The last section of this blog are the videos of our post trip to San Juan and Ambergris Island off the coast and Belize City. There are 120 or so islands off the coast of Belize, a Central American country of which, mercifully, the Spanish left alone and vacated to the British.
THE ROUTE OF THE MAYA
Hello My Dear friends.
I do hope this email finds you
well and safe wherever you may be at this moment. I am sending the review of
our trip during our Journey to Central America. I am sending this information
in PDF format too, just in case you cannot read it from the email. I may have
missed information of some activities unintentionally, which ones are those, I
do not remember, senior moments maybe or maybe not.
I will describe for your
information some of the activities that we all did that made this adventure The
Trip of a Lifetime. These are activities that are part of the overall quality
you had in Central America that we all arrange together and they are:
LEARNING AND DISCOVERIES
AUTENTIC MODE OF
TRANSPORTATION
CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS
OPORTUNITIES TO LEARN ABOUT
LOCALLY MADE PRODUCTS
LOCAL FLAVORS
LEARNING AND DISCOVERIES
The first learning and
discovery in every trip you take will always be the Trip Leader/ProgramDirector.
1. The .US embassy
2. The Basilica of la Virgen de Guadalupe
3. The Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador
4. Park Gerardo Barrios with the monument of the National
Hero
5. The tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero
6. Coatepeque lake where we had lunch
7. El Rastrojon and Las Sepulturas palace complex which
we visited on the morning of the 4th day of our adventure.
8. Lito the sculptor the morning Day 4
9. Paleontoly Museum in Estanzuela, Zacapa
10. The plaza dedicated to the Germans who left Guatemala
in the 50’s
11. The houses of the rich families, la Cañada.
12. Colorful Yurrita chapel on the way to the Plaza de La
Constitucional
13. The columns in front of the Metropolitan cathedral
with names of killed during the civil war
14. The Black Christ inside the metropolitan cathedral
15. Santiago Atitlan to see the brotherhood of Maximon,
the brotherhood of Shamans
16. The look-out of Solola for a lake picture
17. The indigenous cemetery with some colors and not
painted ones
18.
Chicken bus ride from Antigua to Santa
Catarina Barahona
19. The Macadamia Plantation, Larry (Lorenzo)
20. Luci and the chocolate process in San Juan el Obispo
21. Cruz with the clay birds in San Felipe
22. Tomas the Fruit place
I think these 22 Learning &
Discoveries gave you a better understanding of the Route of the Maya and the
pacing that was the way you all wanted it and wished to experience it. I always
do Learning & Discovery per passenger and we all exceeded this number. MODES
OF TRANSPORTATION TO GET TO PLACES
1. Horse and Pick up La Pintada
2. Boat ride to Santiago Atitlan and San Antonio Palopo
3. Chicken bus ride with all of you when we did A Day in
the Life on our way to the school
4. The pickup truck to go to Tikal
5. Boat ride to Lamanai
CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS
The El Salvador civil war from
1980 to 1992
Gangs in Central America
United Fruit Company
The Civil War in Guatemala from
1960 to 1996
Problems of the Education in
Guatemala
Bird Control and Religion in
Guatemala
OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN ABOUT
LOCALLY MADE PRODUCTS
1. Lito the stone carver in Honduras
2. Weavings in the town of San Antonio Palopó which we
went to the coop of the ladies after lunch on the day we went to visit some
towns around the lake
3. Macadamia Plantation
4. Jade place in La Antigua Guatemala
5. Don Cruz the Clay Birds in San Felipe
6. Don Tomas the wooden fruit
LOCAL FLAVORS
1. Fried bananas in our breakfast
2. Pupusas in San Salvador
3. Tortillas
4. Pepian, the traditional dish of Santa Catarina
Barahona in a Day in the Life
5. Macadamia nut from Valhala farm
6. The national dish of Belize when we went to Lamanai.
Rice and beans!
PEOPLE YOU MET IN THE ROUTE OF THE MAYA MAIN TRIP
1. Dennis our bus driver for 10
days
2. Rodolfo or Fito the local
guide in Copan
3. Lito he made the sculpture
by Copan
4. Roberto the Local guide in
Santigo Atitlan
5. Magdalena the lady with the
turban went we arrive to Santiago Atitlan
6. Sandra Natareno the
principal of the kindergarten school we visited on our Day in the Life
7. Larry Gottsheimer “Lorenzo”
and the Macadamia Plantation
8. Lucy the chocolate as
Guatemalan Drinks in San Juan el Obispo 9. Cruz the sculpture of birds in San
Felipe de Jesus 10. Julio our second driver from the Petén area who took us all
the way to Belize
11. Samuel we are last driver
12. Manuel Mendez the local
expert in Belize
13. Nathaniel the local expert
to Lamanai
These are all the people by
their names that I can remember so far. .
DAY 1.
Arrival day. As we entered the
city you could see how the city presented a lot of contrast from one zone to
another and how the people of today live in a country that has the highest rate
of people living per square mile in all of Latin America. In the afternoon was
a transfer for the rest of the group.
DAY 2.
6.30 AM general wake up call.
8.15 am departure for the city tour. During the time we left San Salvador you
could see the changes in construction by the Salvadorans and the way the city
looks, fancy and humble with its many shopping malls and the squatters on the
other side of the road. As we left the hotel we started driving on the founding
fathers boulevard also showed the national stadium of the country and a monument
that celebrates the far-away brothers who live in the United States and send
money to El Salvador. El Salvador is the first country that started the
movement of independence from Spain around the year 1811. Central American
Countries continued after the first uprising in El Salvador. We visit the
Basilica of Guadalupe but before we went to the largest U.S embassy in the
American continent. We walk to in the Market from them we went to the
metropolitan cathedral, the name of the restaurant if you are interested in
naming you photos was Rancho Alegre. After we drove to Anguiatu
Salvador/Guatemala border for passport check and Bathroom stop. At the border
we saw some trucks waiting to be called for jobs. Sometimes they wait there for
days when their papers have
something
wrong and they are forced to fix them, then we drove 2.00 hours in Guatemalan
territory in order to get to Honduran border. We spent the next two nights at
Clarion Hotel.
DAY 3.
We started our day with our
visit to famous Mayan site of Copan. Copan is the only UNESCO Site in Honduras
and most famous Mayan site. We walked first to the acropolis of the site and
our local guide Rodolfo or Fito showed us the most famous monuments in that
area which was altar “Q” with the line of 16 kings carved on the square stone.
We then walked around the acropolis and got to the plaza of the jaguars where
there were two dancing jaguars carved on the stone and also the temple where, I
showed you the gum line of a snake and a temple with sky bearers. Our lunch was
at Udo’s Restaurant in the afternoon 12 of us took optional tour and them
dinner in Carnitas Nia Lola, with the light like a Christmas tree.
DAY 4.
Before we left the country of
Honduras we also went to visit another part of Copan and that is a palace
complex called el Rastrojon, and then we went to Las Sepulturas. This area
shows a unique set of palaces for the royal class and other buildings which had
thrones, benches like the one with the carvings used by the scribe and the bed
which still had colors but was broken into pieces. The building we saw were:
The royal court with the palace and the painted bed, the house of the scribe.
And then we stop to see Lito the sculptore in sculptore in Ostuman a little
town out of Copan town and saw the way how stone carvers keep the traditional
alive of sculpting. After we pass the border I shared with all of you part of
the history of Guatemala from the Independence to the civil conflicts in
current times.
Our first stop was at the
Commercial Center. The second stop was at the Museum of Paleontology with a
little display of Mayan artifacts at the town of Estanzuela, Zacapa. Lunch was
at the town of Rio Hondo Zacapa where we star seen the Sierra de las Minas, we
also saw the Motagua River, one of the longest rivers in the country that
drains into the Caribbean. This river is so important that still today because;
it is used by the local people in the towns and villages as a mean of
transportation as it was for the Maya in ancient times. The ancient Maya used
the river to take minerals such as cinnabar, hematite and the precious Jade
from the nearby mountains. The Jade today in Guatemala is mined from the same
places the Maya did and forms a big deal for the people of La Antigua who still
carve these precious stones and transform them into beautiful pieces that
foreigners can take home as a gift from mother earth. The road we used to get
to the restaurant and Guatemala City was the road that in the mid-19th century the
British could have built from the Caribbean side of Guatemala to our current
capital. The negotiations remained calm for over a century until Guatemala had
its civil war, which ended
up
with several attempts from the Guatemala side to invade our neighboring country
of Belize.
The city of Guatemala.
We do not have tall buildings
in the city because of the many volcanoes we have and the two main tectonic
plates in the Caribbean and the pacific slope. We saw the different modes of
transportation for the locals, different types of buses were:
1. The killer tomatoes that
cover most of the city and have been painted in red,
2. The green buses called the
worms and safer ones with security guard inside the building, those belong to
the mayor Alvaro Arzu also call the gold monkey
4. The chicken buses that are
found in the highlands of Guatemala. Dinner on your on.
DAY 5.
Started the day with a visit to
in the driveway of the Americas where we saw places that belonged to different
countries of the continent, saw the sculpture of John Paul II and after the
plaza Berlin where we saw area of factories in the country, and then went to La
Cañada this is an area or neighborhood home of the country's wealthiest
families. Our second stop was Yurrita chapel it is a gem in the capital because
it is private and the owner built it to honor our lady of Anguishes. There was
also an area called the civic center with city hall we enjoy a band playing as
part of the celebration, social security building, and a fountain in a
boulevard with two hands shaped as if one would hold a rifle and a dove which
is a giant version of the original one found inside the National Palace. The
monument is to be present in the main parts of our national territory because
that represents 24 more hours of peace in Guatemala. At the original one a
white rose is placed. This started on the 29th of December of 1996 and it marks
the end of the 36 years of civil war in Guatemala - the longest one in the
American Continent. The former National Palace built by the last dictator of
Guatemala. He made the national palace look green. Then we entered the
Metropolitan Cathedral dedicated in honor of Santiago de los Caballeros or
Saint James of the Knights with a Black Christ and the History of the Virgin
Mary that is a Unique. Before we lived the city we drive by the squatters they
are part of the remains of the war. We had lunch at Cabana de don Robert at
8000 feet elevation. This Region of Sololá is one of the most Important, in
terms of farming since this has a very large number of indigenous who farm the
land and cultivate carrots, beets, cabbage, potatoes, etc. You may remember the
chance our driver gave us by stopping at Solola market. As this was an
afternoon we could see some of the vendors in their traditional dresses trading
with each other and the many products they had for sale. We spent the next two
nights at Regis Hotel in the town of Panajachel. Dinner was at Regis restaurant.
DAY 6.
This day we did we are bout
trip and we are captain was Francisco and him is son Orlando they took us a
Santiago de Atitlan from the boat we can see the Volcanoes San Pedro, Toliman,
Atitlan, and Golden Hill. My helper this morning was Roberto Sanches aka
Respeto Our first stop was Maximon or Rilaj Mam (the great grandfather) that is
in charge by Nicolas the Day keeper (Shaman), is one of the many and not so
famous manifestations of spiritual expressions in the highlands of Guatemala.
People have tried to destroy it but it is still surviving from the many changes
going in in Guatemala as a nation. Maximon is in the house of a common but
special family as they are still believers of their old traditions, beliefs and
spirituality, they are Maya practitioners and are also part of a Brotherhood
called Santa Cruz and protect the Grand Father, who helps the people in town in
Santiago Atitlan, after we walk in to the plaza to the Catholic Church We also
visited We had free time in Santiago before we went to lunch to and saw a Mayan
widow, Magdalena. She still wears the tocoyal or traditional headdress and
undid the headdress for us to see the length that takes her just a couple of
minutes to weave it back into her hair but takes her 3 months to make it, our
second town. Lunch was in a town called San Antonio Palopó, and we visit the
cooperative of woman and we learn about the back strap loom, Saul pick us a
drove us back to Panajachel and the soon we arrive we went to the the zipe
lines tour 06 of you.
DAY 7.
On this day we returned to the
Pan-American Highway to get to the colonial city of La Antigua which is a
UNESCO site. On the highlands of Guatemala the mode of transportation for most
indigenous people, are the remodeled school buses that come from the United
States and are driven to Guatemala which are nicknamed chicken buses we had
lunch and some of you went with me and Dennis to tried the local dish or chile
relleno a pork in white beans the restaurant name la Cocina. we did the walking
tour la Antigua Guatemala in the afternoon starting from the main square where
we sew the Cathedral, Palace of the Captains, City Hall, and el Mercadito, we
walk from the main square to the Merci Church walking to the arch of Santa
Catarina, and after Dennis too us to San Francisco de Asis, and finally to the
Jade Factory, Dinner was at Donde Monica.
DAY 8.
We start that morning with the
visit of the Museums in Santo Domingo Convent witch actually works as a hotel,
lunch was in we are own, in the afternoon we had the optional Tour first place
in Santa Maria de Jesus where you share some of the toilet trees that we took
from the hotels we visit the the market and after we visit San Juan el Obispo
Where Lucy Teach us about Chocolate, we are second stop was at San Felipe de
Jesus we visit the house of Don Cruz where we see him is art in clay
mostlyBirds, and the last stop was Jocotenango at the House of Don Thomas
that
works the wooden Fruits, at Dinner we went to Posada Don Rodrigo where 13 of
you went and enjoy the folkloric dance.
DAY 9.
This day in called A DAY IN THE
LIFE. My favorite day! We were driven to the market where I had given you some
money and you bought some Juices and milk and oat, cookies, instant coffee and
got in a chicken bus to get to Santa Catarina Barahona. Your visit to my lovely
country of Guatemala is not complete without a ride on a chicken bus. The
locals that work in the market bring their fresh products to be sold on market
days, Sundays and Tuesday are the big market days, and the women are the ones
that sell while the men cultivate the products in the field. The children of
the primary school were waiting for you and had prepared for you a couple of
songs and a dance. The teacher explained to us the role of the weavings in the
community and what part of the economy of the town is also the farming. Teacher
and principal Sandra Natareno is the name of the teacher who teaches the group
of kids that after being in kinder garden and pre-school will start primary
school next year and she has been teaching at that school for several years.
After the school we visit Valhala Macadamia Plantation a tour guided by Larry
and he share with us all about the organic farm.
DAY 10.
This morning we went to the el
Tenedor del Cerro this is a Restaurant and a gallery place where you get a
great view of la Antigua Guatemala and the volcanoes, in the afternoon Dennis
We are driver too us to the airport, at the airport in Flores, Julio was
waiting for us a drive to our hotel in Flores, to rest because the next day we
get a great adventure waiting for us
DAY 11.
Tikal is a highlight for the
Route of the Maya. We started at 7.30 am to get to Tikal and enjoy the morning
seeing spider monkeys, and coati mundi (raccoon), Aguti paca, and others, and
to safe some energy we took a truck all the way to the back of the main plaza,
and from there we walk, Here could appreciate the real jungle and this is a
Natural and Cultural World Heritage Site of UNESCO 1. Complex “Q”
2. Complex “R”
3. Main Plaza
4. Temple I,
5. Temple II,
6. The north acropolis,
7. The central acropolis
8. Temple III,
9. Windows Palace
10.
Temple IV
11. Mundo Perdido
We had lunch at the site and
dinner on your own.
DAY 12.
On this day we left Guatemala
for Belize. After leaving our hotel we stopped at the parking lot of our next
Maya site “Yaxha” and we visit this sections
1. The astronomical group
2. Plaza of the columns
3. East acropolis with the
highest temple at the site called temple 216
4. North acropolis
5. The plaza of the birds
6. Ball court
After our walk to this site we
went for lunch at Yaxha restaurant. The restaurant in this village started when
Survivor crews were looking for a place to sell them food that could be close
to them. At the border the porters took care of your bags and I checked your
passports to leave Guatemala officially. Manuel Mendez was our local expert who
accompanied us to the city of Belize. We meet Samuel we are 3 drivers. Our last
two nights were at the Best Western Belize
DAY 13.
On this day we visited Lamanai
our last Mayan site. Nathaniel was our local expert and our captain. We took a
boat to get to Lamanai at orange walk district. Where we got a river safari, we
sew a lot of different birds, bats, We stopped to see the village of shipyard
occupied by the Mennonites. Finally we get to Lamanai and we visit
1. Main Plaza
2. Jaguar Temple
3. Main Palace
4. Ball Court
5. High Temple
6. Temple of the Mask. We enjoy
after the tour we are lunch that was a typical lunch, and then we drive to
Belize City, Farewell dinner at Celebrities Restaurant.
DAY 14.
This was mostly the day of
transfer, some of you back home others in to the post trip, and was the
day to said bye bye to all of you
I do hope this summary is of
some help to everyone and my intention is just to refresh your mind with all
the activities we did during the 2 weeks we shared parts of our lives and
became friends. The pacing of the trip could have been a little fast
to
some and I am aware of that. However, all the activities we did would have not
been possible if we would have decided to not include them or even do them but
this is the reason for you all enjoyed the trip even more because of the
activities that were included during these two weeks to make it overall and
trip with quality.
Thanks again for coming on THE
ROUTE OF THE MAYA trip and I hope you had a wonderful travel experience with me
and we are new Friends
Hasta pronto.
The following is a video of our first two days in El Salvador and Honduras (famous Mayan site of Copan) at those sites mentioned in Vinnie's written recap. Click on the arrow to open and view video and double click to enlarge the image:
Days 4, 5 and 6- Tour of Guatemala City with the Guatemalan National Anthem:
Days 7 and 8, Antiqua, Guatemala
Days 8 and 9
Day 10, Tikal, Natural and Cultural World Heritage Site of Unesco
Day 12 - Last Guatemala hotel and view of two Yaxha Maya sitea
Day 13 - River boat trip and sites along way to visit our last Maya site in Belize called Lamanai
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