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You are here: Home / Archives for hiking

Biting Fish, Torrential Downpours, Volcanoes, Oh My!

May 8, 2009 By Jillian

After Finca Ixobel, I wasn’t really sure what to expect when we got to Rio Dulce. Manatees, kayaking, eco-lodges, sounded like our kind of place. As we hiked to Rio Dulce’s famous hot spring waterfall, we encountered Guatemalan children along the way.   Given that I had only studied Spanish for two weeks, it was no surprise that they seemed disappointed when I handed them mangoes from my bag.   We reached the hot springs and jumped in.  A strange mix of hot water from the waterfall and cold water from upstream, the water was refreshing and relaxing at the same time. We swam to a cave behind the waterfall, enjoying the water…until we started to feeling small pinches, like mosquito bites. Not paranas, but little tiny fish were trying to nibble our legs.  Freaked out Becka jumped out of the stream and not surprisingly, Danny climbed the waterfall to jump into the pool below.

Crossing another hot springs off the list, we decided to head to Livingston the next day via boat. Of course that night was a torrential downpour of what seemed biblical proportions.  Debating the boat ride to Livingston, we stood on the dock trying to gauge the weather. All of a sudden we heard a gasp from below. Two river otters peaked there heads out of the water, shook their noses at us and disappeared. If they could do it, so could we. An hour and a half later down the river, we found ourselves on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. Completely different than the rest of Guatemala, Livingston has a Garafuna population of Africans that crashed on the coast hundreds of years ago. The area around Livingston has a island feel, complete with palm trees, Caribbean patois and I’m sure if we looked hard enough Rastafarians. 🙂

Heading south, up next was Lake Atitlan for a few days of relaxation. Really, we needed more relaxation after hot springs and waterfalls. Just the joys of travel! Panahachel (aka Gringotenango – place of the gringos) was little more than an extremely commercial tourist trap, so we quickly headed out of town and took a hike around the lake. Cautioning us that it is dangerous and people get robbed, the tourist office advised us to hire a guide for $40 U.S.D. Right, no way that was going to happen. Hiking through the little towns along the coast reminded me of Cinque Terre in Italy. It was just as beautiful and although the hills were steep, “En Serio” (Seriously) Becka said at each uphill climb, it was just as fun. We arrived safely in San Marcos late in the afternoon and headed back to Panahachel in time for happy hour.

One item remained on our must-do Guatemala list, hiking Volcan Pacaya. One of the most active volcanoes in the world, Volcan Pacaya lacks the safety measures of the Western World so you can actually go right up to the lava. Booking a volcano hike in the afternoon during rainy season may not have been the smartest thing we’ve ever done, but we’ve definitely done worse. Not letting it dampen our spirits, we bought trash bags from the local kids and fashioned ourselves rain ponchos. Climbing the mountain the rain came in sheets, eventually creating mudslides. We gave up trying to stay dry and as we picked our way through the intense fog we could feel the waves of hot steam hit our faces long before we could see it. Walking in gravel of volcanic rock the guide pointed in the distance and we saw a river of lava. Inching closer (two steps forward, one step back), with no barriers, no ropes, nothing to prevent us from reaching out and touching the hot lava except for our common sense, we got as close as we dared. We may have actually been closer to lava in Hawaii, since we could see it flowing under the ground, but here the river of lava was completely above ground and from several meters away we could feel the heat and the steam. It was like being on the Discovery Channel… except for the rain. Like true discovery channel hosts, we inched closer to the lava and watched it flow like molasses down the volcano. Unlike Hawaii where the lava entered the ocean, creating new land, the end of our lava flow was lost somewhere in the storm. Two other RTW travelers, Tracy and David pulled out marshmallows, a frying pan and eggs. It might be pouring rain, but they were going to feast. Pulling away some hot rocks, they fried eggs in the rain and promptly enjoyed a soggy but delicious egg sandwich while graciously proving us with all the marshmellows we could stand. Victorious, we headed back down the muddy path which was now more of a mud slide than anything else.   Definitely one of the coolest things we’ve ever done.

Filed Under: Central America, Guatemala Tagged With: hiking, hot springs, lava, swimming, volcanoes

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Gas!

March 29, 2009 By Jillian

We left Chihuahua last Tuesday on an overnight bus to Zacatecas (see a pattern here?). A beautiful colonial town about 12 hours south of Chihuahua, Zacatecas was the silver mining capital of the world until the 1960s. Zacatecas is in a valley between two mountains and still sits about 3000m. The biggest mountain, La Bufa, has a church at the top as well as some monuments to Mexican Revolutionaries. At that altitude, nothing is an easy climb, especially the four flights of stairs to our room on the top floor of the hostel!

Almost as soon as we arrived in Zacatecas we headed to Eden Mines, the old silver mines of Zacatecas. Although the entire tour was in Spanish (woah!) and we only understood about 20% of what the guide told us and got almost none of the jokes, we had a good time playing with the fake statues and pretending to understand the tour. The Mines also have the unique feature of hosting a disco club at night… a little strange, but if it wasn’t so expensive to get in at night we may have come just to see it!

Tuesday we also made a trip to see (and use the bathroom of) the Quinta Real Hotel which is actually built into Zacateca’s old bullfighting ring. We couldn’t afford to stay there ($300 USD/night!) but we headed in for some pictures of the bull ring, where Danny played the part of the bull. We spent the afternoon at a meticulously manicured city park entertained by dancing fountains just like at The Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee Gaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssss! Around dawn the next morning we were awakened by carnival music and eeeeeee gaaaassss. What on earth? Falling back asleep, we groaned as it happened again and again throughout the morning, until finally we got up. In the US we have trash collection in the morning, it makes a lot of noise, but its brief and moves down the street quickly. In Zacatecas they have early morning natural gas sales…seriously. We learned that a few years ago another guest of the hostel wrote the city council requesting that the gas salesman not be allowed to sell gas at such an hour.  I guess it worked for a few years and he didn’t come by before 7am, but it seems that the restrictions are now over and Zacatecas will probably win the award for the most unique and most annoying alarm clock,  Eeeeeee Gaaaaaassssss!

Thursday we took a hike with some people from the hostel up to the top of La Bufa. The views were incredible, but even better was the fact we were able to stretch our legs and do some climbing (actual rock climbing with our hands) and hiking. Later we headed down to the mask museum, where Danny, who has decided he wants a collection of masks from around the world to adorn his future “man cave”, bought our first souvenir.

I realize that we’re in Mexico and we haven’t really talked about food. Its been absolutely delicious, but having mexican every breakfast, lunch and dinner (nothing like chilis or hot salsa for breakfast, who needs coffee?) wears away your taste buds. Our first night in Zacatecas, our Swiss friend Severine, who is a chef, lead a dinner crew in the kitchen. Our meal consisted of delicious guacamole, a salad with nopalitas and pasta primavera. Wait you ask, what are nopalitas? Glad you asked and no its not an insect. We’re saving those delicacies for Oaxaca. Nopalitas are an edible species of cactus common throughout Mexico. They have a tart taste, but to be honest we most enjoyed playing with the salad as nopalitas have the consistency of ecto-slime.

Before leaving Zacatecas with another overnight bus ride to Valles, we first partook in the obligatory margarita night the Hostel hosts each Thursday. I don’t think there is much need for explanation about margarita night… lets just say that it was great way to top off our time in a great little town.

Filed Under: Mexico Tagged With: hiking, masks, zacatecas

Creel & The Copper Canyon

March 25, 2009 By Danny

After having a great time in Baja California Sur we took the ferry to the mainland to begin the next phase of our journey, The Copper Canyon Railway. The train is a marvel unto itself as it passes through an area similar to our grand canyon, but through more tunnels and bridges than any other railroad in the world. Overall, the train was very slow but as we got deeper and deeper into the canyon the scenery changed from the Mexican desert to alpine forest, complete with crisp air scented with pine.

The hostel in Creel was a nice enough hostel filled with backpackers and other interesting travelers. I mention it though not for this reason but for the strange messages we found there. On the ceiling some had written “Detras de las voces des mundo es la risa Mexicana” (behind the voices of the world is the laugh of Mexico) and on the wall was a National Geographic map that said “Voices of the World”. Naturally, I took down the map (everyone else was looking at me as though I had two heads because they hadn’t noticed the connection) and found the below image behind it. Our first postcard will go to whoever comes up for the best meaning of this sign.

We began our Creel bicycle trip the next morning once we re-negotiated the price of the bike rentals from the hostel and headed off to the ‘reservation’ of the Tarahumara. These are indigenous peoples, related to the Apache and Hopi in the United States. Mostly they keep to themselves but the ninos are always willing to come to you and put out a hand and as for un peso while the ninas say compre as they hold up some handicrafts to sell. These children don’t actually speak Spanish, they just know enough to ask you to buy things or give them money.

Overall the biking was not too terribly special, mostly fire-roads through the wilderness that this mountain biker would not have called mountain biking. Having said that, about 30 minutes into our trip Jill slipped and sliced the back part of her calf on the gears of the bike. We have run countless adventure races, are trained in wilderness first aid, and always carry a very large first aid kit- which was safely stashed back at the hostel. I know, we’re idiots. Luckily, despite the depth of the cut, it was just in the flesh and made it into town for a visit to the clinic where we were told stitches were not required.

The clinic however was another story in that it was filled with Tarahumara whom we believed were there for routine care. Jill however was ushered straight in and take care of immediately, we assume because she is gringa and therefore could pay. Of course they wouldn’t let me back with her so Jill had to manage by herself, in Spanish, with only her Italian to get her through. Ahh, I love my wife. The nun did an exceptional job of digging all the dirt out of the cut with a bar of soap and some water. Luckily, when they needed to know if she was pregnant they thought to play charades rather than just speaking slowly!

Once we got Jill taken care of Sévérine, our new traveling companion, and I (it was only noon) continued with our bike tour, quickly finding the hidden trail (there was a sign) that other travelers said was impossible to find. We made our way to a waterfall (which wasn’t there) and to the lake which was nice, but filled with Tarahumara children who wanted to sell their wares, we gave them some apple instead. We then headed back as we weren’t wearing bike shorts and things were beginning to hurt where they shouldn’t.

Creel was certainly a nice place to visit and one could spend more time there but it had been enough for us. I think the most memorable part of the stay was later than evening when two stray dogs, or rather a perro and a perra, began to follow us. We changed direction, crossed the street, entered stores, got them to cross the tracks but no matter what we did they just kept following us. Eventually we realized that the perro was only interested in the perra so we know it was her that was following us but we still don’t know why. Finally we gave up and headed back to the hostel for dinner, an hour later when we left it took less than 30 seconds for them to find us again. We’re not sure what it was about us (Jill and Sévérine think it was me they were following) but it made for some good fun.

Filed Under: Cycle, Mexico Tagged With: biking, chihuahua, copper canyon, hiking, train

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