La Ruta de Maya - Guatemala pt 6

Antigua, Guatemala

On the bikes, finally! After 2 weeks of exploring the amazing countryside of Guatemala, we are back in Antigua, ready to ride. We’ve met up with the rest of the group: Anna and Jenny from the UK, Mike from BC, our photographer Patrice Halley, and writers Andrew Findlay and Stephen Ripley.

I’m here in Guatemala to put together a new route for Sacred Rides. I’d heard stories from friends and from my local partners about the epic riding here. Now we’re finally riding, and I’m excited to find out how good it really is.

We set out on the bikes, towards Volcan Agua, for our first ride. Antigua sits at 1,800 m above sea level, in a bowl surrounded by massive volcanoes. To the east lies Pacaya, to the north Agua, and Acuatenango. To the west, Fuego. It’s an impressive sight, one you won’t find in too many cities in the world.

Antigua is a beautiful Spanish colonial town. Its cobblestone streets make for a rough start to the ride, but soon we’re out of town and heading up a dirt road, at the base of Volcan Agua. We’re riding through farmers’ fields; people are out working in the midday heat, tilling the dry soil (it’s 3 months into dry season). Avocado trees line either side of the trail; dry corn stalks dot the landscape.

We soon reach the top of the trail, with colossal volcanoes rounding out the incredible mountain scenery. Our group is tired from long flights and the altitude (Antigua is at 6,000 feet), but amped to ride. We drop in, 10 of us, in the afternoon sun, surrounded by Guatemalan villages, centuries-old Mayan trails, and Central American heat.

The trail is technical, with boulders and rocks lining the trail, but it’s stunning. Halfway down, a local Mayan man with a load of firewood passes us, giggling at our bizarre-looking contraptions. We pass him again several times, he continuing at his steady pace, us alternating riding with frequent photo taking. It’s scenes like this, interacting with the locals, that make me value what I do so much.

That night we have an incredible dinner at the Sky Café, on a rooftop patio overlooking Antigua. The mojitos go down like ambrosia. We finish up at the No Se Café, a brilliant little drinking hole next door, that looks like it’s about 300 years old. It’s full of history, and we do our best to add our own stories to the tequila-lined walls.

It’s another perfect day in paradise.

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The next day, we prepare ourselves for a big day. Today we ride the Cielo Grande (Big Sky) ride, high above Antigua. It’s a punishing climb to the top, over 800 m above Antigua. Most of our group opts for the shuttle ride to the top. Andrew, Matt, Luisa and I opt for the punishment.

It’s one of the steepest climbs I’ve ever done, but helped my occasional stretches of concrete, spectacular views of the valley, and children who run alongside our bikes, shouting “Gringo! Gringo!”

My lungs scream ‘stop’ about a dozen times on the way up, but I press on, fueled by pride and stubbornness. Luisa, our co-guide and a local Guatemalan racer, barely breaks a sweat. I reach the top about an hour later, spent but proud of our tenacity. The views are breathtaking.

The trail drops in through families’ backyards, and soon we are in thick jungle. The singletrack is smoother, but narrower today. The exposure keeps us on our toes; the trail keeps our adrenaline pumping. We drop through numerous valleys and cornfields; the volcanoes remind us constantly of where we are. We’re riding in the land of the Maya, and all of us are in various degrees of awe. Riding a mountain bike in a foreign country is undoubtedly one of the best ways to experience a country: you meet tons of locals, are usually off the beaten path, and have fun doing it.

We end up on the main road down to Antigua as the sun is going down. As the sun sets we race along this smooth road, with nary a car in sight. The thrilling descent brings us into Antigua just in time for dinner, ready to celebrate life once again.

NEXT POSTING: Lake Atitlan & giving something back

La Ruta de Maya - Guatemala pt 5

Just a quick post today, since I'm about to hit the sack. Here are a couple of photos from an incredible place in central Guatemala called Semuc Champey. It's as close as I've come to paradise: emerald-green pools cascading down through the jungle, lush vines and vegetation all around, waterfalls everywhere...

We spent the morning in an incredible cave, straight out of The Goonies (best movie of my childhood). Our guide gave us a candle, then we stepped into the mouth of the cave, into a foot of water. Pretty soon, the water is up to your waist and you come to a ladder. The ladder takes you to another chamber, then you scramble down to another chamber, also full of water. Soon the water is up to your neck and you have to swim, while holding the candle, to the other side of the chamber. This continues - ladders, chambers, swimming - for about half a kilometre, until you can go no more (at least not without the right gear). It was one of the most amazing things I've done, and I wish I had pictures.

Next, we went tubing down the river, then ended with a hike to an incredible view over Semuc Champey. Finally we hiked down to the pools, which are the most amazing colour of green I've ever seen. We ended the day by rappeling down behind a waterfall.

I've been to a lot of amazing places, but Semuc Champey takes the cake. I'll be back - hope you can join me.

Mike

La Ruta de Maya - Guatemala pt 4

Lanquin, Guatemala
Mar. 03, 2008

From the Western Highlands we decide to head east, into the misty reaches of Guatemala's cloud forests. This will involve a day of arduous travel on buses and minivans. At 8 am we say goodbye to our wonderful hosts at the Hospedaje San Antonio. The farm's two Australian shepherds escort us down the driveway to the road, where a microbus is waiting. There are about 25 people loaded into the 15-seater van. Tanya squeezes into the van, standing up; there's no way I'll get my 6'3" frame into that van, so I hop on the back, with a boy of about 16. It turns out to be one of the best van rides of my life.

The morning sun is just beginning to peek over the mountains as we roll down the road, thankfully at a nice slow pace. A river follows the road on our left, meandering through verdant pastures. The road is busy with people, walking to their fields, or walking their horses and cows to pasture. It's a clear day in the highlands of Guatemala, I'm on the back of a van, holding on to a ladder, and I feel amazing.

I ask the teenager next to me where he's heading. "To the cornfield," he answers. "For work?" "Si, para trabajar." He works until noon every day, he tells me, then heads off to school. We continue the rest of the way to Nebaj in silence, enjoying this quiet morning.

The bus ride from Nebaj, in the Western Highlands, to Coban, in the east, takes you along the Cuchmatengo mountain range, and is among the most spectacular scenery in Guatemala. We'd prepared ourselves for an epic journey, but this journey turned out to be Homerean. On the map, it's only 100 km, but in truth it's a bone-jarring.

We arrive at the El Retiro lodge, in Lanquin, 28 hours later, after a night in Coban. Stepping through the front gate is like stepping straight through the gates of paradise. The Rio Lanquin sweeps by the property, meandering through lush jungle scenery; tropical flowers cover the property, and bungalows dot the grounds. It’s a place that has the potential to suck you in for weeks, or months.

That night we head to the nearby Grutas de Lanquin – a series of nearby caves that extend several miles into the earth. Our guide, alocal Quiche boy of 16, points out several Mayan ceremonial altars in the caves. Local Maya have revered these caves as spiritual places, and the walls of the main cavern are black with candle smoke.

After our tour finishes, we sit by the mouth of the cave – about 15 of us – and wait for the bats to exit the cave. At sunset, the bats leave the caves by the thousands to feed. We wait there in silence for the first bats to exit. One flies past, silently, then another, then another. We take a few pictures, unaware of the spectacle about to come.

Soon the bats are coming by the hundreds, through this narrow cave mouth, which is only about 8 feet wide and 10 feet high. Although we 15 are crowding the mouth of the cave, the bats have no problem navigating around us at high speed.

15 minutes later, the bats are coming out by the thousands. Each camera flash illuminates hundreds of bats in motion, greeted by a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.’ It’s one of the most amazing spectacles I’ve ever seen, a reminder that the natural world is more amazing than we even suspect.

La Ruta de Maya - Guatemala pt 3

Lanquin, Guatemala
Mar. 02, 2008

I write this latest entry from the banks of the Lanquin river, in eastern Guatemala, at an incredible little hideaway in the mountains called El Retiro. The eastern highlands of Guatemala, shrouded in green mist, beckon out the front door of our bungalow. In the distance the faint strains of Ali Farka Touré's African Blues emanate from the hotel's stereo system. Farther still are the Western highlands, left behind in the rearview mirror of our microbus.

The last several days have been a whirlwind of buses, people, and natural Guatemalan beauty. We spent 3 days at a beautiful cheese finca (farm) of Hospedaje San Antonio, in the Western Highlands, north of Nebaj. The cheese farm lies a short walk away from the remote community of Acul, in the bowl of a deep green valley. Life here is deeply traditional, although the community is making rapid progress into the 21st century.

Acul lies in an area called the Ixil (ee-sheel) Triangle, about 6 hours north of Antigua. The people here are almost all Maya, and speak Ixil as a first language, not Spanish. It's a fascinating language, full of glottal stops and sounds unfamiliar to the Western ear. A woman tried to teach me a few words and my throat struggled to replicate the strange noises. Nevertheless, it’s a beautiful language, as are the people and the land.

In spite of its current beauty, the Ixil triangle suffered terribly during Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war. The area was one of the hardest-hit in Guatemala, as the army razed village after village in a campaign to terrorize the population. Ostensibly this made it harder for the guerrillas to wage their campaign against the government, but the people of these villages suffered the worst, caught between both sides in a war they wanted no part of.

Peace came to the Ixil in 1996 with the signing of the peace accords, but prosperity has been far more elusive. The area’s remoteness, coupled with the inhabitants’ lack of Spanish, has left the area out of the government’s development plans, for the most part. Today a host of NGOs and aid organizations have stepped in to fill the void. One such organization is APEI, or Amigos para las Escuelas Ixil (Friends of Ixil Schools).

I met Ingrid Raffel, APEI’s German director, at the hospedaje during our first communal dinner. Ingrid is one of those amazing people whom you know will leave an indelible impression on you the moment you meet them. Ingrid is 72 years old, looks 15 years younger, and buzzes with energy. She has been coming to the Ixil triangle for over 15 years, back when the area barely had roads.

At dinner Ingrid regales us with stories of all-day hikes through knee-deep mud and pickup trucks tipping over on the rough Guatemalan roads. APEI’s mission is simple, she tells us. The Ixil people feel they will make no progress unless their children have education, and education in Spanish, so that they can converse with the rest of the nation. APEI steps in to assist the Ixil in that goal, building schools, staffing them with teachers who speak Spanish and Ixil, and providing financial support to those schools. Since 1991, APEI has built 15 schools in remote, rural communities. Some of the remotest of these communities have had virtually no contact with the outside world for decades: the army forced these people into the hills, where they eventually settled their new villages.

Ingrid returns to the Ixil every year for two weeks, and spends those two weeks traveling brutal roads and hiking steep mountain paths. Her schedule would wipe out a woman half her age, yet she does it with joy, delighting in the opportunity to help people in desperate need of any help they can get.

And her efforts (and those of her partners) are paying off. Students are graduating in droves, moving on to further education. APEI just graduated their first teacher - the first student to go through the system and return as a teacher in the program. This landmark was a huge source of pride for Ingrid and her partner in the program, a cheerful German named Martin whom we met a few days later.

Ingrid tells us that prosperity is slowly coming to the Ixil people. The nearby village of Acul, for instance, didn’t even have a store when she was here last year. Now it has several stores, a new church, even a cell phone tower. On our walk into town one day, we spotted Mayan women dressed in traditional woven clothes, talking on cell phones. Hope has returned the area, Ingrid says, but she is quick to downplay her part in it, bestowing the praise on the local people instead in her typically modest fashion.

As much as the developed world enjoys the quaint notion of the people of the developing world living traditional lives in grass skirts and eating bush meat, the majority of traditional cultures want prosperity (and their culture). They want a good roof over their heads, food, and opportunities for their children. People like Ingrid are helping to bring their dreams to fruition.

Which is why a portion of the revenues of our future tours to Guatemala is going to support Ingrid’s work with APEI. For more information on APEI’s work, visit www.apei.de (you will need to be able to read German, however). If you are interested in supporting APEI, you can contact me and I can put you in touch with APEI.

NEXT UP: Lanquin, bats by the thousands, and the Eastern highlands