Guatemala May 2015

I hardly know where to begin...at the beginning, i suppose. The trip to Guatemala took over 36 hours!  American Airlines was negligent and we were shuffled from employee to employee because no one was "qualified" to make decisions. We were required to take the flight to Dallas from Las Vegas even tho it was two hours late and we knew we would miss our connecting flight to Guatemala. No one seemed to have the authority to authorize us to wait for and to take the 11:00 pm red eye to Guatemala. We arrive in Dallas only to have the airline personnel ask "who sent you here?"  We were rushed over to another terminal and put on a plane to Miami. Upon arrival in Miami at 11:00 pm, we were asked "who sent you here?" And informed that the flight to Guatemala was not until Sunday morning. I will not go into details but Professor Luis and I spoke with numerous personnel who would Each send us on a wild goose chase trying to get vouchers for an overnight stay in a hotel. We were repeatedly told that they could not provide hotel vouchers when delays were caused by weather - even when we explained that we had volunteered to wait at the Vegas Airport for the red eye and that We were told we had to get on the plane to Dallas.   Finally, around midnight an airline employee must have seen the frustration on our faces and offered to speak to the manager. He wrote us a voucher for three rooms at the howard johnson. We had our first food since 10:00 am (the airlines didn't even offer to SELL us food on the flights) around 12:15 a.m. - Dominos peperoni pizza. We then were blessed with about 3 hours sleep only to head back to the Miami airport early that morning. The flight to Guatemala was without incident but the one hour drive from Guatemala City took us three hours due to extreme Mother's Day traffic!!!!

Final Images

Two days left in Merida.  We are pretty much housebound these last few days with the temperatures over 100 and the humidity much higher than we care for!  I thought we would post a few photos that we haven't gotten around to posting.

First:  Walking the sidewalks of  Mexico can be quite a challenge.  You must always watch where you step.

Now this doesn't look too bad excel[pt that that pile still contains a Christmas Tree!  It may be there for months more

These are large and heavy

AND FALL FROM TREES!

AND THE THINGS WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

The excellent documentary we saw in San Cristobal on the life of Fidel Castro


The World class symphonies @ Teatro Contreas in Merida

The Puppet show in San Cristobal

CARNIVAL!

The Kids

Dressed for Carnival

After we acted appropriately frightened, this little guy told us, "I'm not really scarey, I'm just a kid!"  He had a terrible time understanding how I could be an adult and not be able to speak Spanish well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The quirky mannikins

The Panderias and all the Sweet Goodies

Signing off from Mexico.  See you soon!  Lynne & Jerry

Hey!  At least this one has a toilet seat!

San Cristobal

As Jerry mentions below, Chiapas was burning.  Chiapas is the poorest state in all of Mexico and has the highest population of Mayan Indians.  It is the state where there has been political unrest for years with wealthy landowners and politicians considering the indigenous people to be of a lower caste.  In the 90's Chiapas was frequently in the news due to the Zapatista uprising and takeover of the town San Cristobal (de Las Casas).  The Zapatistas/Mayans are Ghandi like in their approach to conflict and ended up retreating to the mountainous villages when the government brought in the Military.  They no longer hope government will step in to help improve their lives (tho in the last 20 years many now have electricity and the villages do have some paved roads).  They are trying to subsist on the poor quality land immediately surrounding their homes and have cleared the few  trees left  and burn the rubble in order to plant corn.  It's very sad to see - most of the forest and jungle is gone and they are very much living in third world conditions while the land surrounding them is owned by the wealthy.

It was a 5 hour from Palenque thru the mountainous villages to San Cristobal but it became one of our favorite places and we spent 5 days there.  The coffee shops were everywhere and we could get a far superior cup there than in Merida and for only 12 pesos ($1.00).
Of course we met the Gringo Coffee Group who meets every day much like the group in Kayenta solving the daily problems of the world.    Interesting people wherever we go - a couple who builds houses for the poor to a concert pianist and director of PBS documentaries.

The town had a nice sense of community to it with clean streets and interesting architecture.

The San Cristobal Mercado

The ever present Mayan Women and their Children selling their handcrafted wares.

What we really loved about San Cristobal was how lively it was at night.  Many of the  streets are closed to vehicles and are crowded with people out socializing.

These street performers actually had good voices and were quite entertaining!

We loved our hotel.  The room was quite basic but spotless and the ambiance of the grounds was more than worth the $35 (U.S) per night.

Our basic room

The hallway leading to our room

The courtyard just outside our room

Lynne downloading our daily photos!

 

 

 

Can you believe the size of these leaves??

Some art work that was displayed in the Hotel Lobby

More scenes from the Mercado

The Mayan Women and Young Girls are always, always carrying a heavy load.

Up into the Chiapas Mountains

The Misol-Ha waterfall (115 ft.) located in a lush jungle environment is south of the town of Palenque in Northern Chiapas.  The name Misol-Ha comes from Mayan word for ”streaming water”. The day we were there the water flow was considered 'low'.  Apparently, following a rain, the flow literally doubles causing the main waterfall to split into two waterfalls. The waterfall was an important location of the film “predator” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I thought I saw movement in the trees !

Fire.  Fire. Everywhere.  We could not believe how many fires were burning as we passed through the mountains. Destitute Indian villagers are cutting down trees and burning the undergrowth to grow corn. After a couple of years the soil is depleted and they burn another section.  The government is attempting to stop the burning but the villagers no longer trust the government due to numerous broken promises.

We left Campeche and drove about 4.5 hrs. into the State of Chiapas and the town of Palenque.  It was an interesting drive with a story we will tell when we see everyone.
Photos of some of the sites between the two locations are below.

It was a two lane road and always a challenge to pass a truck like this.

We have now entered the State of Chiapas and the jungle.  The town of Palenque isn't much except for very hot and steamy.  The photos below were taken from our hotel balcony

You can see that the town is surrounded by mountains and jungle.

Jerry took this photo of these two Mayan woman selling their wares with his telephoto lens.

We moved the next night to a quieter, lusher and cheaper neighborhood.

The only reason to go to the town of Palenque is to travel five miles further to visit the incredible ruins.

As you leave Palenque and head out to the ruins, you see this sculpture of Pakal The Great who was considered the most distinguished leader of Palenque.  He was born in A.D. 603 and ascended to the throne at the age of 12.  He lived to be 81 years old which was quite remarkable for that time period.

This Temple is known as the Temple of the Red Queen as within recent years a large stone sarcophagus was uncovered with the remains of what are believed to be those of Pakal's mother.  She was interred with a rich collection jade jewelry and was covered in cinnabar powder, a prized red pigment.

Her remains are now in a museum in Mexico City but some of the jewelry is available to see in the Musuem at Palenque.

It was an extremely hot and humid day.  We were only able to spend about 2 hours at the ruins before we had to leave but inside the structures were the living quarters and it felt as tho the air conditioning was on and they probably spent a lot of time inside during the hot seasons.

Do I look overheated?  My bangs are plastered to my forehead with sweat!