Pacaya

From Antigua it is only about one hour to Pacaya volcano.
The cool thing about this volcano is, that it is constantly active and you can stand a few meters from red hot glowing lava. :) It feels a bit like standing close to a really big coal fire, but well, it is just rock cooling down. Pretty much constantly some bits of the lava flow were breaking of and rolling a bit up to a few meters downhill. The whole area looks pretty unreal and it is just great to be there.
The downside is that it is an easy one hour walk to get there from the car park so the whole place is pretty touristy. In Guatemala this still is quite OK since there is little tourism anyway. For something like 10 Euros (100Q) you can get a trip there from your hostel or any tour provider in town.

Look towards Antigua (behind Agua volcano), on the left of Agua (extinct) you can see Acatenango (extinct) and Fuego (active)
Those three volcanoes are visible from pretty much anywhere in Antigua


The volcano

Hot lava block with a bit of fire (maybe a part of a shoe)


Glowing lava flow, the image is blurred because of the hot air


More glowing lava


A view up the volcano

Back in Colima

So, my holidays finally are over. After about 24h on buses from San Cristóbal de las Casas to México D.F. to Guadalajara and then Colima I arrived yesterday evening.
On Friday I had a brief visit to a zapatista carracol (village) in the region of San Cristóbal with Andrée and Viernes, a friend of hers. It was really interesting and I can't really believe I almost left out this part on my trip. I will write more about it later.
Well, now I am back in Colima and starting to sort my mails. If you are waiting for an answer and don't get it in the next week, please tell me! Then I accidentally filed your message!

The map should contain pretty much all places I visited now (ok, border passings and collectivo changes are not included).

Back 2 San Cristóbal

Well, I did not write about my Pacaya trip, but it was absolutely amazing. If you come to the Guatemala region Pacaya is definitely worth a trip. Antigua is also pretty nice so this is a good combination anyway.
I was standing only a few meters away from the glowing lava so it felt really hot and it was sooo close! :)

Anyway, that was the day before yesterday. Yesterday I went from Antigua via Lago Atitlan to Xela. It was great to meet Enara, Martina, Michael, Scott and the others again and Enara's tortillas were a treat!

Lago Atitlán

Today I took the Chicken buses back to la Mesilla and from there the taxi to Cd. Cuauhtémoc.

My first chicken bus from Xela to Huehe


And from Huehe to La Mesilla

Leaving Guatemala

Here I got a tourist visa that will get me over the next 180 days and started on the route to San Cristóbal in luxurious Combis/Collectivos with AC and a seat for every passenger. YES! This is luxury! On the Collectivo I met Ericka from Sweden/Peru. It was nice meeting you!



Well, now I am back to the backpackers hostel. Tomorrow night I will hop on a bus to D.F. and tomorrow I will try to get from there to Colima.

Tajumulco & Antigua

After the trip to Santa Maria, I decided to also do the hike to Tajumulco just because the people were nice and it seemed interesting.

[This report for the trip is an addition of 2007-04-26]
It was a pretty cool trip. We met at the Quetzal Trekkers office at 4:45 AM. From there we took a pickup to the Minerva bus terminal in town. If you loose your IPod or Camera here (good chances!) or at the adjacent market this market might be the place to buy it again... Well, from Minerva we took a chicken bus to get to get to a comedor where we had our breakfast and from there the next chicken bus to the start of the trip. Well something between 10 and 11 AM we actually started hiking the volcano.

Normal packing inside a chicken bus

And outside. The treatment can damage backpacks.

Tajumuco has been inactive for quite a while and so it basically is grassy landscape with forests.

They cut the trees to get wood with loads of resin to light fires. Eventually this will kill the tree.

We hiked up all day with speeds varying between normal and meditational speed as Anna described it. On the way I collected some international descriptions for slow people. From Andrée and Charles-Anrdré I already had wet chicken. Enara added snail for Spain, for Poland I got tail, my German version would be lame duck, I think from the US I got slow poke. Back in the office Andrew suggested rotten egg for Britain. Well, feel free to add your version in the comments! :)
When we arrived at the place for the camp it started raining a bit, so we used this time to set up our tents. Then we climed the minor peak to watch the sunset which ended pretty cloudy and later sat around the fire eating pasta. We went to bed pretty early because we had to get up the next morning at 3:30 AM (or something like that) to walk up to the main peak and see the sunrise. It was really cold and windy up there and after a while we were a part of the clouds...

At the start of the sunrise the clouds were still below us (long exposure)


Yes, I really was up there... ;)


Hmm. This could be about anywhere

So, when the sun was up we went down again, packed the tents and walked home.

A look down on our way back

The cloudy weather should not really be surprising since it was the start of the rainy season and according to a local that had joined us the name Tajumulco basically means something on the lines of go in the clouds. Well, we did that.

Now I am in Antigua in the Internacional Mochilero Guesthouse, where I will stay for at least two nights before heading back to Colima via Xela, San Cristobal and D.F.

Antigua is a lot prettier than Xela. I will see if the atmosphere is as nice, too.

Well, here are a few photos from the town:

The side of the church at the parque central
The churches in Antigua regularly got destroyed by earthquakes...


A view inside


Looking down on Antigua from the hill to the north - tourist police will accompany you there twice a day (10AM and 3PM)


A view on Acatenango and Fuego from one of the bigger Church-Monastry complexes


A strange fountain... ;)

Antiguan trashbins

Santa Maria & Santiaguito

Around 11 PM I arrived at Quetzaltrekkers and after some soup and sorting out some gear we went to the foot of Santa Maria Volcano with pickups. From here we had a nice hike up the Volcano to arrive just in time for the sunrise at about 5 AM.

Tajumulco Volcano, where I might go up on Saturday

Before Sunrise we could see some bits of glowing Lava in the crater. Later we watched some really nice little eruptions.

Nice little eruption from Santiaguito

Eruption Cloud during sunrise

After a cup of tea and a sandwich we went down again and so here I am writing some probably completely senseless chaotic stuff.
Anyway, the people of Quetzal Trekkers are really great and I might joing their next trip to Tajumulco on Saturday and Sunday.

Some more infos

I kind of completed a map of all the places I visited during this trip on google maps. You can find it on the top of the sidebar. I will try to keep it updated. The lines are pretty chaotic and are just so many because I had some trouble handling google maps.
Zeit.de shows a construction for roasting coffe...

Guatemala

After taking the Combis/Collectivos or whatever you call them from Colima to Cd. Cuauhtémoc, where I got my passport and visa stamped by the mexican migration authorities I got a Taxi that brought me to the border at La Mesilla where the Guatemaltecan authorities charged a fee of twenty mexican pesos for the tourist stamp. From here I got a chicken bus to Xela or Quetzaltenango [map], where I stayed for the night in the Hostal Don Diego.

Adios México

The Combi was already pretty good. In the second one we were 18 passengers. You can fit 5 people into one row of a car of the size of a VW bus.

I had not expected them to be able to fit my backpack in here...

The Chicken busses are really a class of their own. They often are old US school buses that get their second life here. Luggage goes on the top of the bus so there is more space for the people inside. And this space is used to the last bit. On one of the benches there is easily space for three and if there is a kid (which basically always is around) you can also fit four people in this space. If this is not enough then there is still a bit of space left between the two rows of benches where people can stand. The entrance always stays open so the money collector and ascend/descend manager can jump of a bit before the bus comes to one of its very frequent stops and jump on the running bus again. While driving there also is the option of leaving through this door to climb onto the roof and reenter through the back door or do similar maneuvers. This bus does not know the word full. Extra people will always be fitted in. The name relates to the fact that you have a fair chance of finding yourself with a chicken on the lap, that belongs to one of your neighbours. It definitely does not apply to the driver. He will take any risk to overtake on the mountain roads. Well, he has a Jesus hanging from his mirror or something similar, so it should be OK... ;)

I was on the right chicken bus, you can see my backpack on the top

Xela definitely is in for an award for the most ugly town on the planet. The creators of cities like Mannheim or Ludwigshafen in Germany would turn green because of envy if they saw what was done here on a fairly moderate budget. The only nice place is the Parque de las Centroamericas, where all the banks with their shotgun armed securities are, and some of it's sourroundings.
Well, to compensate for this fact, nature had to put in quite some effort so you can find Santa Maria and Santiaguito Volcanoes [map] and loads of other volcanoes and volcanic hot springs around.

After wasting the morning today on sorting out my flight back with British Airways (what finally helped was my fathers hint to call the US customer service, a tollfree 1-800 number) and then just walking around a bit, my plan for tomorrow is to visit some hotsprings during the day and climb Santa Maria with Quetzaltrekkers during the night. This will allow me to watch the sunrise from up there.

Easter

After visiting Chamula on Friday, yesterday I visited las grutas, a big cave near San Cristóbal, yesterday. It was really nice.

Chamula is a little town near San Cristóbal, where you can find a mixture between Catholicism and the old local religion. If you go there take a guided tour since elseways you won't really understand and see a lot. This way I got loads of explanations, starting from the cemitery with the three different colored crosses for the different ages of the people that died, over the government system with only one party and the own police and everything, to visiting the house of one of the current local religious leaders with pine covered floor and loads of flowers hanging in the room. The whole town is dominated by the number three. You see it appearing in loads of places as well as in the usage instructions of the local medicines (three times a day for three days) or things like this (check the Museum of Mayan medicine for more examples, although this is not pointed out there).

The market square in San Juan Chamula


Family on the market


The church with Judas hanging in front


The church of Zinacantán - the traditional clothing changed massively with the arrival of electric stitching machines

The cave at the grutas is really big and with awesome stalagtites everywhere. It is nicely cold and there were loads of Mexicans camping or just haning around in the pine forest next to it.

The cave is much darker than it appears. The photos are pretty long exposure





Typical mexican weekend trip equipment if you have money...

Later in the day we visited to Viewpoints to get a nice view over the town.
In the evening there was the ritual burning of Judas on a square next to the government palace. Well, actually they did not burn any Judas while I was there but figures of diffent things they don't like. Among the things burnt were a trash monster, the US-Opression and their border fence, the non-working mexican democracy, global warming and abortion. The burning was based on loads of gas and fireworks in the typical style with sometimes a bit of the fireworks going into the crowd. ;)

To the left abortion and to the right Mexican democracy


El tren de la muerte - the train of death
refugees trying to cross Mexico on trains get killed in high numbers by robbers or accidents


Charles-André in front of the main Church


Exploding fireworks


Well, I think there was a bit of gas involved

Today we watched a parade in the center. It was basically an advertising show of differnt companies like pharmacys and Coke with a few music groups scattered around and loads of Miss Pharmacy, Miss here and Miss there cars.

Well, of course there were some jugglers around. :)


A few bands were also part of the game


The coolest Miss here/there car


The start of the Coca Cola sexy girl group

My plan for tomorrow is to hit the road towards Quetzaltenango.

Slight change of plans

Since my host said I might have to spend 48h in Guatemala to get my visa change done with no/low bribes, I had a look at the maps and found St. Maria and Santiaguito Volcanoes right next to Quetzaltengo which is about 5h from here. Thanx to Lukas for the infos from his trip!
So I will just go there when I'm done here. Well let's say I will probably just go there...
Now I will try to get a guided tour to chapula where they use Coca Cola in Church for cleansing their souls... :)

San Cristobal de las Casas

After spending my night at the backpacker hostel I had to move this morning because the hostel was full. So now I am at the Conejo which is on Huixtla between Comitlán and Tapachula.
It just opened this week and so the beds are still smelling like fresh wood. It is really famililar and run by a Mexican guy and his Swiss wife (the kid is pretty young and probably does not really help). They also live in the place and you share the kitchen with them. There is a dormitory for six people and two private rooms with a big bed for two (as far as I can remember). Not a lot going on but really nice.

Now it's time to explore the city a bit. I already visited the market which is real fun to see. Loads of fruits, flowers, beans, some people carrying chicken by their legs or a place where they sell loads of dry fish.

Well, not really fresh but much easier in storage and handling


Fruits and flowers


Transport on the market is not really easy. I had loads of time to take the photo


Chicks


The colors of corn and beans

In the backpackers I met some nice people from GB, one of which juggles and has good balls that glow. So today I am walking around a bit with them and tonight we will try some more juggling. :)

Typical police sight in Chiapas. In Guatemala you have loads of private securities with shotguns .