Paul and Marie

This one is a doozy… so grab a coffee or tea and cuddle up to the screen for a good story, with a very happy ending! 

We woke up early the morning after our thanksgiving feast and were picked up by our shuttle van.  Our group had once again expanded with the welcome addition of Mateus who wanted to come with us after Innes left back to Belgium.  Making good time, we madeit to the border on market day and walked to the various border customs on either side. We entered Guatemala and waited for our other shuttle to Atitlanwhile catching a wide breadth of what Guatemala had in store. We saw a guy get onto his scooter with his pistol and magazine shining in the sun. Not too many guns in Mexico outside of the intimidating Mexican state and municipal police, not to mention the military presence. In Guat it perfectly legal to carry arms, can’t wait till everyone gets drunk on a Friday night, yikes!

Halfway from the border to Lake Atitlan we had to be re-routed to Quetzaltenango (Xela) due to disturbances near the lake. We were under the impression that the roads were closed because of indigenous rioting. We found out later that the locals had massed to deal with three prisoners in the local jail, they took police hostage and demanded the police release the three prisoners to the people, who proceeded to beat them up and burn them alive in the streets.   The prisoners had murdered a bus driver.  The judicial system is very corrupt here and the locals knew that due to the prisoners´ mafia ties they would be released within 3 days.  There has been a rash of bus driver murders and over 500 bus drivers have been killed in the last year.  They are targets because nobody pays in advance for bus tickets so the drivers always have lots of cash.  Needless to say, people here are very upset.  That sure didn’t make the news back home, did it? The three people were accused of killing a local bus driver and the town sought vigilante justice. Spooky. Xelas was a real nice place to visit, but it was certainly overshadowed by the incident.  On our way to the lake the next day we saw the huge police presence and burned out police cars. 

We lunched in Panajachel and caught a boat to one of the many villages that surround Lake Atitlan. The lake has several Volcanoes looming over head and is a stunning paradise of beautiful jungle.  We skipped the major center of Panajachelandheaded straight for the smaller and quieter San Pedro.

What a magical town!  San Pedro is one of those places we have been hearing about from friends and travellers over the years.  The town had some pretty high expectations to live up to!  It is nestled between volcanoes on a beautiful  lake, surrounded by lush jungle.  It is home to very friendly locals and a strong expat community.  San Pedro is a great place to go to work on yourself and relax a little bit.  We decided to stay for a while, unpack our bags and revel in the comfort of routine and familiarity for a few days.  It really felt like a vacation from the rigours of travelling.  While in San Pedro we registered for very inexpensive, one on one Spanish classes.  Every morning we spent 3 hours under a palapa in a beautiful garden drinking local coffee and improving our conversational skills.   We found a lovely hostel called Yo Mama´s Casa and made it our home for the next week.   The afternoons were spent doing yoga, getting massages or energy work done and laying about in the hammock-strewn vortex of our home away from home.  The evenings were spent soaking in private thermal pools, dancing to excellent music at the Freedom bar, playing pool or watching movies at Yo Mama´s or simply drinking cheap (but tasty) box wine and getting to know our new friends.   When you are travelling occasionally you will unexpectedly find the perfect mix of people, a temporary family in the midst of so many strangers.  Well this was one of those magical finds.  ´Yo Mama´ ended up being a woman named Farrah, a super cool 20-something who took the plunge and moved to paradise to run a hostel.  Very inspiring indeed. We referred to the common area in our hostel as the vortex because it was so easy to while away an afternoon just chatting with other travellers, sharing music and book recommendationsand feasting on whatever food was cooked in the communal kitchen.  The food! Oh my!  Will I ever miss the lovely ladies who regularly and with impeccable timing would show up at our hostel with homemade chocolate cake, cinnamon buns, banana loaf and veggie tamales.  There really was little motivation to get out of the hammock.  But when we did coax ourselves out of the vortex we were rewarded with everything this little slice of paradise has to offer.

We spent some of our time in the vortex crafting.  I copied and put together more poetry books that I like to gift to new friends, as I was running low.  We found this great epoxy matierial and proceeded to make playful horns in anticipation of a music festival we would be attending the following week.  It´s hard to imagine attending a festival with out my tickle trunk full of costumes… at least this way we would havea little flare! Paul and a posse took a trip to the summit of San Pedro Volcan. At 3020 m the view is stunning, you see three other volcanos from its lofty heights including the active Pacaya near Antigua which we plan to check out when we get there. We also went to another lake village, San Marcos La Laguna, which is home to a pretty inspired modern pyramid complex used as a meditation centre. The vibe here is very much more about vows of silence, yoga, and spiritual healing. They still had beer, so thats good. Rhea, Kira, Conor and Raelkayaked over to meet us and we enjoyed this little place before returning back, this time Paul rode with Raeland Conor to give the girls a little break. One day we went with Kira to Panajachelon a material mission, multicoloured fabrics of all colours and sizes to be used in her unique creations when she gets back state side, we look forward to her art. We also cought a truck to an old coffee plantation which had a lovely beach and relaxed to music sitting around watching clouds as they passed around volcanoes.

The time we spent in San Pedro really solidified our friendships with Rael and Mateus, two really solid cats who really contributed to the group dynamic, and have become very close friends who joined us on our journey to the festival. We left for San Cristobal de las Casas Mexico on another shuttle stoppìngshortly after border formalities for some cold ones, recalibrating our financial brains for another currency switch. The ride back to San Cristobal was familiar and friendly like the Mexico we have come to love. We returned to our hostel from the previous time and quickly made our way to the best falafel in town and wandered the streets anew stopping in a few haunts. Paul, Rael, Mateus and Rhea wandered into a three year anniversary party for a fancy tapa bar and had a few plastic cups of so-so wine before calling it a night.  We also booked our flights from San Jose Costa Rica to Cabo San Lucas for Paul´s cousins wedding their at the end of February. (I guess that confirms we are coming to the wedding ; ) The following morning we all made tracks to Palenque town for a build up fror Redemptionfest.

Rael had spent some time here before and knew the secret to staying in Palenque. The secret is not to; Palenquetownwas built to serve the tourists going to the ruins and has nothing particularly nice about it and it is extremely hot and humid. He showed us to El Panchan, which on the other hand is a travelleres hideout both from the heat and from the real world, it is about ten degrees cooler, as this area is absolutely and literally covered in jungle, the sunbarelypenetrates the canopy.  Time is spent here checking out the fire dancers and drinking beers in the shade. We stayed in little cabañas with thatched roofs, very jungly and pretty.  To get to our cabana we followed little jungle paths over bridges and below doorways, past giant palms and tropical flowers; as on a secret mission to Shambhala.

We visited the Mayan ruins of Palenque which flourished around 700 AD and was overwhelmed by jungle after its abandonment until being unearthed again centuries later, its house of the inscriptions has helped create a functional timeline of the Mayan history. In the background, the howler monkeys screamed their catlike howls, pretty unnerving to the unsuspecting visitor, and we enjoyed a lovely day with a pleasant colourful sky and bright green carpets of grass and wandered around the complex appreciating such a place.

The big night for Redemptionfest started with lots of napping and confirmation attempts as to the real location of the ¨festival¨.  Rael even prepared snacks of hard boiled eggs and fruit in the expectation for the long haul. Also to be mentioned was the arrival of groups of people we had met along the way and some newbies to the Jungle posse, Texas Steve and Danish Simon had finally left Zipolite with Lupita and picked up New York David, Italian Lucien, Timmy, Eva the Ibiza DJ and a host of others turning our group into a much larger enterprise. First we went to the location just near El Panchan by jumping into the back of a pickup and speeding to the entrance, there were a dozen or so people hanging on to each other for support in the back of the speeding truck. The festival was supposed to start at 5pm but at  9 the gate was still closed and people started massing.  The conflicting news began; one DJ had split from the original lineup amd there was a second party,  the festival was divided, split down the middle.  The problem was they would not accept our pre purchased tix and we would have to go to the other venue to change them.   Ahhh, Mexico.  always an adventure! We piled into another friendly truck and drove to Palenque town, really holding on now as there was a sqirming mass of 22 people standing up in the back of the pickup, all intertwined into some kind of massive support group that was ready to sing Kum Bye Ya and some were even tearing from the fierce speed winds, it was sad and beautiful; grown men despertly hugging onto each other for dear life.  We arrived at a car wash and gas station at the edge of town, it was awesome. Rael and Matheas scouted ahead to confirm the location of the other party, they went to the hostel that sold tickets and was hosting the organizer.  After spending a good 45 minutes waiting in front of said car wash the boys came back and shortly therefter the organizer appeared and gave us a lift in his truck. We arrived at the party excited that at last we had made it, there were even official-looking staff checking tickets, well… ¨lets party!¨ we said.  We said it again, and well the lighting was awesome the music was great, the lights even shone down on a perfect and still swimming pool. We watched and waited.  Marie and Kira lit up and everyone was really into it.  When they finished up fire dancing, everyone continued to stand back and watch us… weird! We danced a bit and everyone watched us; this party was bunk. It culminated when Simon, seeing the opportunity to use the pool, doffed his clothing and went for a swim in vain attempt to get a rise out of these ¨watchers¨.   He was  promptly told that the organizers did want him to use the pool… Where was the festival, where was the circus stage we were were  promised? The fun luvin´people? Group decision determined we had to get outta of there, with trucks and taxi, we returned to ¨party part one¨ and it had turned into something much more festive, we had finally found what we were looking for.  We strapped on our horns, tossed aside our shoes and dug in and danced and boogeyed all night long.  This was the party we were hoping for!  The music was great the atmosphere was perfect and the hords danced up a tribal storm in reckless abandon beneath jungle night sky.  Towards the early morning hours Mateus grabbed each of us individually to join him on his expedition, sunrise  at Palenque ruins.  We almost had the guards taken care of (wink wink nudge) but they got nervous and it eventually blew up in our faces.  The 8 of us had to abandon hope. Mateus stayed behind and managed to grease his way in while we walked back to the party, happy for him to realize his dream.  By the time we got back sunrise  had happened and we were all a bit tired and went back to our palapas in the jungle palace for much-needed rest. The next day was spent mostly in bed nursing all types of hangover. We spent another day in Palenque before heading again to Guatemala but not before the breakup of our wonderful group. Mateus made tracks to return to Belgium and on the same night Rhea left towards Cancun to fly back to the states. It was a sad night and also the right time to go.  We said our tearfull goodbyes to these kindred spirits… it´s amazing how close we had become in a matter of weeks. 

The next morning Kira and Danish Simon came with us to Guatemala and we crossed in the north along a river and stamped into the country, in a very relaxed border post, most pleasent.   We drove in towards Flores, a starting point for many Mayan ruin adventures including Tikal. The road showed the evidence of  deforestation for cattle raising, creating a hazardous area in rainy season. We plan to get to Tikal tomorrow and take a night bus to get to Antigua hopefully to stay for Christmas before moving on to the Bay Island of Utila for New Years and most of January. If you are not doing anything, please, come join us!Either way you will be with us in spirit.

 AFTERWORD

In other news I Paul Fisher, of mostly sane mind, asked Marie Specht to join me for life as my wife.  We were in San Pedro on Lago Atitlan and my intention was to ask her on top of a volcano in typical Paul style, yet the signs told me not to, Marie was sick and could not make it up. So I had to change plans, we had earlier arranged a bath in the thermal baths, which are hardly thermal but hot indeed. The bath was for two and was surrounded by jungle bushes and sounds, with lit candles and boxed wine  (cheap but good) under a full moon and starry night, it could not possibly have gotten more romantic… maybe a Mexican mariachi popping out of the bushes, wait that would have just been weird..we were in Guatemala. 

Oh yeah, she said yes!

We bought a ring afterwards in San Cristobal de las Casa, it is really beautiful; two pieces of  different coloured amber  contained in a silver shaped leaf. So thats a pretty big deal, definitely have not set a date in the near future but I guess we´ve only just started to think about it.  Can´t wait to celebrate with you!