Antigua

View of Antigua and Volcan de Agua from Cerro de la Cruz

We need to say a little about the public transport here. In this area of Guatemala the buses are mainly ancient school buses which have been brightly painted in various designs. They are know as 'chicken buses' because they apparently also carry livestock on the top, including pigs as well as chickens! We haven't seen any chickens or pigs so far but we did see one bus laden with market produce.

Chicken bus

Another chicken bus

.... and another!

We got up at 6.30 am on Monday morning to climb Pacaya, one of the active volcanoes overlooking Antigua. This involved meeting up with Alex, our guide, at the trekking centre and then being driven, along with three other hikers, for one and a hour hours to the village of San Franciso where we started our ascent. Here we also met up with our local guide who was introduced to us as Monkey (he earned that name as a child apparently because he was always climbing trees).

To begin with we had a very steep climb up through some vegetation on a path mostly made of volcanic dust which was rather slippery under foot. We were followed by some young lads with ponies just in case anyone found the climb too much and needed a ride! The total trip was only 8 km but we both found it quite challenging and were relieved each time Monkey stopped to show us various herbs and vegetation that were of interest.

Volcan de Agua poking through the clouds

Bored redundant 'taxi' driver, Volcan de Pacaya

On Volcan de Pacaya

One knackered old man, Volcan de Pacaya

Sue toasting marshmallows on lava field

Confused bug on lava field pretending to be a leaf

Pacaya last erupted in 2014 and we climbed up as far as the lava field which it had deposited below the summit. This was like something of a moonscape and the volcanic rock was still very hot to touch in places, apparently the lava is still molten only 10 metres below the surface.  We could see the cone of Pacaya with the various larva flows coming down from the peak of the volcano from the various eruptions over the years. We did start to wonder when the next one is due!

Alex and Monkey brought along a picnic lunch for us which was very well received and also provided us with marshmallows to toast on the hot lava rocks. Then we had the long trek back down but by this time the cloud had come down so we had very little of a view on the way back but, all in all, it was a great day and we got some much needed exercise.

.... and then it rained

Alan managed to make contact with Raymond on Tuesday regarding the ongoing problem of white smoke coming out of Lucy's tailpipe and he put us in touch with Bill, the latest in the line of Land Rover experts we have encountered in Central America, who by a stroke of serendipity runs his business in Antigua. We went along to see Bill who turned out to be a very pleasant Canadian guy with a Guatemalan wife and two children, a boy and a girl. Between them they removed the inlet and the exhaust manifolds and the turbo from Lucy and determined that the problem was seals on the turbo unit, the very same one that was only recently fitted.

We were invited in to have lunch and we sat down with the family and the rest of Bill's team to a very nice meal of pork steaks which bill's wife had cooked. Bill said he would arrange to get new seals fitted to the turbo and his daughter, Alicia, then gave us a lift back to our hotel.

When we got back to the hotel Sue sat down to her first 'one to one' Spanish conversation class with Carmen, the hotel receptionist. Sue had been enquiring about Spanish language schools in Antigua and Carmen, who has been unfailingly helpful in so many ways during our stay, let it be known that she had previously been a language teacher and offered to give Sue some conversation practice in the afternoons.

Sue with Carmen

High school parade, Antigua

The girl with the big bass drum

Fuego, one of the two active volocanoes, started kicking off on Tuesday and several people informed us that they had seen molten lava spewing from the summit. We went up on to the roof top terrace in the evening to have a look but by then the volcano was covered in cloud so we didn't see anything.

Volcan de Fuego spouting steam

As we were without wheels we spent Wednesday walking around this delightful city and very pleasant it was too in the warm sunshine seeing various churches, convents and other archaeological stuff. Most of them are in ruins having been knocked about either by the hand of man trying to pilfer building materials or the hand of God trying to flatten things with earthquakes, of which there have been many in this part of the world.

Arco de Santa Catalina, Antigua

Convent de Santa Teresa

Temple of Santa Rosa showing earthquake damage

Yet another convent!

Nuns' cells within convent

Church ruin showing earthquake damage

Our acquaintance with Antigua continued on Thursday morning as we sat in the Parque Central people watching and, in Alan's case, taking clandestine shots with his telephoto lens. After lunch Alan went with Bill to Guatemala City to collect the turbo which had been reconditioned and had the faulty seals replaced.

Vendor in Parque Central

Local women, Parque Central

Local girl selling her wares

Local girl with her wares

Bird of Paradise flowers

Morning Glory and Golden Shower

We were finally able to collect Lucy on Friday afternoon and were very pleased to find that she appeared to be her old self again. In addition to refurbishing the turbo Bill and his team discovered that a valve in the cyclone was sticking and causing a build up of oil pressure which had caused the clouds of white smoke and also wrecked the turbo seals. This they sorted by replacing the faulty valve.

It was good to be able to get out and about again so we spent most of yesterday, Saturday, exploring a few of the villages around Antigua, some of which were quite pleasant and some scruffy but all giving us a fascinating glimpse of rural Guatemala.

Patchwork fields near Antigua

Public laundry facility, San Juan del Obispo

Detail of public laundry

Village church

Elderly gents in village square

Today is Sunday 2nd October and Sunday means Sunday markets, one of our favourite pastimes! We went to the market at Santa Maria de Jesus which is not a tourist's market, it's a market where the local people come in from the outlying villages and farms and sell their stuff to each other.

Market scene, Santa Maria de Jesus

Market scene, Santa Maria de Jesus

Most of the women were in traditional dress as were most of the little girls. Their skirts are very elaborate, multicoloured with lots of ribbons, lacey bits and embroidered bits, usually worn with a little embroidered jacket or top.

We didn't buy anything but we hugely enjoyed wandering around and, since there were no other gringos there whatsoever, we were a far greater curiosity to the locals than they were to us. Alan took a lot of photographs and nobody was at all camera shy, unlike the people in the mountain villages of Mexico.

Woman selling dried iguanas

Elderly lady, Santa Maria de Jesus

Mother and toddler

New mother with new baby

Young women at market

Suspicious toddler

Mother with toddler

Tomorrow we will be leaving Antigua and making our way to Lago Atitlan.

The Rocky Road to Paradise

Our first couple of days in Guatemala didn't turn out quite as we had anticipated. We left Black Rock on Tuesday 23rd August and got to and then through the Belize/Guatemala border remarkably easily, the whole process taking less than an hour.

We bowled along in good order until an extremely large cloud of what we thought was steam came out of the exhaust pipe obscuring virtually everything behind us. There weren't any other obvious signs and it then seemed to clear itself so we carried on, only for it to happen again. Good sense then prevailed and we returned to the village where we had stopped for lunch and sought out a mecanico. Senor Sanchez seemed to think we needed a new thermostat and told us to bring Lucy back again the following morning.

We took Lucy along to Senor Sanchez Wednesday morning, as arranged, and in order to demonstrate what the problem was Alan took him for a ride, with dramatic effect. Not only was there a small cumulo-nimbus of smoke issuing from the exhaust but enough flames to start a bush fire. Senor Sanchez' opinion changed several times before he finally decided that it was the turbo.

Alan spoke to Graham from AdventureTrex in San Ignacio and he also said it sounded like a turbo problem. He had by a stroke of good fortune a second hand reconditioned turbo in stock which he could sell us and he also offered to take it to the Guatemala/Belize border which was gratefully accepted. So we set off in a taxi to take us the 50 or so miles back to the border where Alan collected the reconditioned turbo from Graham. We then delivered Lucy and the replacement part to Senor Sanchez and he duly fitted it the following morning.

By 11 am on Thursday 25th August we were on the road again and by 2 pm we were at the gates of Tikal National Park. We drove another 20 km or so to the area of the Mayan ruins where we set up camp, just before a tropical storm set in which lasted well into the evening.

Campsite at Tikal

We were up early on Friday morning to visit the ruins. Tikal is a massive site, much bigger and more jungly than any we have visited before. The restored temples are very impressive and there are hundreds more that are not yet restored. The area is so vast and there are such long walkways between the various features that it took us over three and a half hours to go round and we didn't see half of it. When we climbed the highest temple we got a sort of a descending aircraft view of the site with all the jungle and the other buildings popping up through the canopy.

Temple ruin at Tikal

Detail of temple ruin

The view from Temple IV

Temple ruin at Tikal

Parasitic plant at Tikal ruins

The other distinguishing feature was the abundance of wildlife. In the campsite area there were families of oscillated turkeys wandering around, aracari toucans, coatamundi which look a little like a cross between a rat and a fox with a ringed tail that sticks straight up in the air and a coati which looks like an overgrown guinea pig. In the ruins we saw more toucans and spider monkeys doing their acrobatics in the trees and then our attention was drawn to a large tarantula which was trying to enjoy a rest within the root system of a large tree until Alan started poking it.

Oscillated turkey looking surprised

Roadside hawk (we think)

Probably a coati

Alan tickling a sleepy tarantula

On Saturday we set off from Tikal in good order for Flores, some 60 km away. Flores is a picturesque town which is essentially a little island at the far western end of Lago Peten Itza, accessed via a causeway. There we checked in at a small hotel bang on the road which goes around the perimeter of the island. We had a wonderful view from our little balcony to the west across the lake, a very good place to drink a glass of wine and put the world to rights.

Sunset at Flores island

On Sunday morning we wandered around the town and savoured its delights including following the town band complete with double life size puppet with its flailing arms and various oompah instruments.

Marching with the band at Flores

Narrow alleyway in Flores

After lunch we went to climb the 'mirador' or viewing platform on the opposite side of the lake. This involved taking a 'lancha' or water taxi across to the mainland and walking up an extremely steep and very hot road and then mercifully the rest of the way through the dappled shade of the forest until we reached the lookout.

View of Lago Peten Itza from viewing platform

The island of Flores - view from lookout

Flores was a pleasant respite and we left there on Monday morning secure in the knowledge that we had a new turbo unit and all was now well with Footloose Lucy. Wrong!

After about 50 km we were proved incorrect in our assumption because once again we had a cloud of white smoke and flames coming out of the tail pipe. After some deliberation we returned to Santa Elena, the town next to Flores, to find another mecanico. On Graham's advice the mecanico cleaned the oil filter to the side of the rocker cover although he said he thought it was a waste of time. We then got on our way again and continued southwards in a fairly staccato fashion for many miles until we thankfully got to a quite delightful camping area near a place called Poptun where we stopped for the night.

Campsite near Poptun

With some considerable trepidation we set off on Tuesday morning to drive 100 km or so south to Lago Izabel because Lucy had been billowing smoke at regular intervals for the whole of the previous day. In the event we got to Rio Dulce (sweet river) with absolutely no recurrence whatsoever and stopped for lunch at Bruno's bar.

Street scene at Rio Dulce

At Rio Dulce

There we met an American chap called Philipe and his family and he told us about a quieter spot further round to the north of the lake where the road was much more scenic and rural and that we would find some hot springs there. He also told us about his own little jungle resort by the river at Las Conchas about 50 km north of the lake.

Because of Lucy's problems we had been keeping to the main road but, heartened by the fact that we had had trouble free motoring so far that day, we decided to follow Philipe's recommendation. We set off from Rio Dulce which was very hot and noisy and followed the lakeside road until we arrived at a place optimistically called El Paraiso which was a little resort fronting the lake. It was a lovely spot but the weather set in and the far shore of the lake was lost in the mist.

Next morning we visited the hot springs that Philipe had told us about. Strictly speaking they were not hot springs, it was a normal bubbling mountain river which came bouncing through a load of rocks until it landed in a pool. Above the pool was a hot stream which came in by means of a waterfall about 35 ft high. This waterfall was boiling hot, in fact so hot you couldn't really stay under it for very long otherwise you got scalded. The combination of the cold river water and the hot waterfall made the pool beautifully warm.

Hot spring near Lago Izabel

Alan enjoying a hot bath

Leaving the hot springs we then drove the very short distance to Philipe's place next to the river. It was a small farmstead with a sort of eco lodge which was about as basic as it gets but rather charming.

Philipe's Janpanese wife cooked us a very nice vegetarian supper and then we sat chatting with them afterwards around a campfire which Philipe had lit although it seemed slightly unnecessary as it was still in the low thirties.

A couple of little incidents convinced Sue that the place was rather closer to nature than she was really comfortable with. A large black scorpion ran out from under a stone surrounding the fire, possibly to escape the heat, and up the side of a wooden chair. Alan's search for it resulted in it finding him first and stinging him on the finger which made him yelp a bit. It hurt for rather a long time but otherwise no ill effects. Apparently it is the little brown scorpions which are the nastiest.
Then there was the eco toilet which was a dry system and which Sue discovered was already occupied by a large spider when she went to use it. To cap it all a small snake slithered across the path about a foot in front of her the following morning (Thursday). She decided it was time to leave!

We drove the short distance to Las Conchas where there were some impressive waterfalls and then got on our way to Semuc Champey which has been described as one of the most beautiful places in Guatemala though difficult to reach.

Waterfalls at Las Conchas

Getting there was an adventure, not to say a bit of a trial! The scenery was absolutely stunning, narrow steep sided valleys covered in greenery, little stubby tree clad hills, steep gradients and a very rocky road to cope with.

Traditional women on the mountain road

View from the mountain road

View from the mountain road

The major problem we had however was a minor collision on a corner on one of the steep sections of road.  A 'collectivo' (large minibus) came up the hill and round the bend on our side of the road and as we were going down hill it was simply not possible to stop Lucy in time. There was no damage to our vehicle but the collectivo suffered a broken snorkel, side light and some distortion to the driver's door. The vehicle was full of young men and they all piled out. There was a discussion, the essence being that insurance doesn't count in Guatemala and that what we had to do was pay the driver lots of money. It was not particularly rancorous but Alan thought that it was going to become so and we were heavily outnumbered. Another vehicle had arrived behind the collectivo and Alan took the opportunity to get out of the situation by squeezing past the very narrow gap and we continued along the road to the small town of Lanquin.

The driver of the collectivo had phoned the police and the police stopped us in Lanquin. Subsequently the driver turned up but as it was now under what one might call controlled conditions we were less concerned. Having produced all the necessary documentation (which the police then kept) we all trooped off to the police station. With the assistance of a translator, who happened to be one of the young men on the minibus, we were given to understand that we had two options. The first was that our vehicle and the collectivo would be impounded by the police and we would appear in front of a judge at some unspecified time in the future.  The second option was that the driver had to be paid something.

So, it all came down to a traditional haggle in the end which Alan always enjoys and we paid the driver 1,300 quetzels which is £130 and we continued along the rocky road to Semuc Champey where we arrived just before nightfall.

Friday was a much better day! We drove the short distance from our lodge to the national park and discovered for ourselves why Semuc Champey is one of the wonders of Guatemala.

The great attraction is a natural phenomenon which is without precendence in our experience. The mighty river goes through a very steep gorge and then charges down underground beneath a 300 metre long 'platform'. It continues in the bed of the gorge underneath this platform and then issues with slightly less violence at the bottom.

River Cahabon disappearing under the pools

As this is a limestone area and because there are many little rivulets and streams coming down from the sides of the gorge the platform has formed itself into a series of 6 or 7 pools. These pools are up to 150 metres wide and are a brilliant turquoise colour. The water is crystal clear, cool and in some places quite deep and it runs from one pool down to the next in a series of little waterfalls and channels. The sides of the gorge which are near vertical are clad in bright blue flowers a little like periwinkle. Add to this the jungle setting and the fact that from time to time huge butterflies go flittering through the dappled light and you have a truly magical place.

The pools at Semuc Champey

A side pool at Semuc Champey

Later in the day we went to vist the local caves. These are very deep, unlit and in many parts unexplored but we went specifically to see the bats. We'd been told that at twilight bats issue from the mouth of the cave so we set ourselves up inside the mouth whilst we were entertained by a tropical thunderstorm with attendant lightning which illuminated the river crashing out of the cave system below us.

View from the mouth of the bat cave

As twilight fell a few bats came out of the cave and before long there were hundreds of them, all swirling and weaving around very close to us but they never touched us. It was very ethereal.

We left this little corner of paradise on Saturday morning to drive back along the rocky road and then on to the town of Coban. The journey was uneventful other than Lucy having more episodes of tummy trouble resulting in large emissions from her rear end.

Looking down on the clouds again

Market scene at Coban

Market scene at Coban

After overnighting in Coban we set off on Sunday morning to drive the 200 km distance to Guatemala City. It was not an easy journey. The now very familiar clouds of white smoke were coming so frequently that were having to stop every 10 minutes or so but we kept going and arrived with a huge sigh of relief in the middle of the afternoon.

Guatemala City was not on our list of places to visit but our reason for coming here is twofold. One is to get Lucy fixed by someone who knows what they are doing and secondly we have a flight booked from here to UK for a couple of weeks in order for Alan to celebrate his 'special' birthday with family and friends.

Today is Tuesday 6th September. Alan has delivered Lucy to a Land Rover specialist, recommended to us by Graham, who will fix her (we hope!) whilst we are away. We fly back to UK via Houston tomorrow and all is well. Blog to be continued after we return here on 20 September.