El Salvador

Revolucionarios, Suchitoto, Waterless waterfall we decided to climb, ¨In this house we want a life free of violence towards women¨, I took a detour off this rock, La Playa EL Tunco,

Guatemala

Antigua, Antigua, Sunset; Monterrico Beach, Las Brisas Del Mar; Monterrico Beach, Livingston, Sunset on La Danta; El Mirador, Tikal, Semuc Champey, Fuentes Georinas, bracelet hustler,Roasting marshmellows on flowing lava; Pacaya, Lago de Atitlan

Del Salvador

So we have finally left Guatemala. we wanted to be out by february, but some places are just hard to leave. we are in la playa el tunco now, a surfing beach town 10km from La Libertad, a world famous beach spot given notoriety by its strong waves. after returning to antigua for our last run in Guate, we hit the coast and went south across la frontera. the difference upon hitting el salvador was stark. money, transport, people, food, you name it. traveling appears like it might be harder, or at least require us to actually do things on our own. the chicken buses in guatemala, which is the prevailing method of transportation, all had what mike and i call collectors. these are dudes who work with the driver, collecting people, their fare and their bags. there is also always someone asking you where your ultimate destination may be, to direct you towards whatever bus may be heading in that direction, even if it isnt, and most likely will not be, a direct non stop affair. el salvador is a different story. for one the tourism infrastructure is not set up. there is no person to tell you what bus to take to get where you need to go. and there is no caged in luggage rack on the top of the chicken busses, which means that we have to bring our oversized, yet overstuffed, back packs on to the bus with us, as if our incomparably large bodies were not cumbersome enough. it seems everything we took for granted for in guatemala, and in fact got tired of, does not exist here. everything that made traveling easy, all the assistance and direction.
the physical difference in peoples appearance is somewhat remarkable. we in fact are not especially tall any longer. the nationals here seem more european; whiter and taller. we noticed this immediatly after crossing the border, first and foremost the women. tall, skinny but voluptuous, lighter skin but with a dark hue still. this clearly transcends to males, but mike and i have not explicitly noticed. these physical traits, and the lack of indigenious culture compared to guatemala, is a consequence of the war, and how succesfull the el savadorian military was, with the help of the US, in exterminating darker skin and more primitive indians. the sites attesting to this attrocious war are in the north eastern parts of el salvador, and we plan on visiting some of these cities if we can ever make it out of this awesome hostel we are in now. its this cozy surfers lodge right on the beach, for 7.50 a night. the food the kitchen pumps out is incredible, ranging from 2 to 5 US dollars a meal. we have been told it will be hard to leave, and we know exactly what this piece of advice means, for we have been on the opposite end of its delivery. with this said, there is much i would like to see in el salvador, mostly related to is rich political history. many cities in the north and eastern parts of el salvador were major strongholds of the FLMN, the guerilla revolutionary group that fought the el salvadorian government. this brutal and repressive war ravaged the country side, as the el salvadorian military, with the help of billions of US dollars, systematically exterminated thousands of idigena, peasants, farmers, and anyone who appeared left leaning or supportive of the revolution. now you can visit first hand the cities that are still marred, both is people and its surroundings by the war. you can get a former guerilla as a guide, to take you around and show you various relics that are unofficially preserved by former revolutionaries.
el salvador appears to be much less conservative and much more politically engaged then guatemala. within the second day here, there was a march on the beach of young invovled citizens, waiving FMLN flags, which i was able to obtain one by the way.
i cant help but be excited for nicaragua in the midst of el salvador. we shall reach nica by next week.
tales and ails.

Los Viajeros

So we are finally leaving Guatemala for El Salvador. We just spent 4 days at Monterrico, working on our tans, and we'll be doing the same in El Salvador at El Tunco. Guate has been great and we've conquered it all. We are thinking of possibly posting up somewhere. Will it be Nica? or panama? maybe colombia or costa rica. Who knows. But the money is getting tighter. A friend also sent me a link from people who have already received their invitations for Peace Corps, and so far Ecuador is the only L.A. country in June so maybe I'll be posted there. We're planning on partying one last time in G City tomorrow night and then off to el salvador. whether we'll just do the beaches or not I'm not sure but soon enough we'll be in Nica. A line is forming for the internet so I'll be the nice guy and post some more later.

45 miles, 12 hours

we had a mule and a horse to carry our things, food , water etc., but only our feet to carry ourselves. there were 5 of us. our guide, who mike and i met on a bus to tikal , and two others. Rony, had been to el mirador once, to excavate, but never as una guia. this would be his first, which we discovered when we asked him about el mirador. after we asked him if he would take us, he said sure. and he did so, for less than a third of the price of any other organized tour. If booked from a tour agency in Flores, the price could be between $200-500 USD. We paid less than 500 quetzales each. the other two that made up our group, a canadian and his guide, we met on the bus to carmelita. they ended up being a savior , because we were drastically ill prepared, and thankfully they had ample extra food. carmelita is the town all who visit el mirador depart from. when i say town, i mean a little village three hours away from civilazation down a gravel road. it was essentially just a field, where pigs, horses, dogs and chickens roamed, a comedor and a tienda, and a health center that never was open. it took us two days to reach el mirador. the 7 hour walk to tintal, which took us 5 is considered a half way point. we spent the night there, and made it to el mirdador in about 6 hours the next day. after spending two nights and a full day exploring the ruins of el mirador, we decided to make the hike back to carmelita in one day. we woke up at 5am and started hiking through the jungle in the morning darkness. we made it to tintal by noon, had lunch, i.e. tuna and ramen, and hit the road again. the second half felt like forever, and we certainly did not have the energy to keep us moving at the same pace we made during the first half. the last 15 miles were arduous. my legs almost gave up on me. the crowd left me behind. they left mike behind shortly after. but we both made it, completing a 70 km hike in one day, i know i had never done. this is no walk in the park either, no sidewalks or grassy paths, but pure jungle. alot of the walk is through what would be swamp in the rainy season. instead its this clay like mud that almost eats your shoes at every step. spider monkeys jangle from the trees, and the canadian actually got shit on by one of them. lets consider it good luck.

el mirador is a vast complex of unexplored tombs and temples. the ancient mayan city was first abandoned in 300 AD, for mysterious reasons. only 5% of its structures have been discovered and excavated. even those remain buried beneath the jungle for the most part. that means that the huge pyramids that el mirador holds, appear to just be large mountains randomly pertruding out of the jungle floor. this could not be more of an illusion. underneath the flora and fauna are plazas, pyramids and giant acopolis´ of grandiosity. the largest and most extrordeinary is la danta. this is the biggest known still standing pyramid in the world, by volume that is. it can literally hold 17 soccer fields withiin it. it stands over 200 ft tall, and its base is a whopping 900 by 1800ft. o yea, did i mention we slept on this bad boy. we literally camped on top of this pyramid to sleep. the view; incredible, the sky; mega clear and the sounds; exclusively jungle like. because we were so high up, the bugs were kept at a minimal. the wind was pretty brutal as well, and almost blew our tent away at one point. we saw several shooting stars by the way, which i dont think i have ever seen one in my life. appearantly they happen quite often, although you rarely see them because the sky is so tainted by pollution. not the case when you are 60km into the jungle. Chris did a good job capturing the trip so let me add some details. The view from La Danta, the largest pyramid known and the place where we slept, was an incredible 360 degree panoramic view. Our Guide pointed out Tintal to us which was just a little spec in the distance, and we could see several other smaller pyramids still under the jungle. The bugs were not a problem, and in fact I've been bitten by more bugs staying in hotels than in the jungle. We had a great time while we were out there and the walk back was indeed arduous. We decided to make it back in one day because we wanted to catch the one and only bus out of carmelita which leaves at 5am. If we had not made it in one day then we would have had to camp an extra night. And the bus ride was a journey in and of itself, of a barrelling dirt road that would constantly throw you around. When we finally made it to Carmelita, the little images of beer and sodas and all things sweet became reality as we slumped ourselves into the tienda and bought all of our hearts desires. We also ran into the Germans which we had met in San Pedro {and I'm not sure if we had mentioned them before} but they are pretty awesome and they had said they were going to mirador at the same time, so we saw them coming out when we were going in. They came back later for a second trip to go hunting in the jungle and we drank some beers with them in carmelita. Chris got very cranky on the walk back which made it easier to pass him. We also never talked about Tikal I don't think. We camped at Tikal and snuck in with some insight for our soon-to-be guide Rony, and sneaking into Tikal is actually extremely easy. So easy that we sacked our plan to wake up very early to watch the sunrise from Temple IV and just strolled in at about 8am. But then we got busted this second time, so after some theatrics we went back to camp and decided we'd have to justpay for the ticket anyways, which is alot at 150 quetzales. Tikal was very impressive however, and Mirador may be like that in the future once they get all of the ruins our from under the jungle. But for now Mirador is a path tread lightly by tourists, still buried deep inside the jungle.

para el mirador

so we got our heads shaved, less hair for the bugs to nest. the beards remain. we leave today with two guatemaltecas and a mule for el mirador, a two day hike each way. this site is 7 miles from the mexican border and holds some of the largest and unexplored sites from the mayan world.
hopefully we get back to civilization by saturday.
wish us luck.

On to Tikal

So here we are, on the precipice of going to Tikal, so we´ll find out if the hype is real. Tikal by the way is an ancient Mayan city, amd the ruins have been restored, and it holds one of the largest pyramids from the Mayan world. Currently we´re in Flores, a tiny tiny little island village om the Peten Itza lake. Its quite beautiful despite the clouds struggling to keep the sun from shining through. Last night it also rained, the first time we had really seen rain this whole trip, although Chris and I were asleep by 9pm, a strange occurrence which has been happening lately. Another occurrence we´re getting used to is the daily routine of waking up to new and mysterious bug bites no matter where we stay, and curiously enough none of the bites are from mosquitoes. And Chris and I have been growing beards for over a week now and they´re getting pretty crazy. Before Flores, we were in Lanquin, which is in the middle of nowhere Guatemala, in a beautiful Valley surrounded by mountains. We stayed at a place called Rabin Itzam the first night because we got in so late from out long backcountry trip from Huehuetenango to Lanquin. By the way, these places with names like Rabin Itzam we can´t tell anymore if they´re Mayan or Israeli, because for some reason there is a large Israeli expat population in Guatemala. Maybe they come after their 2 year service in the army. We were even discriminated against in San Pedro, at an Israeli run hostal called Zoola, where the woman quickly looked us up and down and said there were no rooms - a phrase we have never heard on this trip. In fact there are always rooms. And we never have reservations. We merely hear about the next place to go visit from expats, hop on a bus there, and after many ¨no gracias´¨ to the swarming ´guides´that want to show us hotels to stay in, we quickly find one and put our bags down and explore our new surroundings. This is essentially how we travel. After Rabin itzam, Chris not-so-cleverly asked where El Retiro was - another hostal down the road full of gringos. To this the woman who worked at our place profusely asked ´why?´before finally giving us drections. She had devolved into such a funk andwas sending us such negative vibes after this that the decision to move was made very easy. El Retiro was like a fantasy hide away. Set upon the Lanquin river the large grounds were bset with thatch roofed bungalows, amd even our own roaming cow. But I guess Chris already mentioned this. In Lanquin we went to the caves there at dusk and watched bats fly out. At Semuc Champey (9 km from Lanquin), which was certainly a highlight of the trip, we went deep into caves, even having to swim at certain times, and performed many jumps - off of rope swings, bridges, high rocks, etc. We´re also getting used to seeing a lot of the same expats from time to time, which I guess shows how small the country is. From Lanquin we took a micro to Flores. which was a little over 8 hours. Interstingly, there were only 4 of us who left from El Retiro, and here is the shocker, we didn´t pick up anyone along the way- a true first. So instead of being crammed between 4 mayans, a chicken and bouncing mayan children, we had our own row of seats to lay down on. Now we have to figure out how we will go about Tikal, whether to camp there or stay 20 minutes away in El Remate. After Tikal we´ll come back down the Atlantic side of the country and wrap things up. Then party in Guatemala city or Antigua. Then off to el Salvador and Nicaragua.