June 2007 Guatemala

Back June 2007 Guatemala/Belize Trip

by Greg Vandiver

Day 1 - I met my annual travel buddy Mark George (37 and from Mooresville, N.C.) and his friend Darrell Goins (37 and from Statesville, N.C.), at the Charlotte International Airport, and we all caught the U.S. Airways flight to Guatemala City, Guatemala. I would like to add that both Mark and Darrell are originally from Muscle Shoals, Al.. Once there in Guatemala City, we had lots of time to kill, so I decided to get a taxi to a Zone 10 Restaurant called "Casa Chapina" for a good lunch. Mark and Darrell enjoyed the food, as well as I did. We left there and caught a taxi back to the airport for checking in on our flight to Flores, Guatemala on TACA Airlines.

We had a nice flight into Flores, and once there, caught a minivan taxi to Hotel Santana on Flores Island. We paid 30 Quetzals for the taxi. I was checking in at the front desk of the Hotel Santana, and heard a familiar voice call out my name behind me. It was Alex Marroquin, our guide on the El Peru trip back in February of this year. He had asked me to bring him some cargo shorts from the U.S.A. on my next visit here. I did not forget, neither did I forget he requested a size #36 either. I handed him 3 new pair out of my backpack and told him it was good to see him again. I introduced Alex to Mark and Darrell, and told Alex we would see him in a bit, once we were settled into our rooms.

We went to see Alex at Mayaland Travel Agency, and had already setup our transportation for the following day to Tikal, so allowed Alex and Carlos at the travel agency, to setup out transportation to some sites and the Belize border to day after. We decided to eat dinner at a restaurant called "Los Peche's". I drank 2 Moza beers on behalf of a friend, Dwayne Shreve, in his absence and at his request. The food was ok, but nothing special. Once we left there, we decided to walk to the hilltop in town, where the park is. It seemed the children's favorite pastime there, was squishing large black beetles, for they were everywhere. I had a Dorada Draft beer and we called it a night at 11:00 p.m..

Day 2 - We woke up at 7 a.m.. Mark and Darrell had breakfast at Restaurant Hacienda El Rey. It took them 45 minutes to get their food, once they ordered. I went to a small tienda nearby, and bought myself a makeshift breakfast instead, which consisted of a pack of peanuts, some potato chips, and some orange juice. I walked back to the front of the restaurant where my friends were eating, and our minivan transportation for the day arrived and was waiting for us. We had paid for the transportation the day before, through Tikal Tours.

We had paid $60 U.S. total for the minivan, which would take us to the ruins, wait for us, then bring us back to Flores. Our driver was named Francisco. Mark rode up front with him and talked Spanish with him the whole way, since he speaks Spanish fluently. Once we had entered Tikal National Park, we did see an ocellated turkey on the side of the road. We arrived to the entrance to the Maya Ruins of Tikal and paid our $10 U.S. entry fee each. We walked in and it started to rain a little. Once we arrived to the Grand Plaza, it stopped raining. We could hear the oropendola birds all around us. They were burning copal in the center of the plaza and I warned Mark and Darrell, that we could be seeing much more rain soon, from my past experiences. In ancient times, the Maya would burn copal, to invoke the Maya Rain God "Chaac" to bring forth rain for their crops. Some only did so to ward off evil spirits.

We were headed to Temple 4 and the bottom fell out of the rain clouds. It was a torrential downpour. Even though I had a rain poncho in my fanny pack, I felt I was no better than Mark or Darrell, and stood under a tree with them and got soaked too. We were soaked to the bone. It finally stopped raining and Mark and Darrell climbed up the stairway to the top of Temple 4. I waited at the bottom for them. The temple is around 210 feet tall, and I had already climbed it once in the past, so decided not to do it again. I weighed in at 304 lbs. before leaving for this trip, so that is enough to haul around normally, much less haul it up to the top of a temple. Once they were back down to the ground level, we decided to go onwards to Temple 5. There were hundreds of school kids there. I had taken my shirt off to ring out the rain water, and a lot of the kids wanted to take photos of my Maya tattoos, so I allowed them to do so. We walked out of the site at 1:30 p.m. and had seen many animals while we were there in the park. We saw 4 ocellated turkeys, 8 spider monkeys, 2 yellow-billed toucans, and a coatimundi.

We decided to eat lunch at Comedor Imperio Maya Restaurant, in front of the entrance. I had a fried chicken dish, while Mark and Darrell had a steak dish. We all had Pepsi to drink with our meal. They only had Gallo beer there, which is not one of my favorites. Our driver, Francisco, found us at the restaurant and once we had finished eating, headed back to Flores. We arrived back to the hotel and took much needed showers. It felt good to put on some dry clothes again. I caught up on my notes for the day, while Mark and Darrell went to the nearby city of Santa Elena, for some sightseeing. I waited around for a bit, then caught a tuk-tuk to the airport to meet the 4th member of our group, Steve Ballor (48 and from Houston, Tx.). When Steve arrived, he saw me as soon as he came out of the airport exit. It was great to see him again.

We caught a taxi to Flores and Steve checked into the Hotel Santana. I asked him if he was hungry and he told me he was. I rounded up Mark and Darrell, introduced both of them to Steve, and we went to eat dinner at supposedly the best restaurant in Flores. The restaurant is called "Capitan Tortuga". We had a lot of beer and the food was VERY good. We were laughing at each other's stories, as we ate. Once we were back at the hotel, we were met by Alex. We went around the corner to a restaurant and bar beside the Mayaland Travel Agency, for a few more beers. We talked with Alex about the details and pricing of a future trip with him. It was the 6 day mule trip to The Maya Ruins of El Mirador and Nakbe'. Alex told us about the prices and what he could offer us. Alex wanted me to meet his aunt and uncle, so we caught a taxi to their home nearby. It was his aunt's birthday. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel for some sleep.

Day 3 - We woke up at 5:30 a.m. and walked to Restaurant Los Peche's for breakfast. The restaurant opens at 4:00 a.m., upon request, and is always open at 6 a.m. regardless. The food was decent, but was nothing special. We checked out of the hotel and caught our minivan out front, which we had paid for through Mayaland Travel Agency. We had paid $50 U.S. each for the transportation for the day, and all other fees we would normally have to pay to see the sites along the way. Our driver was named Manuel, and he was driving the smallest Chevrolet minivan, I had ever seen before. He first took us to The Maya Ruins of Ixlu, which is unexcavated. There is not much to see there, except for some worn stelae and a few dirt covered mounds. We were only there for about 15 minutes.

We then went to The Maya Ruins of Topoxte. Manuel paid for the lancha (boat) to take us across the lake, for visiting the small site there. They had done some work there, since my last visit. We were only there for about 30 minutes or so. The boat operator, took us back across the lake to catch our minivan. We went onward to The Maya Ruins of Yaxha. Near this site is where they filmed the tv show "Survivor Guatemala". Once inside the site, I noticed they had done extensive work here, for some of the pyramids and other structures, which were very nicely excavated, were covered in dirt and tree stumps on my last visit here in 2005. The rest all climbed to the top of Temple 216, to enjoy the scenery, while I waited on the ground.

We left the site and went to a restaurant on the main road, for eating lunch. The restaurant was called "Las Cruces". The food was good and the beer was cold. Steve insisted on paying for everyone's lunch, so we thanked him. We all loaded up into the van once more, and headed towards the border town of Melchor de Mencos. Once there, we had to walk across the border into Belize. We got our passports stamped at the Guatemala immigration office, for exiting the country, then walked into the immigration office of Belize. We got our proper stamps for entering the country and caught a taxi. The taxi driver charged $15 U.S. for taking us to Cahal Pech Village Resort in San Ignacio, Belize. We checked into our rooms and walked down the hill from the hotel, paid our $5 U.S. entrance fee to The Maya Ruins of Cahal Pech, and entered the site. I must say, this is a very nice and compact site. I would say it was similar to The Maya Ruins of Mayapan in Mexico, personally.

We left the site and all took much needed showers. We decided to walk to town for some dinner. We ate at a Sri Lankan style restaurant called "Serendib Restaurant". The food was very good, but the service was very slow. Steve and I had some Belikin Premium beers and a couple of pepper steak with mashed potatoes dinners. Mark and Darrell had Coke with shrimp dinners. While we were there, I heard a man behind me, from Washington, tell someone his last name. I asked him how it was spelled, and it was Vandeveer. I told him how mine was spelled, Vandiver, and we both laughed about it. We caught a taxi back to the hotel, for it was about a mile from where we were, and it was all uphill too. Once back at the hotel, we watched the tv show "Man vs. Wild". We went to bed around 10:30 p.m..

Day 4 - We woke up at 6:00 a.m. and had a good breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We had paid $88 each in advance, for the excursion of the day, through the Cahal Pech Village Resort. We originally were supposed to leave at 8 a.m. , but we had to wait until 9:00 a.m. for some reason. There was a mix up at the front desk of the hotel, and they had not scheduled our driver and guide to meet us there, on the day we had requested. I had arranged it with the manager through email, over 3 weeks ago. Our driver was named Elias and our guide was named Clifford. It was a long ride down dirt roads to the first stop. We went into a large cave called "Rio Frio Cave". It was nice, but not my cup of tea. We went onward and stopped at a military checkpoint. From there, we would be escorted by special unit police officers through the military land. The police officers were carrying M16 automatic rifles, and they made us stay very near to their truck, while we followed behind them.

We arrived at The Maya Ruins of Caracol and the policemen waited for us, at the entrance. The site was VERY nice, and is one of the largest in the Maya World. We were allowed 1 hour and 30 minutes to tour the site, which was sufficient to me. Once we came back out to the entrance, we ate a quick sack lunch, and everyone at the site had to all leave together with the police unit at 2 p.m.. There are only 2 trips into the site per day, so one should be prepared, when visiting this site. We all stopped at some river pools to swim and had all brought our swim trunks with us, so we all enjoyed the cool water. It was refreshing to sit under the small waterfalls there and to have the water hit your back. It was a kind of massaging feeling. We left there to head back to San Ignacio to the hotel. Along the way, our propane powered Chevrolet Suburban, ran out of propane. We had to run on gasoline the rest of the way. Gasoline in Belize is $5 U.S. per gallon, so they use alternate fuels, such as propane and butane.

Once back at the hotel, I talked with the hotel manager, whose name is Lenny. I told him about the mix up earlier in the morning, and could tell he was not happy at all. He asked me of our plans the following day, and told me he wanted to help with some of the costs, to make things right with us. He said he would find out why we had to leave an hour late for the trip to Caracol, and said he would take some sort of disciplinary actions, when he found out who had "dropped the ball". We took showers and made plans for dinner. Steve and Darrell went into town to eat pizza, while Mark and I, ate a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.

While Mark and I were eating, a young lady came by to sit and talk with me. Her name was Trisha Sharp, and she was a "sharp" - looking lady too. She was with a group, who attended a Community College in Arizona, and they were there on a field trip with their teacher. Trisha invited me to join her group at a bar in San Ignacio called "Cocopele's Bar and Grill", later that night. I went there by myself and had a few drinks. I watched the college students dance and talked with Trisha for a bit. They were having a great time. I gave Trisha a hug and told her bye. I then caught a taxi back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Day 5 - We woke up at 7 a.m. and ate breakfast at the hotel. We then checked out of the hotel. They had tried to charge my credit card for the tour to Caracol, and we had already paid in cash. They made the needed adjustments to our bill and we left. Lenny had made arrangements for us, at his cost, to have us taken to The Maya Ruins of Xunantunich as promised the previous day. It was his way of making things right with us, for the troubles we had encountered. We appreciated his kindness. Our driver was named Luis and he took us to a hand winched ferry, which crosses the Mopan River, for entering Xunantunich. We paid our $5 U.S. entrance fee, and walked into the site. The site was very nice. As Mark and Darrell climbed to the top of the main pyramidal structure there, Steve and I talked with 2 soldiers who were there. They were carrying M16 automatic rifles. We then walked out to the entrance of the site and waited for our ride.

Our driver, Luis, was to come back to pick us up. We had requested for him to find out how much he would have to charge us, for taking us to Belize City. Most taxis in the city were very small, and since Luis had a Chevrolet Suburban, we wanted him to take us for the long ride to Belize City. He was to charge us $100 U.S. for the trip to Belize City. He also offered to stop along the way, for us to do some other recreational things. Mark and Darrell decided to do some "zip-lining" through the jungle canopy for $55 U.S. each, while Steve and I decided to do some "cave-tubing" for $20 U.S. each. Steve and I had to carry our tire inner tubes down a path for about 35 minutes, on which I had some sort of ant sting me on my ankle, and it felt just like a bee sting. We had a guide with us, who was also named Luis. He showed us some edible plants along the way. We had a great time tubing through the dark caves and the water was quite cool too.

Mark and Darrell were waiting for us when we came back out of the caves. When we left, we stopped at a well known tourist restaurant for lunch, but I forgot the name of it. The food was pretty good, but the service was a little slow. We left and went onward towards Belize City. Luis dropped us off at the water taxi station in Belize City and we paid for our one-way tickets to San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. This is the island which Madonna made famous, by her song "La Isla Bonita". The tickets were $10 U.S. each for the water taxi. 1 hour and 20 minutes later, we arrived at the eastern water taxi station in San Pedro, and walked about 150 feet north on the beach to our hotel. I had made reservations for us to stay at The Spindrift Hotel. We checked into our rooms for $65 U.S. a night and all took showers. I turned on my air conditioner in the room and it sounded like a pea thrasher. I did not think it was going to work much longer, but it cleared up later to cool the room easily.

Steve and I watched the famous "chicken drop" contest they have, behind the hotel on Wednesday evenings. They place a large board, which has large numbered squares (1 - 100) flat onto the sand, and put a chicken onto the board. They give out numbers to the onlookers, and whoever's number the chicken takes a crap onto first, they can win up to $100 BZ.. Steve and I paired up and decided to walk around town, to find a internet cafe. The price was $4 U.S. for 30 minutes, to use the internet, so we did not spend too much time there. Steve said he was hungry, so we asked a local where we could eat some good seafood in town. He told us of a restaurant, but it was closed when we got there. We went to another restaurant nearby, called "Elvi's Kitchen". The Belikin Premium beer there, was colder than any beer I had yet on this trip. The outside of the bottle had ice on it! I ordered a red snapper dinner, and Steve ordered a shrimp dinner with some conch soup. Before we got our food, Mark and Darrell found us, and sat down at our table. They too ordered some food, but I do not remember what it was.

We had a great dinner together and talked about particular things which had happened on this trip so far, which we all felt were funny. After dinner, we walked to a well known ice cream shop on the island, called "Manelly's Ice Cream Parlour". I had a double dip strawberry-banana waffle cone. It was pretty good too. Steve and I stopped by a liquor store, where I tasted some coconut rum, and Steve bought a Cuban cigar. The coconut rum was absolutely delicious. Steve and I went to the beachfront bar back at the hotel, and had a couple more beers, before heading to bed. It felt good to have the Caribbean breeze blowing into our faces. while we talked. We went back to our rooms and I caught up on my notes, as I listened to my Ipod.

Day 6 - We woke up at 6:30 a.m., and ate breakfast at Estel's Diner, next door to the hotel. It was an open-air type restaurant and the waiter was originally from Louisiana. His name was Robert, and he said he had been in Belize for over 11 years. After breakfast, we rented 2 golf carts for $60 U.S. each, to tour the island on. We also had to leave a deposit of $200 U.S.. It was raining and we did not know what else to do, until the rain stopped. Steve and I paired up, and so did Mark and Darrell. Our original plans were to do some diving and snorkeling that day, but the cloud cover and rain, put a damper on things. While touring the island on the golf carts, a local jumped on the back of the golf cart Mark and Darrell were on, and asked them for a ride. His name was Leo, and he said he was a world renowned coconut tree climber. He said he could climb any coconut tree in about 30 seconds. Mark had a lot of fun with him, and even made some video of him, while they rode around.

It finally stopped raining around lunch, and Steve and I decided to charter a boat, for the remainder of the day. We were going to do some deep sea fishing. We booked our half day trip with a man named "Hilly boo", and his company was called "Freedom Tours". He gave us a internet website special price of $325 U.S. for both of us to fish. The boat was a 32 footer, and had 2 Honda 130 H.P. outboard motors. He took us a few miles off of the coast and we were fishing a channel in the Caribbean Sea, which he said was around 1,000 feet deep. Steve and I caught 1 wahoo each, and 2 barracudas each. Steve hung into a fish, which he had to fight for 45 minutes. We thought he had Moby Dick, on the end of his line. Come to find out, he had foul-hooked a wahoo in the belly. We had a pretty good time fishing. Hilly boo took us back to his dock, and we met back up with Mark and Darrell, back at the hotel. We had some showers and decided to go out for dinner. We ate at Caramba's. The beef fajitas I had, were very tasty. The beer was very cold too, like at Elvi's Kitchen, the previous night. Mark and Darrell had already eaten, so only Steve and I ate. Afterwards, Darrell and I decided to go to 4 or 5 bars in town. We drank too much and stayed out way too late.

Day 7 - I was very sick at my stomach when I woke up at 6:30 a.m.. I met the other guys on the beach, and started throwing up, like a big dummy. I know better than to drink too much, but did it anyway. I decided there was no way I was going to be able to make the trip for the day. I handed Mark the paid voucher out of my wallet, and went back to my room. The day before, we had paid a company called "Searious Adventures" $142 U.S. each, to take us to see The Maya Ruins of Lamanai. I just sat in the room and forgot about the money. It was the last thing on my mind at the time. I had already seen the sight once a few years ago, so it was no great loss to me. I slept most of the day. I finally stopped throwing up, and decided to take a walk. I walked to a supermarket to buy myself a fruit smoothie drink and some ice cream. I did walk past the power station, for supplying electricity to the island. I saw they were using 3 large semi-trailer sized Caterpillar diesel generators, and had 2 for spares. I took a photo of a small fire station too, along the way. I went back to the room and caught up on my notes.

Later in the afternoon, Mark and Darrell knocked on my door, to see how I was feeling. I told them I was hungry, but feeling a little better. They told me about their trip, which was 4 hours ride, each way. Darrell told me that the guides with Searious Adventures, were very rude towards them, while they were on the trip. They said they took good photos of some crocodiles, and a few black howler monkeys too, while at Lamanai. They also told me Steve was not feeling his best either. Since only he and I ate at Caramba's the night before, maybe we had a slight case of food poisoning. I am sure the 14 Belikin beers I had, did not help things either though. We all got showers and decided to eat a nice dinner on the beach. The restaurant was called "Mango's". Steve and I both had grouper a la plancha and some soup. Steve had a beer, but I decided to drink orange and pineapple juice on this night. Mark had some soup and a very good lobster dish. The dish consisted of a lobster tail, some greens, pork and beans, and some lobster cornbread. Darrell had the same dish, minus the soup.

We paid our bill and went down the street a few blocks, to an ice cream shop called "Dandie's". I had some strawberry and orange/pineapple sorbet, and Steve had something else, that I cannot recall. We stopped by a gift shop, on the way back to the hotel. I decided to buy myself a book called "Rainforest Remedies", and a small gift for my friend, Mark Taylor. We went back to our rooms and packed our things, for an early checkout of the hotel the next morning. I was feeling much better, since I had ate a good meal, so I caught up on my notes for the day and went to bed around 11:00 p.m..

Day 8 - We woke up at around 6:00 a.m. and walked about 5 blocks to the airport. Once there, we bought a one-way ticket from San Pedro to Belize City International Airport, for $57 U.S. each. There are 2 airlines there and Mark, Darrell, and I bought our tickets with Tropic Air, while Steve bought his the previous day, with Maya Islands Air. We were informed that the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, was on the island with us. They were to shutdown the airport on the island at 7:30 a.m., for him to be able to fly out to the mainland a little later in the morning. So, we had to take the 7 a.m. flight, in order to make it to the Belize City on time, for catching our flight back to the U.S.. We could have taken the water taxi back, but we would have been hurting for time, if we had done so.

Our flight was on a Cessna single engine plane. It would carry about 15 passengers, and only flew about 300 feet above the ground, the entire 20 minute flight. Steve got to sit in the co-pilot's seat, on the plane he was on. Once we arrived to Belize City, we sat around and talked, until it was time for Steve to catch his TACA flight back to Houston. We took a group photo and say bye to Steve. Mark, Darrell, and I decided to eat in a restaurant at the airport, while we waited for our plane to arrive. We had terrible service and it took awhile to get our food. We only caught our U.S. Airways flight, back to the U.S., by about 15 minutes. We were on the plane, and could look beside us, to see the Mexican President's plane. It was a good trip, with some great friends. By the way, I did notice while at the airport, that the exit tax is now $36.25 U.S.. I also noticed that the taxi fare to Belize City, from the airport, is now $25 U.S..