Monkeys and Lava

...but you only get photos of the lava

Photos at Flickr

The first thing I did after arriving in the country was fall in a lake.  Somehow, I actually managed to enter the water headfirst.  I would pay good money to see a video of it.  Must have been spectacular, arms and legs flailing, bouncing off concrete steps coated in algae (who knew?).  Me headfirst into the water, completely submerge, and then jumping out of the water as quickly as possible. Frantically, pulling my camera and passport out of my pockets.  Pulling my money out of other pockets, stripping off my shirt.  I think it would have been hilarious to watch someone else doing this.  Sadly though, it was me.

So... No photos of Tikal.  Which is really a shame because Tikal is absolutely deserving of its reputation as the granddaddy of all Mayan ruins.  It had all the elements, deep heavy jungle, early morning mist, howler monkeys somewhere out of sight making their deep, creepy calls...  And the tops of  the temple pyramids rising up and out above the canopy.  When I first arrived there were vultures perched of the corners of Temple I and tucans flying above it.  I'm glad I came here last, after Palenque, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Coba, and Tulum.  Because they would have been anti-climatic if I had already been to Tikal.  I had been feeling ruined-out after Mexico, but this ruined city was enough to re-ignite the excitement.  Before the day was done, I had climbed “ladders” that would never, ever, be allowed in the States, spent hours sitting and watching both howler monkey and spider monkey troops move through the canopy foraging directly above me and sat at the top of Temple IV taking in the scene from the end of Star Wars IV.

From Peten state I headed south by overnight bus to Guatemala City and then immediately on to Antigua.  Antigua is a very nice, small, town nestled down in the mountainous highlands of western Guatemala.  If you were knocked unconscious at home and woke up here you might briefly mistake it for a mountain village in the Alps.  At least until you noticed that among the beautiful green peaks that completely surround you are picture perfect volcanos.  The type a child would draw.  Perfectly triangular up to a sharp point.  One even had a small cloud of smoke drifting from the top.  An ideallized volcano made real, and plopped down right next to a pretty little town in Guatemala.  As I was still in a hurry to get my Spanish lessons started, I only spent two night in the town.  This was only enough time to hike nearby Volcan Pacaya.  The town deserves more time than this and perhaps I'll stop by again on the way towards El Salvador in a month or so.

            

Even so, Volcan Pacaya is the highlight of the area.  It's a live volcano that has actual rivers of lava flowing down from vents on it's side.  I took a guided tour, with about 10 others, that took us up and to these rivers.  The hike up was about three hours of mildly strenuous hiking.  Eventually we emerged out of the forested flank of the volcano and up into the dead zone.  Nothing here but broken and jagged rocks.  In the distance across this landscape of utterly barren, black, cooled lava flows we could just make out a few points of red.  That would be the freaking lava!  Across the lava flows we went.  The guide got us within a fifty meters or so and then retired to a nearby outcrop to eat and bullshit with a few other guides that were coming along behind us.  So there we were, maybe 20 tourists and no guide, wandering around wherever the hell we pleased with a river of lava on one side of us and red hot rocks occasionally rolling past and down a gully on the other side of us!  Of course we got as close to the lava as the heat allowed.  This ended up being about 3 feet or so.  Close enough to stick your walking stick in it or cook marshmallows (conveniently sold on the way up).  At one point I looked down and three feet below me, through a large crack in the flow I was on, the rock was glowing a bright red.  Three feet directly below me!  This place was dangerous as hell and I loved it.

And because the town really was beautiful and deserves at least a few photos here:

               

Actun Tunichil Muknal

Photos

Following a wet, cold, and miserable 2.5 hour hike out of the jaguar reserve, I caught a series of buses all the way across Belize to San Ignacio.  This sounds like a larger undertaking than it actually was, Belize is a small country.

At this point I was getting impatient to start Spanish lessons so I wasn't planning on spending anytime here.  It was to be a place to stay before crossing to Guatemala the next day.  I ended up, however, getting a really good deal on a tour through the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave, known as the ATM cave.  And I'm sooo glad I did.  What an amazing treasure this cave is!  Discovered only 20 years ago, the cave contains ancient Mayan ceremonial chambers that have remained entirely unlooted.  Following the discovery of the cave, archeologists and the Belizean government made the unusual decision to leave the cave nearly entirely as is.  With only a very few exceptions none of the artifacts or remains have be disturbed in anyway, much less excavated.  With a guide, tourists are allowed to walk  amongst them.

This tour was unlike anything I've ever done before.  Walking, in socks only, just feet, sometimes inches from the remains of sacrifice victims.  Over the centuries the bones had slowly been covered with the same limestone material that stalactites grow from.  Glued to the ground by mineral deposits were nearly complete pots, some entirely intact with just small holes intentionally punched into them after use in a ceremony.  Walking through the cave was an entirely different experience than, say, walking around a museum.  These bones are laying exactly where the victim fell and died a thousand years ago.  It was easy, almost impossible not to imagine myself here in this spot a thousand years ago.   A central bonfire throwing shadows of stalactites, columns and other people across the walls and roof of the chamber.  Nothing but blackness leading deeper into the complete unknown. Having my hands and feet bound, here, deep in the mouth of the underworld.  The home of cruel gods, here to be tortured and killed and offered as sacrifice.  My god, I would have been terrified.

Getting into these chambers involved hiking through deep jungle, fording rivers, swimming in subterranean rivers, and wading through neck deep pools past spectacular natural formations.  The ceremonial chambers were about an hour trek deeper inside once in the cave.  I am so lucky to have ended up staying the extra day and taking this tour.  One of the highlights of the trip so far.

Indiana Jones... pshaw, whatever. Been there, done that

Belize Zoo and the Cockscomb Nature Preserve

Photos

Branching off the dirt road on the way to the visitors center at the Cockscomb Nature Reserve in south central Belize is a short path leading through the jungle to the wreckage of an old Cessna that had crashed thirty years ago.  Oh hell yeah!  I was walking around it enjoying the exoticness of exploring a wrecked plane in the middle of the rainforest when I almost walked right into a ten foot long Boa Constictor.  It had coiled itself up around one of the struts that hold the wing to the fuselage.  It was right at eye level and I didn't see it until I was well within striking distance, think two feet...  Lucky for me, it was pretty chill boa constrictor.  Content just to sit there, wrapped around the wrecked plane and watch me watch it.  This is the sort of thing that only happens in movies!  Cool, cool, cool!  Again displaying unusual self-restraint I didn't try to catch him.  Five foot bull snakes and pissed of coachwhips are one thing.  Ten foot long boa constrictors in the middle of the freaking jungle are a bit different.  Only photographs this time.

Spending one's first night alone in the jungle is a unique experience.  So sad that it can only be done once!  It was a two hour hike into the reserve, with full back pack this was a good workout.  When I got there and asked for a room, the guy seemed a bit surprised.  Guess they don't have many overnight visitors.  That day they had exactly one, me.  The place was strange, they have a twenty four bed dorm and several other stand alone cabins.  None of the doors were locked.  Even the conference center (seemingly used once and then abandoned) and the storage rooms with all the park documents, files and everything else was unlocked.  Of course I went about trying all the doors of all the buildings...  About 4:30 the one guy in the office went home, and though there was a caretaker who stayed overnight, he was in a separate building, in a separate clearing, with a hundred yards of jungle between us.  So there I was alone, well except for the rats.  There were rats, and they gave me more company than I would have liked.  The cabins were infested with them.  Scurrying around all night.  On the rafters, on the floor, on the bed, probably on me as I slept...

 

So now that that is out of the way... The park was actually quite nice  That night, in addition to the rats, I listened to howler monkeys, and, to my mind at least, jaguars.  Later that night, and lasting nearly 'til morning it lightninged.  It was very weird.  Stars in the sky, no thunder at all, and no rain until much later.  The lightning was all our of sight beyond the trees lining my little clearing, all I could see in the dark were brief flashes lighting up the sky and the trees.  It was bizarre, and that night, alone in the jungle, it got my imagination racing again.  I couldn't believe it was lightning.  No thunder, no rain, stars out as far as I could see.  Before long I was convinced Guatemala had invaded Belize.  They've been making territorial claims on it since the country was founded and I was convinced these flashes were bombs going off down in Punta Gorda and up in Belmopan and Belize city.  Oh how the mind works late at night, alone in the jungle!  With the rats...

The next morning, the world was still in order afterall and I took an early morning hike hoping to catch the wildlife still active.  Again, no jaguars, but plenty of giant currasows.  These are big birds, the size of turkeys that live up in the trees and make a lot of noise.  I did see plenty of fresh jaguar tracks in the mud.  They clearly use the hiking trails to get around the forest.  And there are a lot of them in the area, one of the densest populations anywhere, hence the dedicated nature reserve just for them.  Imagine, just a few hours before I was there a jaguar had been walking along the same path, also looking for local wildlife...

Swimming with manatees

I lost my flip-flops! I loved those flip-flops, now I have some crappy, cheap pair. You'd think on a tropical island off the coast of Belize they'd sell some decent flip-flops. It's not like anyone wears anything else. It's either flip-flops or barefoot. Pretty damn lame if you ask me. I left mine on some deserted stretch of sand about an hour away from town by kayak. Didn't realize I had left them until I was all the way back. Tempted to go get them the next day, but figured the tide would have washed them out to see. So sad. I loved those flip-flops :(

No beaches on the island, nothing but muck and sea grass actually. Even kayaking around the mangrove forests along the northern part of the key there was nothing but sea grass and muck. The kayaking was great fun, the snorkeling... not so much. Plus I lost my flip-flops. The island was slow and relaxed. They have a motto actually, written on store signs and walls around the town, “Go Slow”. They certainly do that. It was the down season, so “slow” was bordering on comatose. Not that I minded, a club person I am not, and there were a few bars around and some others in the hostel to go have a few beers with. So that was good enough for me.

The snorkeling out at the reef was a different experience entirely. It took a boat ride to do it, sailboat actually, but we did finally make it out past the sea grass and muck. And to the most spectacular reef! We swam with manatees, and sharks. Sea turtles, and stingrays. Barracuda and tarpon... The manatees would have fit in well at Caye Caulker. Though I'm told they can swim surprisingly fast, these two sure didn't. Just cruised along, neither particullarly interested nor annoyed by the seven snorkelers that kept following them around. Occasionally they'd get far enough away to disappear into the haze only to turn around and lazily cruise right back. A very memorable experience. Such peaceful animals.

The sharks to didn't seem to mind us either. At least not until our guide grabbed one by the dorsal and pectoral fins for us to touch. That one minded, not enough to bite, but enough to struggle free pretty quickly. Just as well, I know they are fed by the tour guides to keep them around, but actually grabbing them goes a bit too far. Still, it was unhurt and probably just a bit irritated. If it wanted to it could leave the area. But the food is too good, and if that means getting grabbed every now and then, I guess that is the choice it made...

The reef here off the cayes is an actual reef. I was disappointed by the snorkeling in Cozumel, but here... incredible. Brain coral, branching coral, all different colors and inhabited by fish even more varied and colorful. The guide was quick to point out the fire coral. And I successfully fought the urge to see just how painful this “fire” coral is anyway. I mean, I'm a tough guy, I could take it right? Dunno, and not gonna find out. At least not on purpose. Guess I'm getting old, there was a time when I definitely would have tested it. Hell I still can't resist touching an electric fence, just to see how big a shock it is (this varies tremendously from fence to fence by the way.) Meh, I've seen enough national geo's to know better than to touch fire coral.