It’s difficult to put Guatemala into a pigeon hole unless, of course, you have a hole for an unfeasibly large pigeon… then it might fit. It’s a small country, but its variety of cultures, regions, climates and experiences is way too big for your average pigeon hole. There’s no shortage of things to see and do. Descending from the cool highlands to the heat of Guatemala lowlands we find great kayaking in the Tarzan jungle, a hot water fall, a cacophony of vuvuzelas, some stacks of ancient Mayan stones… and a scary man with a gun!

A Lake and a Gunman

It’s rainy season down here. The heat and humidity of the lowland climate meets our expectations (or fears!). Our solution is to inflate Mr Boaty McBoatface (our kayak) and hit the water; it’s cooler out there. Lake Izabal is a wide but shallow lake with lots of birdlife. We spend a few days parked-up in the shade on the shore, kayaking, swimming and trying to re-acclimatise.

When visiting natural beauty spots we try, but often fail, to remember the ‘weekend-syndrome’. Sometimes we forget what day of the week it is, then get all huffy when we have to share a place with crowds (so inconsiderate of people to spoil our enjoyment 😉). We arrived at Lake Izabal on a peaceful Thursday but on Saturday morning, sure enough, a convoy of vehicles arrived and parked-up to our left. They set-up all the trappings for a little girl’s birthday party. Balloons and bunting adorned the palapa and a piñata doll was hung. It had potential to be a very noisy day but actually, it was fun. The kids were friendly, behaved well, swimming in the lake and enjoying themselves. No problema.

Or at least it was ‘no problema’ for an hour or so until another backie-truck pulled up on the shore around 50m away to our right. Out got three young men each clutching an open beer bottle. It looked a bit ominous, then it got worse… we noticed one of them was brandishing an automatic assault rifle (looked like an AR-15)! WTF????  They stood around drinking for a few minutes. They leaned the rifle against a tree with the muzzle buried in the sand (for the uninitiated… anyone who knows anything about correctly handling weapons would never do this). We obviously couldn’t know whether it was loaded and from the distance we couldn’t tell whether it was even a real rifle, but we soon found out!!

After a few more swigs of beer, to our horror one of the guys picked up the rifle and started blasting out rounds of automatic fire across the lake. It was like something out of Rambo and we could hear the rounds ricocheting off the water as they bounced around!  WT freaking F?????  Bad enough in any public place, but this was less than 100m away from a children’s birthday party!!! After years of travel we aren’t often surprised by things going on around us, but there we were shocked.

The guy seemed to only fire away over the water away from us and the children, but he was also drinking beer. It was all rather random, unpredictable and scary. But what was even more bizarre was that the kids and parents of the adjacent birthday party didn’t seem to care or even notice! They didn’t bat an eyelid! They just continued with the party ignoring it!!! Words failed me… yes, even me (that’s a rare thing!) Dumbfounded!

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that we really weren’t comfortable with the situation. Should we say something? We could just leave, but it would take us a while to pack-up Boaty and everything. Whilst we were deliberating, they took a few more beer swigs and blasted out a few more bursts of automatic fire. Then they chucked the rifle in the back of their truck and drove off! Phew. Relief! About half an hour later we could hear more blasts of automatic firing in the distance. The guys seemed to have found a new spot for rifle practice. Other than that, Lake Izabal is a nice place 😊!

Caribbean Culture: Boaty goes to Tarzan Jungle!

Leaving Lake Izabal we headed to Rio Dulce but on the way we stopped at Finca El Paraiso. Now that is worth a stop! Just a kilometre or so from the road is a beautiful waterfall into a natural swimming pool. The amazing thing, is that this geothermic waterfall is hot, whilst the river it falls into is cool! It’s a whacky thing to swim in a cool pool and have hot water tumble on to you 😊

Rio Dulce is the name of both a town and the river that leads from Lake Izabal down to Livingston on the Caribbean. About half-way between Rio Dulce town and the coast, the river snakes sharply and cuts through a steep gorge with the cliff-sides covered in dense jungle. It’s where the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies were filmed in the 1930s, so you get the idea! We wanted to explore the area with our Boaty McBoatface kayak.

There are no roads down there, so we would have to leave Cuthbert in Rio Dulce town and base ourselves in a riverside jungle lodge for a couple of days. In addition to kayaking down the ‘Tarzan gorge’ and emerging out of the river into the Caribbean Sea in our own Mr Boaty, we loved taking him on a mini-expedition into the mangroves.  We’re still getting used to kayak touring, but Mr Boaty McBoatface has been a very welcome addition to the Tucks’ Truck team. We like him.

Livingston is Guatemala’s Caribbean tourist town but a lack of land access leaves it a bit isolated. It’s an Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community and has a very different vibe to the rest of the country. The buildings, people and food are all very Caribbean – it’s like we’d gone back to Guyana or Suriname and we guess it’s probably giving us a taste of what Belize is going to be like.

A National Day

When we arrived back to Cuthbert in Rio Dulce town, we found celebrations underway for Guatemala’s national independence day. There were street parades and much banging of drums, but the overwhelming sound was from vuvuzelas (or as Marcus says… ‘gorgonzolas’). Vuvuzelas… not the most tuneful and not what we imagine to be a traditional Latin American instrument! Whatever the sound, we’ve seen many such celebrations in various countries on our travels and I find them extremely heart-warming. All generations come together waving flags, dressing-up, playing music, dancing, showing national pride and celebrating whatever it is to be them. Yes, the fun might in some cases arguably be papering over the cracks of a society’s troubles, but for one day a year at least, it’s a good thing. I challenge anyone not to smile and tap their foot to the beat as the parade goes past!

The Final Lake and the Mystery Condition

Still persevering with the heat and humidity, we head north to more lowland jungle and our final stop in Guatemala. The cute town of Flores sits on a tiny island at the western end of Lake Petén Itzá. At the eastern end sits the quiet little resort of El Remate where we enjoy a few days of yet more Boaty McBoatface kayaking (this time amongst reed-beds watching birdlife at dawn and dusk). We also see by far the best sunsets we’ve had in Guatemala, if not the whole of Central America!

The remote jungle area north of Lake Petén up to the Mexican border is jam packed full of ancient Mayan ruins. If you’re into that kind of thing, you could spend many happy weeks hopping from one pile of crumbling stones to… yet another pile of crumbling stones.

Back in Peru last year we saw so many Inca ruins that we succumbed to a condition known in medical circles as ‘Inca’d Out’. This is typically brought on by an excessive exposure to crumbling stones in rural Peru, which are collectively known as ‘Inca Shit’. Here in Central America we are threatened with a similar condition known locally as ‘Mayan’d Out’. But this time, we got wise! This time, we’re carefully rationing our exposure to ‘Mayan Shit’. We’re allowing ourselves just one major dose of Mayan Shit per country. In Honduras we saw Copan, in Guatemala it’s Tikal, in Belize it’ll be Caracol, and in Mexico maybe Palenque.

Although many of these ruin sites aren’t altogether our cup of tea (had you guessed? 😊) that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate something spectacular when we see it and take-in the historical significance. We do enjoy the major sites when rationed appropriately and we did want to see Tikal.

It’s said to be spectacular to climb to the top of Tikal’s Temple IV early in the morning. The mist slowly clears over the tops of the other temples as they peek out above the jungle canopy. The wildlife springs to life as the mist clears: toucans and spider monkeys play in the tree tops in front of you whilst the barks of howler monkeys echo for miles. It happened to be my birthday whilst we were there, and I must say it really was the most special of birthdays! Early morning Tikal does not disappoint. Even if, like us, you’re wary of exposure to an excess of Mayan Shit, you really will appreciate the beauty of these fine temples and the nature in the jungle around them. A fine and fitting way to end our time in Guatemala.

That’s it. Guatemala… done! It’s been good. In fact, it’s been unexpectedly great but as we said… Guatemala is far too varied to be pigeon-holed. Our next stop is Belize, which I expect will also be difficult to pigeon-hole. But after Guatemala, it has a lot to live up to!

Guatemala Lowlands Photo Gallery