Back in Belize

I spent most of yesterday and today travelling, and am now back in Belize — a long way geographically and culturally from Antigua, Guatemala. I’m in Dangriga, on the coast, south of Belize City. It’s the cultural capital of the Garifuna people, an African-influenced culture.

I took a shuttle from Antigua to Guatemala City — a huge congestion of diesel smoke and traffic — and then took a pullman bus across the country to Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean coast. The bus ride was actually pleasant, with a comfortable seat and very nice hilly green scenery. (The only drawback was the action movie that is always played loudly on Latin American luxury buses).

Puerto Barrios is the asshole of Guatemala. Its major function has been as a port to ship bananas going back to the days of United Fruit Company, that ruled Guatemala like a fiefdom and even got the CIA to overthrow the Guatemalan government in the 1950s. Now the big Chiquita containers are owned by Del Monte, and they are trucked alongside the Dole containers with Bob the Banana. The place is otherwise grubby and rundown looking, with the typical rough looking people who hang around port towns.

My $9 room was very depressing, coffin-like, and just outside was the main road where loud trucks hauled containers all through the night. Added to that, I’m recovering from a cold, and not sleeping well.

This morning I took a one-hour ride from Puerto Barrios to Punta Gorda in Belize on a launch holding about 15 passengers, and was very impressed that they actually issued us life jackets — not something to take for granted in these parts. The water was relatively calm, but the waves picked up at the end, sending us lunging and crashing into the spray. Then a three-hour trip on a former school bus stopping everywhere, but at least in Belize they don’t put three people to a seat as in Guatemala.

Dangriga is not a touristy town, though seems interesting. I’m in a little caban next to the river, which is lined with banana trees and other tropical plants. I expect to stay here a few days before heading north.

Images of Antigua

Here are some photos I took yesterday showing some of the colonial architecture of Antigua, Guatemala. These go with my post from last night.

Back to Antigua

I took a minibus today to Antigua, the former colonial capital of Guatemala. The bus was a tourist bus, but it was certainly worth the couple dollars extra to have a seat to myself and a place to put my legs.

Antigua is a beautiful city surrounded by three volcanoes, and with cobbled streets and colonial architecture. Much of it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1700s, which is why the capital was moved to Guatemala City, but many of the buildings were rebuilt — with fewer stories, and many of the old ruins remain — such as churches with no roofs.

It was here that I lived several months in 1993 when I took an intensive Spanish immersion course. My school has moved, and the building is now a hotel, but I saw many old landmarks, like the park I used to walk past everyday that has public laundry washing basins.

I will spend two nights here with a full day tomorrow to explore, and hopefully post some pictures later. Then on Friday, I take a bus — one of the few comfortable bus services — across Guatemala to Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean coast, which is the jumping off point for a boat to Belize on my way home.

Market day in Sololá

Today was market day in Sololá, the main town up the mountain from Panajachel. Unlike some of the other markets, like Chichicastenango, that feature items geared to tourists, this one is mainly for the local indigenous people. In this area the costumes are particularly interesting as people from different villages wear different outfits.

Here again I took pictures of a group of cofradia parading through the streets and collecting money from people (first two photos), as well as many of people and interesting products.

This is the last of the markets I plan to visit. Tomorrow I head to the former colonial capital of Antigua for a couple of days. It was there that I studied Spanish for seven weeks in 1993.

 

The dangers of Guatemalan travel

In my post of December 28, Journey to the Ixil, I wrote about passing dangerous landslides on the bus between Coban and Uspantan. In today’s newspaper the lead story is that the hill collapsed at that spot and 34 travellers were confirmed killed in a landslide and another 60 are missing.

I was quite nervous when we drove over it, and might have been even more so had I known this tragedy would occur at the same spot just over a week later. I now see that two people were killed at the same spot on December 14.

Here’s the story on Prensa Libre’s website with amateur video: http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/enero/05/286916.html

And here’s an English story on CNN’s website:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/05/guatemala.landslide/index.html