Back to Canada V

We left Utila and headed back north. The first night we made it to Puerto Cortez for the night and the next day we crossed the border into Guatemala. We caught a ferry from Puerto Barrios across to Punta Gorda in Belize. The national language of Belize is English and it was strange not to need Spanish anymore. The money is Belizian dollars and the bills, like Canada, have a picture of Queen Elizabeth on them, but she is very young looking on the Belizian bills. We headed to the town of Placencia which required a bus trip and a quick ferry ride to the peninsula. The beach town had a nice beach and a number of good restaurants. The next day we headed north again and stopped in the capital of Belize, Belmopan. Belmopan has a population of about 8000 people and is one of the smallest capital cities in the world. The capital was moved here from Belize City in the 60's after a hurricane hit but very few people moved with it. The government building are here but there are more parks than houses. We watched a really good soccer game and moved on to Belize City.

We stayed the night and left the next morning on a ferry to Caye Caulker. This is one of the many islands off the coast of Belize located along the second longest barrier reef in the world. The reef goes from the Yucatan in Mexico down the entire coast of Belize to Honduras in the south. There were numerous diving and snorkeling opportunities available on the island including full-day tours, manatee tours and a diving tour to the Blue Hole, which is one of the most famous diving locations in the world. However it was too expensive for us so we decided to take a half-day snorkeling tour. The boat went to three location on the reef and the highlight of the trip was called Shark and Ray Alley. This was a place where sting rays were fed and they swarmed around the boat as soon as it arrived. They were all used to humans and we jumped right in with them. You could touch them as they swam by and sometimes they would swim right on top of you looking for food. They sometimes have nurse sharks that come too but this time there was only a lonely barracuda looking for scraps. I did however see a nurse shark later when I was snorkeling through the coral. It is completely harmless but swims powerfully and looks dangerous. The water had many different shades of turquoise and blue which contrasted with the white sand of the island. There wasn't much of a beach but there was a split in the island caused by a hurricane and the deep water there allowed a high diving board to be installed which was a lot of fun.

We left the island and continued north to Orange Walk in Belize. The name is somewhat misleading because there is much more Spanish spoken here and the crop of choice is sugar cane rather than oranges. There is also a large settlement of German Mennonites here that have lived here for 50 years and it was common to see men dressed in overalls walking down the street. Belize is a very multicultural country with the majority a mixture of Mestizos, Mayans and Creoles as well as other immigrants such as Chinese, Indian and the Mennonites. We decided to take a tour to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. This was an hour long boat ride up the New River, a very flat river, to arrive at the ruins. The ruins were excavated by a man from the Royal Ontario Museum. The main temple was about 35 metres high and gave an excellent lookout over the jungle and river. There was another temple that had a 3 metre high sculpture of a former ruler on the side.

We left Orange Walk the next day and headed to Mexico. This meant we were leaving Central America for the last time and now beginning the North American part of the journey. We arrived in Tulum which has a spectacular beach and ruins. The beach is pure white and the water is gorgeous turquoise. It was surprisingly uncrowded because it is located close to Cancun. However the ruins are not so quiet. One of the few ruins on the coast, the Tulum ruins are smaller and more compact than the other ones I have been to but still very impressive. A wall surrounded the entire area and a number of buildings, such as the palace and the castle, sit atop the cliffs and overlook the turquoise ocean. The first Spaniard to spot Tulum, which was still occupied at that time, noted in his journal that he passed by a town that reminded him of Seville, in Spain.

The next day we continued up the Mayan Riviera to the city of Playa de Carmen. This place is second only to Cancun for tourism and we spend the afternoon enjoying the gorgeous but crowded beach. We then took the evening ferry to the island of Cozumel where we managed to arrange through friends a place to stay with a local of Cozumel. The next morning we arranged to scuba dive with a local company. We got on the boat and we headed south along the island. The entire coast of the island was full of huge resorts of every kind but the turquoise of the water was still amazing. We arrived at the Colombia Reef and dived in. The reef was a massive formation of coral and we swam through a number of caves of coral where colorful fish peeked out at every corner. Then we would come back out to open ocean and the endless blues and floating fish were a stunning contrast to the dark of the cave. As we went to the surface at the end of the dive we were joined by a large sea turtle that was also rising to grab a breath of air. The second dive we took was a drift dive. Cozumel has many currents around the island and the abundance of corals make it one of the best places for drift diving. We got into the water and the current took us over the coral. It was possible to relax and watch the coral and fish pass by and the only thing to worry about was avoiding being drifted into coral formations. We probably covered 2 or 3 kilometers in the 40 minute dive and passed over a number of parrotfish, pufferfish, rays and even a shark was spotted.

The next day we caught the ferry back to the mainland and headed north to Cancun. We got there after dark but were in time to experience the famed nightlife of Cancun on a Friday night. It was a little bit disorienting being surrounded by crowds, lights and American restaurants and bars after being in Central America for so long but it was fun. We went to a bunch of different places, including taking in a Mexican rock cover band playing in the Hard Rock Cafe. The next day we witnessed the start of the rainy season as the remnants of two tropical storms blew into the area and poured down rain flooding the streets in the morning. Up until this point we had been extremely fortunate with the weather, travelling with the dry season up Central America, completely avoiding the rain and enjoying days of sun. Now we would have to deal with lots of rain every day. It cleared up enough in the afternoon that I could explore the Cancun beach. The beach is a thin peninsula about 15 km long that is packed with resort after resort. Some of the resorts are huge and most of them are designed to bring to mind Mayan pyramids. The beach itself was white sand with turquoise water but the storms had whipped up the waves so that it was impossible to swim. I walked about 5 km down the beach enjoying the surf and the different hotel designs. When I finally decided to walk back to the road I nearly got lost passing through a huge hotel. Cancun was fun to experience but I don't think I could spend too many days there.

Back to Canada IV

The next morning we continued our backtracking into Honduras to the city of La Ceiba and from there took a ferry to our final destination, the island of Utila. Utila is part of the Bay Islands and is famous for its cheap diving schools. We ran into a Canadian diving instructor on the ferry over and decided to stay and take a course at the school where he works. I planned to take a 4 day Open Water Course and Greg, who already had his, was going to take the Advanced Open Water Course. The first day of the course involved watching 3 hours of boring videos and some homework however it gave me some time to explore the town. Every other place seems to be a diving school but there are also lots of restaurants and hotels. There is one place where they built an entire bar up a tree.

The second day of the course was the first day in the water. We just went out to the dock at the hotel in about 2-3 metres of water where we practiced some different scuba diving skills such as taking the mask off underwater and practicing breathing properly. It was really cool breathing underwater and it was hypnotizing watching the bubbles rise to the surface of the water. I learned that my breathing is very inefficient because I ran out of air at the end of the lesson and had to ascend early. The next day was our first open water experience and we took the boat in the early morning out to the nearby reefs. We descended to a sandy area in the reefs and practiced a few skills before we headed out to explore the reef. I experienced my first problem with my ears when we descended to 12 metres. I was unable to equalize my ears properly and had to hang out above everybody at a shallower depth. The reef was pretty cool. It was a little bit dead because the areas was used by a lot of beginner divers who would bump into the coral but there were fish of every color and many different types of coral. We got out of the water and went to a different location where we dove in again and did some more skills. In the afternoon we did our 50 question final exam for the course and I passed with 50 out of 50. The next day was the final dives for the course. We did two more dives which were more skill-intensive but we got to see some cool creatures such as a stingray and a bunch of squid. After the day was over we could celebrate obtaining our open water certification. It's a lifetime certification and it means that I can dive to 18 metres without an instructor.

The next day I went out on two more complementary dives. I really enjoyed myself and was able to overcome the problems with my ears. I saw a huge spotted eagle ray and a seahorse and really started to feel comfortable diving. It's fun when you are able to control yourself underwater. A deep breath in and you float up and over the reef, exhaling and you sink back down to the floor. I had so much fun that I decided to take my Advanced Open Water course as well. The Advanced course consisted of 5 'adventure' dives. The next day we took the morning boat out and the first dive was the Deep Dive. We went down to 30 metres where it started to get quite dark. We did some experiments with eggs and air bottles seeing the effect of the water pressure. At that level the pressure is 4 times that of air and your body starts to build up nitrogen bubbles so you can't stay down for too long. You also use up your air 4 times as fast and I didn't do a good job of conserving my air and I had to share my instructor's air when I ran out. For deep dives there is a spare tank hanging under the boat and I was able to use that while we waited at 5 metres for the nitrogen to dissipate. The next day we did a navigation dive and used compasses to navigate underwater. Later that day we did a night dive which we explored the underwater only using flashlight. There were lots of fish with really big eyes and I saw a blue Moray Eel as well. The next day I did the last two dives and I was alone in the class because the others had done their dives earlier. The fourth dive was a Wreck Dive and we went down to 30 metres again to explore a sunken wreck. It was a cargo ship that was sunk to create a reef and it was pretty big. It was already almost completely covered in coral and there were a number of big fish hanging out in the boat. The last dive I did for the advanced course was the Buoyancy Dive. This was my choice because I wanted to practice floating correctly so I could move through the water with ease. After this dive I had finished my Advanced course and I now can dive to 30 metres and have much more freedom where I can dive.

The next day I got two more complimentary dives and this time we saw a sea turtle. It was just a small turtle but we got to follow it for about 15 minutes as it swam through the coral and nibbled on little bits of food here and there. The second dive we saw a big barracuda and another spotted eagle ray. After finishing these dives I had done 13 dives in 6 days and my ears were glad for a rest. Coincidentally, that night the dive center was having a party for two recently graduated divemasters and I could pretend they were celebrating my achievement as well. Everybody staying there got on the boat and we cruised around the bay for a sunset tour. When we got back they had prepared a huge pot of the local fish soup which was excellent and there was night beach volleyball and plenty of music for the rest of the night.

Back to Canada III

After climbing Volcano Tajumulco we decided it was time to leave Xela. We spent most of the day on a bus. From Xela we took a bus to Santa Cruz de Quiche. Then we took a minibus to the town of Uspatlan. We tried to catch another minibus to Coban but we missed it and had to wait around for an hour and a half for the next one. The bus went through a beautiful river valley with steep cliffs on either side and the road was excellent. Eventually we came to a long lineup for construction. We were warned we would have to wait up to an hour but luckily we were let through almost instantly. The bus directly in front of us was the same one that we had just missed an hour and a half ago. The road now degenerated into a dusty road as machines worked alongside the road chipping off pieces of the cliff making it wider. At some points the bus was forced right to the edge of the cliff on a narrow road. We made it to Coban safely however and planned to explore some of the caves and waterfalls in the area.

The first place in Coban we went to was the nearby caves Rey Marcos. Getting there consisted of a couple of quick minibus rides and a fifteen minute walk. We were the only visitors there but we were greeted by a friendly guide who gave us helmets, headlights and boots. It was a steep uphill walk to the caves and they were initially very tight. Luckily for my claustrophobia the caves eventually opened up and we arrived at an underground stream that we had to wade up. We came to rooms of stalagtites and stalagmites beautifully formed from limestone. The guide stopped us in one rooms and said we had to turn back but he mentioned that the cave system continued for miles into the earth. The final room was considered sacred to the Mayans so we turned out our lights and sat in silence in the total darkness. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness but they never did. It was a fascinating few minutes but I was glad to get back to the light.

After returning to Coban we took another beautiful winding road through the mountains to the town of Lanquin. We checked into to the hostel where we took the last two hammocks in the place. The next morning we signed up for a tour and were taken on the back of a pickup to Semuc Champey, a series of caves and pools. We started in the cave and we were only given candles. The caves were a series of deep pools that we waded chest deep through most of them. At one point you could scramble up a rope and the last stretch involved about 50 meters of swimming. It was difficult swimming while holding a candle especially since one shoe kept trying to fall off but I managed. Anybody who dunked their candle were quickly relit by the others. The last pool we reached was quite deep and we were allowed to scramble up the side of the cave and jump in. Directly outside the cave was a river and we took a huge rope swing and jumped into the water. My technique was poor, resulting in an impressive face plant. We spent the next half hour slowly floating down the calm river in inner tubes. After we got out we had an opportunity to jump off the bridge. It was at least 30 feet up and being the first person to jump meant that I had to trust the guide's advice on where to land. Luckily it was deep enough. The next part of the tour involved the pools. These were amazingly green limestone pools that form a bridge over a raging river that is forced underground for about 500 meters. We climbed to a lookout and had a great views of the 5 or 6 green step-like pools, the white limestone cliffs and the river pouring through the valley. Where the river entered the cave was particularly dangerous because there was no way to avoid being sucked under if you fell. The pools themselves were fantastic for swimming and you could dive from one pool to the next. The guide took us down a rope ladder to the last ledge where you could jump about 40 feet into the emerging river below. When we returned to the hostel I walked to the nearby Lanquin Caves, yet another group of caves. I got there at sunset just in time to see tens of thousands of bats pouring out of the caves. It was one of the most enjoyable days of the trip.

The next day was very relaxed as we went on a two hour inner tube ride through small rapids and I played volleyball most of the afternoon. The evening meal at the hostel was an all you can eat Italian buffet so I stuffed myself with as much pizza and pasta as I could. We left Lanquin the next day and headed north. We stopped at the Candelaria Caves for one last caving experience. The entire north of Guatemala is limestone and riddled with caves. These particular caves are one of the largest but also relatively unknown. Many of the older people we met didn't speak Spanish and our guides for the trip were three kids. We took inner tubes about 30 minutes down to the river and the current took us directly into a cave. These caves had massive ceilings and once and a while light would shine down, eerily lighting the cave and water. Eventually we emerged back into the sunlight and our guides took us on a walking tour of the caves. Most of them were huge cathedral-like caves and many times I felt like I was on a movie set. After the tour we took another minibus to the town of Sayaxche for the night.

The next morning we decided to go to the Mayan ruins of El Ceibal. It involved an 8 km walk in the tropical heat but the price, free, was right. The ruins were only partially excavated but there was almost nobody there and it was interesting hiking through the deep jungle and stumbling across an excavated temple or astronomical observatory. The clouds of mosquitoes, however, reminded us that we weren't in the mountains anymore and we should get some more repellent. When we were ready to leave we were lucky enough to meet a Guatemalan family who gave us a ride back out of the park. We headed to the town of Flores for the night. Flores is a pretty town located on an small island in a lake in northern Guatemala. It is the base most people use for visiting the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

We hung out in Flores for the morning and then caught a shuttle bus to Tikal. We bought an entry ticket after 3pm which meant that the ticket was good for the next day as well. The Tikal Ruins have five massive temples which were all built within a century. The first two temples face each directly east and west in the center plaza and there are other large structures north and south. If you clap directly in the center of the plaza the echo sounds like the quetzal bird's call. Temple 3 and Temple 4 are to the west of the plaza and face it and Temple 5 is to the south and also faces the main plaza. Temple 4 is the biggest and at 63 meters it is a very popular place to watch the sunset and the sunrise over the other temples. The entire area around Tikal is a huge national park and Tikal is filled with jungle animals and birds. We saw many spider monkeys, coatimundis, agoutis, toucans, parrots and two big birds, the ocellated turkey and the crested guan. After exploring some of the park we climbed Temple 4 and watched the sun set over Northern Guatemala. We were kicked out of the park when it got dark and arranged to set our hammocks up in the camping site outside of the park. We were planning to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise but it was cloudy so we slept in. I got up at 6am when it got light and went in. Everybody else was up on Temple 4 so I had the park to myself. The birds were out in force and there was chirping, chattering and cawing everywhere. At one point there was a crested guan and a toucan having a loud, agressive discussion. It was very awe-inspiring to be walking among these huge monuments listening to the jungle waking up. After leaving the park we got into a pick-up game of soccer with some of the shuttle drivers that were waiting around and then headed back to Flores.

We headed south to the town of Rio Dulce for the night. The town is near the small Caribbean shore of Guatemala and is a transportation crossroad with both a heavily used river to the Caribbean and the main highway between Guatemala and Tikal. In the morning we headed to some limestone pools nearby. Getting there involved a combination of hitch-hiking, minibusing and an hour of walking. The pools were the familiar limestone green and the waterfalls were truly impressive including a huge 40 foot one. There was an excellent ledge for jumping here and we spent most of our time jumping and diving into the pool. The park was off the tourist track and we had the park to ourselves for the entire day. Returning the same way we ran into a full minibus and we had to sit on the roof of the bus to get our ride.

The next day we took a boat down the river Rio Dulce to the Caribbean coast and the town of Livingston. The river was wide and very calm and there were 100 foot limestone cliffs before we reached the Caribbean. It was the first time on the Caribbean on this trip but we plan to stay on it for the next few weeks. The town had no roads and was focused on the water. It appeared to be a popular stop for yachts sailing around the Caribbean and was full of good restaurants. We left on a boat the next day for Puerto Barrios, the only Caribbean port Guatemala has. From there we got a bus to the Honduran border and stopped at the beach town of Omoa. It was still early in the day so we hiked a couple of kilometers to a nearby waterfall, which was pretty but not very clean. After I visited the restored fort in the town. It was built by the Spaniards to protect the gold route but it took a long time to finish. It was captured often by pirates, the final time in 1820 but is carefully restored and interesting to explore.

Back to Canada II

We left El Salvador by heading up the Pacific Coast to Guatemala. The views from the cliffs were impressive and the road was surprisingly good compared to what I was used to in Costa Rica. In Guatemala we headed to Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala. It is by far the most popular city with tourists in Guatemala and probably all of Central America. The first day I arrived I went to a local club were the had a live salsa band. The drummer and singer was one of the surviving members of the Buena Vista Social Club in Cuba and the music was excellent. The next day I went up Volcano Pacaya. The volcano is quite active right now and we weren't allowed to climb all the way to the top but they did allow us to go on the lava fields. There were lots of pockets of glowing red lava that you could walk right up to as long as you could stand the heat. You could look down cracks in the rocks and see the glowing red as well. Some of the rocks we were walking on were molten lava the day before and in many places you had to move quickly to avoid melting the bottom of your shoes. The soles of my shoes had melted bits of rocks in them and the middle had started to crack but they held together.

The next day we decided to try a more challenging hike and climbed the Volcan de Agua, the volcano that towers above Antigua. It is 3750 meters or more than 12,000 feet and is almost as high as Chirripó in Costa Rica. It is named volcano of water because it once held a lake in the crater and the water broke out and destroyed the city. Now however it is completely dry and there is a soccer field in the base of the crater. We climbed with an Australian staying in our hostel and we started from the town of Santa Maria, about 30 minutes from Antigua. It was a completely Mayan town where the first language is the local Mayan language and the children don't learn Spanish until school. The trail led up through fields on the slope where we met numerous pack horses making their way down the mountain. After four hours of hiking we arrived at the summit. The view was cloudy but we could sometimes make out Antigua or Santa Maria. There was a bunch of radio towers on the peak and we ran into a technician fixing one of them who offered us a ride back to Antigua when we got back down the mountain. His job involved traveling all over Guatemala fixing different problems and it usually involved trekking through forest or jungle to get to the machinery.

The next day we left Antigua. We headed to Guatemala City first and quickly took in the central park and other sites before heading to Lake Atitlan. There was a lot of construction on the road and despite our bus drivers best attempts to pass everything when at all possible the trip took a long time. We finally arrived at the lake just after dark and took a ferry across the lake to San Pedro. It was a full moon and there was a night time party on the shores of the lake in the moonlight. Lake Atitlan is a clean clear lake surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It is very beautiful. The next dayI decided to climb the San Pedro Volcano which looms above the town. The volcano is located in a national park and is about 3000 m high. It was a steep climb up and much of the trail consisted of stairs built into the side of the mountain. The trail wound through fields of coffee, corn and beans before entering the cloud forest at the top. The peak, however, was also covered in clouds and there was no view of the lake except at the beginning and end of the trip. Coming down was much easier as gravity did most of the work as we ran down. We hung out in the town another day with people we had met in the town before heading out on Wednesday.

We took the bus to Xela, the second biggest city in Guatemala, where we were planning to organize a trip up to Volcan Tajumulco. We had decided to do the trek with a group called Quetzaltrekkers. They are a group of volunteers that provide organized treks to different parts of Guatemala and Nicaragua. All the proceeds from these treks are put into different organizations. In Guatemala the proceeds went to organizations that help street kids get an education and try to get off the streets. We found Quetzaltrekkers and signed up for the weekly trip up Tajumulco on Saturday. We had two extra days before the trek so we went to the nearby hot springs in Fuente Georginas. They were high up in a cloud forest 45 minutes from the city where the hot water oozed out of the cliff walls. The deep green mineral stained water was collected in a series of pools that gradually got cooler as they drained down. The location was very beautiful and the water was more than hot enough to ignore the chilly temperature of the air. Xela is at 2300m (7500ft) and is quite chilly at night and the hot springs are even higher and cooler. The next day I went to the markets at San Francisco which is the second biggest market in the country. Almost all the streets were filled with hundreds of stands selling all kinds of products. The only streets that were empty of stands were a loop for cars and buses to arrive. The bus that I took to and from San Francisco was packed with people and the goods they were trying to sell. That night there was a meeting with Queztaltrekkers to determine what equipment to bring. I decided to borrow a winter coat, a toque, a sleeping mat and a bigger backpack to take with me. I was also given a tent to carry as my share of the load. There were 15 signed up for the trip so the individual loads were smaller.

The next day we had to get up at 4am to join the trek. Unfortunately Greg had come down with a flu overnight and the first thing he did after waking up was vomit. However he was determined to do the trek so he came anyway. The group of us got on a local bus with all of our stuff and headed two hours to the town of San Marcos. We had breakfast there and then got on another bus to the foot of Tajumulco. The start of our trek was 3000 meters in altitude. We hiked all morning up the volcano enjoying an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. We stopped for lunch at the halfway point. Greg was still really sick and was vomitting the whole way up the mountain but he was determined to get up to the top so he continued to climb slowly at the back of the pack. We reached our camp at around 4:00 pm at 4000 meters. We set up the four tents and the rest of the camp. There was a short optional hike up a smaller peak to see the sunset. The clouds had moved in a bit and the sun was setting behind Tajumulco but the colours were amazing and we watched the lights slowly turn on in the villages and towns all around the volcano. We returned to camp just in time to eat a filling pasta dinner. We all got to bed early to prepare for the summit the next day.

The guides woke us up the next morning at 3:30am. I had managed to keep myself warm enough in the frigid night but I had trouble sleeping due to trouble adjusting to the altitude so I was happy to get up and get going. We brought our warm clothes and headed up the rocky summit. It was only about an hour of scrambling until we reached the peak, 4220m (13 845 ft), the highest point in Central America and my new personal highest point. We got into our warm sleeping bags and watched the sun rise. There were hardly any clouds and we had a great view of Guatemala. We could see from the volcanoes of Lago Atitlan to the mountains of Mexico and the colours were amazing. The wind was bitter though, and we soon headed back down to camp. We had a big breakfast and headed back down the mountain, enjoying a great view the whole way. The guides said that this was one of the clearest days that they had seen. We were very fortunate to have such good weather as well as hiking with a really interesting and friendly group of people, both the guides and the other trek members. We ate lunch in the town at the foot of the volcano and headed back to Xela on local buses. Greg didn't eat much because he was still feeling under the weather but he had stopped vomitting and was very happy that he had made it to the top.