Hostels Flores and Lanquin

Hostels recommended by the Lonely Planet can be a bit too much like Apple Products to me. One could be shepherded around Guatemala without once having to think for oneself, nor taking any kind of public transport or having to speak any local other than the people in the hostel (if they are local) bus drivers or guides. No knowledge of Spanish required. The Hostel (Las amigos) in Flores was like this. It feels very crammed, the dorms are just a tarped of "room" in the yard, but had its own restaurant, tours on offer, laundry service, internet, everything. One could be in Flores without seeing it as I said, no independent thinking required. There are two other Hostels in Flores, one (Dona Goya) which is actually cheaper and spacier. It has a really nice roof terrace with hammocks and a view and the other ( I forgot the name, it is just down the street from Dona Goya) which is slightly more expensive, but right next to the lake, with a view and a small terrace from every room. I like having to go out for my Coffee and other errands, because it makes me see the town, especially a town like Flores. I moved after the first night in the Lonely Planet hostel. Public transport is also cheaper, but this is not the main reason why I rather take it. If all tourists in Guatemala would take public transport a lot of revenue is created, which then will probably go into improving it, thus actually having a positive effect beyond sustaining tour companies. Plus, I think it is much more dangerous to be moving around in a poor country in a minivan marked "tourists" (no joke, it is marked) than being on a chicken bus. When i was in Tikal, I heard about a hold up of a "sunrise tour", a tour that leaves Flores at 3 at night to arrive in Tikal just after sunrise. It is not possible to see the sunrise in Tikal with these tours I do not understand the point of them, but I digress. This happened twice with the same bus driver and apparently the bus was stopped by a single guy holding a machete. Of course I feel sorry for the people that were robbed and am sure the experience was a scary one, my point is that I don't think building a parallel infrastructure for tourists, rather than extending the existing is a good idea for any parties involved.
The differences between places profiting from tourism, and those that don't could especially be seen in the town of Lanquin, close to Samuc Champey. I have to say it is a very nice Hostel, the dinner is awesome and it is located next to a river where one can swim in. When i went into Lanquin, just to look around, I did not see any other Gringo. I don't think any of the shops or restaurants in that town profit from tourism in any relevant way. And this is a town right next to one of the top tourist destinations in Guatemala. Most people I talked to took a tour to Samuc (why does someone need a tour to go swimming?) leaving the hostel in the morning (with a packed lunch) and returned in the evening for dinner. I guess the motivation for a tour is that it is boring to swiming alone, but Samuc is so small that you meet everyone from the hostel there. When I went there by pickup truck I met a group of Guatemalan girls, from Coban (next bigger city) and Guatemala city. In Samuc I met a Spanish couple who lives in Panama from the Hostel again and I had dinner with the girls. Although the conversation was a bit broken, due to my bad Spanish it was interesting to hear about Student live in Guatemala.

Camping in Tikal

It was time to try out my hammock! I decided to go in the afternoon to Tikal and stay there to see the sunrise, so I could avoid most of the crowds. Plus the site deserves at least two days, it is impressive and in the middle of the jungle, which means a lot of walking. I went to the campground next to the entrance and got out my hammock. I did not have extension ropes for it, so when i hung it up it was quite high from the ground. Then I added the inner part of my tent as a mosquito net. It took some scrambling to get in, but once inside it was quite comfy. Satisfied with my camping in the jungle skills I went to check out Tikal. I made a lot of pictures, but as I used a different film, with 400 light sensitivity instead of 200, I had to play around with the shutter speed and lens opening, not always with good results. It's a learning process... Anyway, the pictures that turned out ok-ish are here.
More will be added when I develop the next film.
Thanks to going into the park in late afternoon, I was pretty much by myself, which made the atmosphere quite eerie and at dusk all the jungle wildlife awoke, monkeys started howling and throwing shit at me, some weird rodent thing was running around and all the birds went wild.
The night was full of bugs. I had met a sister and brother from USA, who were also camping and when we returned to the campsite in the dark, giant grasshoppers and other bugs had been attracted by their white mosquito nets. A brown spider with blue mandibles had made its net right next to it. Full of anticipation I went to my campsite, but as all my equipment is in dark colours not even a cockroach was around. I climbed into my hammock, but did not sleep a lot as I was unused to it and kept being afraid of it coming down or me falling out. I heard the next morning that the brother had not slept at all, as he did not know the scream of the howler monkey and thought wild animals were about to attack. The howler monkey does have an impressive scream. At 4:30 we set out to see the sunrise from the highest pyramid (with a view on the main plaza). It is quite an experience to be sitting on top of a pyramid in the dark jungle and slowly hearing all the animals wake up, making out the ruins through the morning fog. Definitely worth the camping. Plus the next day, after walking around in Tikal some more I went back to Flores, finishing the day with a cold beer by the lake.

Fight!

Mexican wresteling is so much fun. I want to learn how to do that. It is all showfighting, although I wonder how they manage not to hurt each other. As far as I understood from the guy sitting next to me, there are always a group of good guys, who have to play by the rules, and the bad guys. They all have scary to funny masks on, each fighter has his distinct "face" that he (or she!) is know by. Usually one group starts beating the crp out of the other, until the other makes a spectacular come back. Fighters are thrown out of the ring, others jump after them, three people beating the shit out of one, I loved it. It does look fake enough to just lean back and enjoy the mindless violence and there is quite some acrobatics involved and some of the moves are very impressive or comical. I had no ideas what the fighters were called and the guy next to me only new the ones from his childhood (who are retired now) so I shouted for "green guy" or "bat guy". Fun!

Redwoods, redwoods, redwoods!

This is what I wrote as a first sentence when planning California, and for the north coast it is very true, there are redwood forests and only redwood forests. I went on the scenic drive through Prairie Creeks State Park and the Avenue of Giants, both very pretty, but after driving through forest for hours I was glad to see the coast again, when I made it to the 1. It also does not help that if one does not go through redwood forests the 101 is a freeway (but bicycles are allowed on there) and quite boring to drive, imagine going 50km/h on the Autobahn, my German readers...
But the number 1 is fun! It is curvy and hilly, and made me feel like being on a proper motorbike. Plus the landscape is amazing! I wish I had pictures to go with this, but I managed to put the film in the wrong way in the camera, so all the pictures are on top of each other as the film did not unroll. Therefore my description must suffice...
The grass on the hills is burned yellow from the sun, contrasted by the old dark green gnarly trees growing every here and there, sometimes growing along the roads, creating a hollow. Fog hangs in the valleys, and in places it is like driving into a cloud, just to emerge into brilliant sunlight and the deep blue sea glittering below on the other side. The towns are smaller again, more little cosy villages than towns. On a sad side, I did see a lot of foreclosures along the road, summerhouses people bought during the bubble and can now not pay for anymore. On a scary side, I came through Bodega Bay, but did not get attacked by birds, so I had an ice cream there.