Mayan Explorer In A Nutshell

On Feb. 11th I embarked on a "Mayan Explorer" a 3 week trip that pops into some of the best places in the Yucatan, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. The group was comprised of:

Kiki - Swedish
Maayke - Dutch
Sheena - English
Adam (aka Texas) - Texas
Nick (aka MC McBasilhoff) - UK
Jon - UK
Dani (aka The Player) - Austria
Maciej and Dorota (The Poles) - Poland (Via Ireland)

The crew was tight and we managed to have a blast. Adam miraculously managed to go out drinking every single night of the trip... others tried but failed. But even thought the crew's personal nightly consumption goal was not fulfilled, the trip was still a success. We hung out with cheesy Cuban lounge singers and his Can-Can dancing coworkers, befriended land pirates in Palenque, guzzled down $90 (read - $35) bottles of rum in Antigua, were howled at by the monkey guardians of El Boqueron, got ticks on our balls (well, some of us), chugged along the Belizian reef in good company on Ras Creek's Rasta Tug Boat and managed to squeeze 6 people into a hammock... overall a successful trip I would say!

The following is an attempt to try to wrap up six weeks of goodness into a couple paragraphs...

Palenque was the second night of the trip and therefore the first night that we cooked. I (almost) always cook the first night when we camp and when in Mexico I like to grill up a Mexi-smorgasbord - Arrachera tacos on the grill with, cebolla, cilantro, morron asado, avacados, home salsa... the works. This is me in action on my makeshift bbq (a grill sleeve propped up on rocks).

Later on during our Mezcal sippin's a grasshopper made it's way to the table and managed to mate with Adam's nose.

After the Mezcal we decided to make our way up to the palapa for "one more beer". As we kicked back to enjoy our beers a stranger stumbled into the room with his guitar. He was very forward and friendly and plopped himself down cross-legged in the center of our dinner table. When asked who he was he responded "Una pirata, una pirata de Palenque"... a pirate. It was pretty convincing I must say, he looked like a genetically mutatated Capt. Jack Sparrow: raggedy clothes, piercings, blond and black dreads and the wierdest edition - completely albino-blond eyelashes and eyebrow on one side of his face. He sang some Bob Marley songs and actually was pretty good... especially considering his admission that he had taken mushrooms... and acid. Just as the Pied Piper's tune lured children from their homes, the Pirate's Marley tunes awoke sleeping palapa rats from their hammocks and soon we had a merry bunch of travellers singing songs and sharing stories until the early morning... or should I say until the guy in the hut next door came out and yelled at us.

Another picture of me and the Pirates.

From Palenque we moved south to San Cristobal. I'm loving the music scene there... always live music and most of the time its really good. Usually reggae or mexi-rap/reggae mix. If you ever go you have to check out the Circo bar for a good night of tunes. We spent an afternoon strolling through the market. Everything and anything you want fresh, fast and good is there... including this heaping mound of mixed beans.

A photo of the streets of San Cris.

Got a couple of photos of some of the locals selling their goods in front of the cathedral in San Cris. Every afternoon when the sun drops the church basking in the purple rays of dusk makes and incredible backdrop for photos. These girls from Chamula (a nearby village) were using their cutest Chiapan looks to try to sell these handmade garments.

Balloon Boy

Met up with another tour guide (Steve Busby) and his group and rolled south to El Chiflon, a series of waterfalls that both of us had been interested in visiting. We all were really impressed. Just like Agua Azul the water is turquoise blue. But instead of 15-30 ft. waterfalls, El Chiflon is a series of falls 10 - 180 meters! The scenery is amazing and standing in the mist of the tallest falls while looking down on the others is a Mexican must do! To top it off, there is a zip line there that shoots you 500 meters across the canyon over in front of the 180 meter falls... Excellent! We spent the afternoon climbing around the falls and swimming in the (cold) pools. That evening both groups set up camp together and we had a waterfall jamboree.

Busby is a diver and a skilled one at that. I've seen him pull off some pretty incredible (and technical) dives. But when I saw him attempt this bomber I almost couldn't watch...

... but I did and took this photo. Class! Steve got 10's from the crew and managed to impress the local Chiapans enough to give him a round of applause.

Steve and I talking to a family from Chamula that came to the falls for the day. It was 2 young women with their 10 kids.

Steve and the Chamulans.
Hi... Meet Stefan from Berlin. Him and his buddy Mark were both on Busby's trip. The first day we walked into the lobby they both were outside chillin' and having a smoke. Pretty intimidating meeting 2 guys that are both about 6 foot 4 - one with matching skull tats on each side of his neck and the other a 250 lb. semi-pro German boxing champ. Mark was a tattoo artist that had the clown from Steven King's "IT" tattooed on his calf and he did most of the work on Stefan. The first day of the trip we went swimming and Stefan revealed his back masterpiece as pictured above... pretty impressive. Both guys ended up being really cool and definately added a lot of flavor to the trip

From El Chiflon we moved south to Guatemala. First stop - Panajachel. Pana sits on the shore of Lago Atitlan, one of the most scenic lakes in the world. Lago Atitlan is surrounded by 3 Guatemalan highland volcanoes which create the backdrop for one of best sunsets I've ever seen. This is the pier where my crew met to watch it.

A couple beers on the pier

Me and the volcano

Getting abused by my group

From Panajachel we moved on to Antigua, another city in the shadow of volcanoes. One of the highlights there was climbing Pacaya, one of the more acessible and reliable active volcanoes in the area. We set off in the late afternoon to hike up the hardened lava flow and watch the volcano at sunset. We were lucky to come when we did because a new river of magma had appeared a few days before our arrival. It was pretty impressive to walk up the pumice and look down on both sides of the "path" (there really wasn't much of a path) and see hot glowing lava sinkholes bubbling up. Almost scary and definately enough to make you respect the power of the place. Really amazing!

I'm definately skipping some days here (about a week), but I'm lacking appropriate photos to show. Towards the end of the trip we moved on to Caye Caulker, one of the islands off Belize City. Everytime we go to the chilled out island we do a Snorkelling tour with Carlos Alaya... a great tour guide with much knowledge of the reef. But this time things went awry and his motor broke down on us. All we got to enjoy on Carlos' boat was the fruit that he had prepared for the end of our trip... but it was delicious. Somehow he's perfected how to pick out the perfect papaya.

Carlos brought us back into shore where we met up with Ras Creek and his Rasta Tug Boat (that's the best way that I can describe it). He saved the day by agreeing to take us out for the rest of the afternoon for a snorkelling tour and it was fantastic. We were joined by a couple of random friendly folk and the first thing that we saw were a couple of dolphins that played in front of the bow of the boat for a good 30 minutes, jumping and flipping, guiding the boat out to the reef.

A good view of the palapa that covers the "VIP section" on the top of the boat

Me and Ras Creek doing some Sting Ray hugging

The reverse oreo cookie (as my friend Patrick in the middle said)

After a good couple of days in Caye Caulker we crossed back into Mexico and made our way to the Xpu-ha bonanza beach camp. Here's a picture of me entertaining my group by dressing up in my Mariachi gear and singing Nortenas.

Arriba, Arriba

Me, Busby and Momo (the husband of the owner) posting up Mexi-style for a post tequila photo shoot.

Busby in prime form squeezing all the girls in my group into his hammock. What would my boss think? Oh yeah, I know... he'd laugh and then take this picture. That's right... big up to my boss Colin for hanging out for the night and showing my group a good time... just like the good old days.

So that's it... 3 weeks in a nutshell. Gotta say, I had a great time. It's a good trip and it makes it even better when you do it with a solid group. Thanks guys! Hope you had as good of a time as I did! Give me a shout and let me know if I missed anything.