Not quite Fifty Shades of Grey...

...but this is my FIFTIETH blog entry! 


What do you mean its not as erotic as the novel...?! ;-p


I wanted this blog entry milestone to pay homage to Queenie celebrating her Jubilee but then foolishly realised that she has been reigning sixty years not fifty - still I guess the intention was there...


Anyway moving on, having finally managed to tear myself away from Antigua I set off for my next destination in Guatemala - Lake Atitlan. The lake is famous for being the deepest in Central America - 340 metres! I was excited about visiting as my aunt had spent the best part of her honeymoon there. She had also been around my age when she visited so I felt like I was on a pilgrimage on her behalf.


The journey there got off to a late start as our driver got lost and then had to pick up lots of other people en route. By the time we arrived in San Pedro (The side of the lake we were staying on) I was massively tired, nauseous and with a headache from all the fumes coming into the bus. Guatemala it seems has never heard of catalytic converters or unleaded fuel. 


For most of the journey we were stuck behind a chicken bus which was emitting so much black smoke you could barely see. The way our bus was being driven also didnt help the cause. Despite the road being tarmaced it felt like we were on a boat in a storm - the way our driver pressed the accelerator intermittently but not consistently meant we were chugging back and forth.  This mixed in with the fumes made for a nauseating ride.


Thankfully the view from the vertiginous cliff roads was worth the drive. San Pedro resembled an Italian seaside village but obviously without the sea. There was mist rising from the lake which made it look very ethereal. 


Waking up the next day the beauty of the lake was in full view. Walking around I couldnt quite believe how much of it had flooded the shore - there were entire houses almost covered by the water. Who knew a lake could flood?! 

Lake Atitlan - worth the drive

Locals doing washing in the lake

House flooded by the lake!

San Pedro was a warren of tiny paths connecting all the hostels, bars and eateries. Being so narrow I assumed that they were just for pedestrians, that is until I was very nearly mowed down by a tuk tuk as it came hurtling around a corner. It seems where there is a path in Latin America, there is a mode of transport willing to make its way down. 

Tiny paths

Jesus is THE man according to this wall sign...

Local tuk tuks up close - they all try and rip you off

I spent a few days in San Pedro before popping over on a boat to San Marcos which was the next town across the lake. I only spent a morning here as it was a little too hippie chic for my liking. There were space cakes and mushrooms being sold pretty much on every corner and I saw way too much tie dye walking around for my liking. 


My tuk tuk ride back to San Pedro went via San Pedro which itself was rather a non entity but did mean I saw awesome views of the lake. 

Catching the boat across the lake

I assumed this was someone's house but then the tuk tuk driver informed me it was a clinic. Guatemalas answer to The Priory...

Volcanoes which surround the lake

Local political propaganda

more political propaganda...

From San Pedro I did a day trip to Chichicastenango which is famous for its bi-weekly market. Id visited markets in previous Latin countries but they didnt rival ChiChi in terms of character, hustle and bustle. There were stalls and people everywhere. I came away with a rather interesting pottery double skull candle holder. However being the accident prone person that I am I managed to decapitate the top skull within 30 minutes of carrying it around. Im hoping when I get back to Blighty Ill be able to super glue it back. 


I wanted to capture as much of the market as I could on camera but the locals had another idea. Every one I asked to pap just shook their heads at me and glared. I guess they are fed up of tourists like me oggling them. I did manage to get a few pics but not as many as I wanted. 

The church in the middle of the market

Inside the food market

Dried white bait anyone?

Chillaxing

In the middle of the market I saw a guy holding the most unusual looking video camera. It resembled a Victorian concertina camera crossed with a polaroid. It turned out he was a professional camera man taking footage of the locals (clearly with better luck than me!) for a TV programme in the USA. He was very open in telling me that the camera was worth $50k and was 5 x High Definition (HD) in power. He had just come from filming Ridley Scotts Prometheus with the very same camera! Awesome.


I left the market and caught a shuttle back to the womb that was Antigua. I stayed here a night and then the next day made my way to Lanquin which is the starting point for visiting Semuc Champey - a series of limestone water pools you can swim in.


My accomodation that night consisted in staying in Zephyr Lodge which resembled the Shire out of Lord of the Rings. The lodge was a series of buildings all with thatched roofs in the middle of a valley with amazing views - especially when I took a shower!

The Shire?

Showering al fresco! I wonder if the locals have cottoned on to this happening yet...?

The next day I signed up to do the tour of the Semuc Champey limestone pools and was told that there was also some caving and a hike involved in the day trip. Fine I thought, all sounds good. The cave itself used to be a ritual site for locals until it was discovered by someone from a nearby town who came up with the idea of opening it up to tourists. It is now owned by a local hotel proprietor. 


I should have taken our mode of transport to Semuc Champey as a sign of things to come. Everybody was squeezed standing onto the back of a pick up truck, clinging to a metal bar to keep themselves on board during what would inevitably be a white knuckle ride. Having seen this standard mode of countryside transport elsewhere in the numerous Latin American countries I've visited, I knew that there was always a spare seat up front with the driver. I immediately asked the tour guide and was promptly buckled up in a comfy seat. Moral of the story: if you don't ask you don't get.


Having survived the bumpy ride there, the tour began with a rope swing into the river - which I avoided like the plague as the current was too strong and I knew my swimming wouldn't be up to it (I never mastered front crawl so my swimming repertoire consists of just doggy paddle and breaststroke). Then came a twelve metre leap from a suspension bridge over the same river. Again I refused politely. 

The view from the bridge

The brave ones

Next came the caving. I was a little apprehensive given that Im not the greatest fan of the dark and also enclosed places. I had managed to wangle a life jacket to wear over my swimwear - I thought not only would it keep me afloat if I started to panic, it would also give me some warmth in the cold damp cave. The minute we entered the cave we (there were eighteen of us with just one guide...) were up to our torsos in deep water. We then had to swim through the water whilst holding a lit candle in order to see where we were going. Not a mean feat I can tell you but it did mean the cave looked very romantic and thus calmed me down somewhat.

Says it all really 

Once we had succesfully crossed the stretch of water we had to scale the sides of some rocks and then crawl (the ceiling was so low you couldnt stand) through an opening in the rock. That is until we came to a waterfall which our guide Marcos said that they normally scale with a rope - no hard hats of safety harnesses here. Fortunately for us the water volume was too much for us to scale so instead we had to walk through it and around again. All very straightforward until I suddenly found myself panicking. I was struggling to breath and open my eyes due to the volume of water cascading above me. Thankfully after some quick intervention from our guide Marcos (he literally held onto me and walked me through) and some pep talking from my fellow travel buddies I managed to calm down. 


The journey back to the entrance went as well as could be expected. I managed to jump the two metre drop off the rock ledge which we had previosly climbed a ladder for. What I hadnt envisaged was my head would go under the water - I had assumed (naively) that wearing my lifejacket would prevent me from doing this! But it didnt and I went straight down and then bobbed up again with lungs and ears full of water. Needless to say I wasn't amused by this at all but I was overjoyed at having managed to launch myself off a rock into pitch black water, all pretty impressive for me. 


I was grateful for exiting the cave in one piece. As much as the tour was interesting, it was far from safe - we had no hard hats, safety harnesses or head torches - and Im certain you would never be allowed to do this back in Europe. Travelling I have discovered makes you do lots of things you would never dream of doing back home but somehow seem perfectly acceptable whilst you're on the road!


The climax of the tour was hiking up a steep incline towards a mirador (lookout point) which gave a stunning view of the limestone pools of Semuc Champey. The ascent and descent was one big sweatfest so we were all grateful for the cool water pools at the end. However our relief soon turned into frustration once we realised that the pools were full of jagged toe and leg breaking rocks everywhere. I discovered that swimming backwards was less lethal to my shins but did mean my enjoyment was overtaken by concentrating on avoiding being hurt. 

View of Semuc Champey limestone pools from the mirador

One of the pools I swam in

Overall I had a really good day and felt glad that I had managed to complete it all without suffering any physical injury. As for my mental well being, lets just say I shall not be going caving again any time soon!