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: