By Eleanor Kazdan, July 16, 2020 — We set out on June 3, 2008, to visit Adrian, my son, on his journey through Mexico and Central America. He had been traveling for 5 months, loving the nomadic life and its adventures, [meeting] hardships and people, following his passion for visiting Mayan ruins and expanding his knowledge of their culture and spiritual life. Every day was a new adventure, and Adrian was an amazing guide, translator, and inspiration. He was lean and muscular from the traveling life. [He had a] daily rigorous yoga practice and a Spartan diet. He conversed in Spanish with the locals. There was an atmosphere of energy and excitement about this rugged and beautiful part of the world. The landscapes, villages, and towns were endlessly interesting and colorful. For me, it was reminiscent of traveling in Europe in the ’60s where everything seemed captivating, unknown, and far removed from North American culture.
June 3 we arrived with our backpacks at the Mayan village of San Marcos on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala in the middle of tropical storm Arthur. Dusk had set in. [We] stood under a rough shelter at Las Piramides, the meditation center where Adrian had been staying for a month, waiting for him to finish a class. We were soaked and cold. It was the rainy season. Two Guatemalan boys tried to get an exorbitant sum of money from us for carrying our bags a few hundred feet. Luckily, we had brought flashlights since there were few lights. Our cabin was a simple wooden pyramid with shared bathrooms. [We] made a chamber pot out of a milk jug. I started to have flashbacks of summer camp! It rained for 3 days, as we sloshed to yoga, meditation, and esoteric teachings classes given by the beautiful Guatemalan owner of the center, Chaty. [We] met people from all over the world and ate breakfast (Adrian cooked us oatmeal and we made coffee in a saucepan) in a rough outdoor kitchen. [We] started to feel like 19 again, or at least 30. In the town, we ate some really good dinners for prices like 5 or 6 dollars each. The culture was a combination of European and Mayan. [There were] colorful Mayan markets a boat ride away in Panajachel. I buy a big scarf to keep me warm! What was I thinking bringing all those warm-weather clothes? Chaty took pity on me and gave me a big bulky sweater.
We decided to go south and east to get to warmer climes. [We] arrived in Antigua Guatemala, a lovely colonial town. It was evening and we showed up at a very popular hotel without a reservation. By a miracle, they had a room for 3. All the rooms faced a fantastic tropical courtyard where we had breakfast. The room and breakfast were only $72 for the 3 of us. I, of course, bought colorful scarves at the market. The graceful Mayan women wore very beautiful handwoven clothes, as did the little girls, and effortlessly carried heavy baskets of goods on their heads. The people were very friendly. Everyone was trying to sell something. Adrian went out in the evening to play his guitar in the zocalo (town square).
On our second day in Antigua, we decided to hike up an active volcano at 2 in the afternoon. The brochure said this hike is “not hard.” Am I old or what? This hike was just about the most grueling I have ever done. Straight up the mountain for about an hour, then traversing about a half mile of volcanic rock to get to the top, where a river of molten lava was running bright red. The smoke was intense, and it was hard to breathe. My rain poncho caught on some rocks and melted! Right under my feet were little rivers of lava. I was feeling a tad nervous. It started to thunderstorm, and poured all the way down the mountain. My guidebook, which I cleverly read after we have finished the hike, said not to hike up the volcano in the afternoon, as there was a risk of lightning, and a Canadian man was killed a few years ago. As with everything in Guatemala, the hike took at least two hours more than we were told.
We left Antigua in the afternoon to go to the remote Mayan village of Lanquin, supposedly about 6 hours away. As there were no shuttles running at that time, we hired a private car for quite a lot of money. The car showed up an hour late (at 3 PM), and instead of the mini-van or 4 wheel drive I was expecting, a very young guy showed up in a really beat-up Toyota Corolla that looked like it was from the ’80s. The front window didn’t close properly, even when the driver got out and pulled it up manually, so I had to wear a rain poncho in the back seat. It was a grueling 7-hour drive in the rain and fog — we [felt] every bump on the road. I was praying we would get to Lanquin. Just when I thought we must be almost there, we got on to a dirt road for another hour. Luckily, I couldn’t see in the dark that we were driving along the edge of a mountain. We arrived at 10 PM and luckily found a nice room. The next morning we discovered a beautiful backpacker’s resort set in the tropical hills overlooking a river, so we moved there. We had a lovely thatched roof bungalow near the water, with a hammock, for $20 a night. Meals were eaten communally, so we met some interesting people. There were all kinds of travelers, mostly a lot younger than us, and many like Adrian – very idealistic about living a non-materialistic more spiritual life close to the earth. The town is authentically Mayan, with a local market and school kids giggling at the Gringos when we say “Hola.” They were friendly, though. I think most people had never been out of the area. The women wore colored lace shawls over their tops. We took a walk down a laneway, and met a Mayan family on their front porch. The man was interested in asking us about the US. Luckily, Adrian could speak Spanish, and we conversed for a while.
There was no ATM in the town (closest one 2 hours away), and nobody took credit cards. This scenario was common in Guatemala, and you always have to remember to have a lot of cash with you. Food was amazingly cheap in Lanquin. A big bag of mango was 15 cents, bananas [were] 3 for 15 cents, tamales were 15 cents each, as was a traditional drink of chocolate and rice. And by the way, the Mayans make these incredible chocolate bars! I no longer have to worry about being too cold – it was HOT.
We decided to trek up to the magnificent Mayan ruins at Tikal in the north of Guatemala. [We] stopped at the quaint town of Flores for the night where we had an idyllic dinner overlooking a lake. The next day we went into the jungle at Tikal. I felt like we were in the Congo. [I saw] huge tropical trees, mosquitoes everywhere, [and our] clothes never dried. We took a sunrise tour of the ruins at 4:30 AM. We climbed up one of the temples and watched as this ancient Mayan city slowly came into view. The temples were huge and majestic, deep in the jungle. Adrian played his bamboo flute in the resonant Great Plaza. Later in the afternoon, we returned to Temple V, which we climbed via steep wooden steps. Adrian sat on top meditating for about an hour. At night we went to sleep with the eerie moans of howler monkeys.
Where to go next? Young newlyweds Josh and Kaitlin told us they were taking a 5 AM shuttle to Belize. We were thinking of going there anyways, so – why not? In the morning we found out that these two had absolutely no money, because at dinner the night before, as we were about to eat, the hotel (most expensive in Tikal, and one of the few on our trip that took credit cards) informed us that we had to pay cash for dinner since their phone lines were down. Luckily, we were able to give our friends the $1.50 each to exit Guatemala, since there were no ATM’s in Tikal.
The road to Belize was one of the worst we have ever driven on, mostly dirt and potholes.
The bus dropped us off at 8:30 AM in San Ignacio, a town in the interior of Belize. They spoke English in Belize, but only to tourists – the local language is Creole. It was market day. After a quick coffee where we telephoned a place we found in the guidebook to make a reservation, we headed with all our gear to check out the market. A woman with a captivating smile and British accent invited us to sample her granola. We later noticed that she was a Mennonite. We checked into the Maya Mountain Lodge where we had a charming thatched-roof bungalow in a tropical paradise. The lodge was owned by American ex-pats and old hippies Bart and Suzi Mickler, who had been living in Belize for 30 years. They served delicious meals on their beautiful patio.
That afternoon, as we were walking into town, a woman waved and called to us. It turns out it was Janet, the granola lady from the market who has a small farm across from Bart and Suzi, and has also lived in Belize for over 30 years. She invited us over for tea in her English tropical country garden where we met another American neighbor, as well as 4 of Janet’s 8 strapping Creole-speaking children (of course they speak English too with a low gutteral accent). Janet had quite a story. She was married to a German man, Manfred, until his untimely death 4 years ago. As a teenager in the late ’60s, Manfred left home and traveled all over India and Asia with no money (he had everything stolen in Morocco at the beginning of his journey). At one point he was marooned on a desert island for 4 months (yes, really), when he had a falling out with the captain of a ship he was sailing on, and the man dropped him off on this island. There was a big article written about Manfred’s adventure in a German magazine. After he and Janet married, they traveled with 2 young children, until they settled in Belize where they had 6 more children. He became a tour guide and worked for Bart and Suzi. Janet and Manfred wanted to sail off into the sunset together after their children were grown, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Our second day in Belize we canoed through Barton Creek Cave with a guide and 2 other people. It was completely dark except for our lights. We passed by Mayan pottery embedded in the walls, as well as a real skull. Very eerie. Our guide, Andy, had two brothers who live in Edmonton, but he can’t visit them, as the Canadian government has stopped issuing visas to Belizians because of some scandal involving forging of Belizian passports.
We decided to return to Guatemala rather than head to the coast of Belize. After a taxi to the border, we took the Guatemalan version of Greyhound to a town called Rio Dulce. The seat cushions were shot, and of course the bathroom was not functioning. I think all the trashed buses in the US end up in Guatemala. I have never seen so many decrepit vehicles. And many old American school buses end up in Guatemala as brightly painted “chicken buses” (regretfully we did not get to try one of these). The bus driver told us the bus was leaving at 1:00, but it didn’t leave until 2:30! That’s Guatemalan time. Rio Dulce seemed like the Jersey Shore of Guatemala, filled with resorts and marinas. Our second day we took a two-hour boat ride to Livingston, a town on the Caribbean that had a Jamaican flavor. We spent most of our time there at a local restaurant eating their fabulous traditional seafood stew.
Where to spend our last 2 days? After some debate we decided to venture into Honduras to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan. Once again, we arranged private transportation, since there was no convenient shuttle. This time, though, we get a fairly modern van, and a lovely helpful driver named Carlos. Copan turned out to be a quaint, charming touristy town (definitely not what I expected in Honduras) – sort of the Honduran version of New Hope or Niagara-on-the-Lake. There are lots of cute cafes and gift shops, and we have our first really good cup of coffee on the whole trip (apparently Central America exports most of their good coffee). We stayed in a charming family-run hotel right in the center of town where we pay $25.00 for 2 simple but clean rooms. We eat traditional pupusas (filled tortillas) at a local restaurant where our entire bill was about $6.00.
The Mayan ruins of Copan were not as grandiose as those of Tikal, but very beautiful and interesting. It was amazing that there are still so many ruins in both places that haven’t yet been unearthed. [There were] temples with huge 500-year-old trees growing on top.
In the afternoon we decided to take the advertised “2-hour” horseback ride to visit 2 other Mayan sites. Our guide Eduardo, a kindly man in his 60s who speaks only Spanish but really over-articulated so we could understand much of what he says (with Adrian translating the rest), showed up with 3 decrepit-looking horses. We set out, with Eduardo trudging beside us on foot. These were (luckily) the world’s slowest horses. I was a bit horrified when we started out along a highway with trucks whizzing by. The horses seemed to know where they were going. After a while, we got on to smaller roads, and soon tied up the horses so we could trek up to a site where we saw houses where athletes slept and trained. As we set out on horseback, we were once again on the highway, this time facing traffic. My horse seemed a bit frisky, and the trucks seemed about 2 inches away from us. I totally freaked out, yelling for Eduardo to help me, so he ran up and led the horse, then we crossed the highway so we were going with traffic ( I admit I wanted to end the horseback ride right there, but was persuaded to keep going). Luckily we got off the highway onto country roads that wound through beautiful hills, and we stopped at a hacienda for a cold drink. Then we saw one of the most interesting Mayan sites – the place where women gave birth. At first, it looked like a bunch of lichen-covered rocks, but as our guide speaks, we saw the frog carvings (symbol of fertility), the seat where the shaman sat, and the seat where the woman sat. There was also a graphic life-sized carving of a woman giving birth.
We got off the horses in town, and headed for the most expensive restaurant in our guidebook for the last night of our trip. People were wearing shorts and flip-flops at the charming Twisted Tanya’s, an open-air restaurant on a second floor. We hit happy hour — the cocktails were 2 for $3.50. The fixed price menu was $18.00. Our meal is fabulous from beginning to end, and Gary told our waiter that the food was as good as any New York (or Philadelphia) restaurant. Turns out the waiter grew up in New York.
It was raining for the first time in a week as we headed back to the hotel. A lot of the power seemed to be out in town. We entered our hotel in total darkness. Once again, I thanked goodness for those flashlights we brought!
The next morning we had a nervewracking 40-minute wait for our ride to the airport (a 5-hour drive). The travel agency was closed (it is 7 AM) and we had no cell phone number. Finally, the guy showed up, and we got to the airport safe and sound.
My mind is still filled with the sights and sounds of Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, and of course our time spent with Adrian. I hope I have conveyed some of the magic of this wonderful adventure!