12 December, 2000

When we answered a soft knock on the door we found ourselves saying hello to Jackie- of Jackie and Smila, the two women we met on our way into Guatemala. How fun! They were staying in the same hotel that we were and recognized Sandy. It turns out that this is their last day in Guatemala so we thought it was neat that they ran into us by chance again. What a kick!

After a wonderful breakfast in a little dessert-oriented cafe (cakes, pies, quiche) we took K & L to the Antigua market that we "discovered" yesterday. Not as nice, as Chichi by any means, but still very much worth checking out. In the late afternoon tried a bar we hadn't been to yet. The downstairs/inside was a bit too American for us -- three TVs and REM on the stereo, but the upstairs patio turned out to be delightful. They had pitchers of Moza (the darker Guatemalan beer which we prefer) on tap and we, or shall we say, Kelley, ordered one after another. We played Chinese Checkers and laughed ourselves silly until after the sun went down.

It got cold and we got hungry so we stumbled around trying to find somewhere atmospheric to eat. Trying to get the four of us to make a decision after a good amount of drinking is not an easy task. After trying a few different bars and cafes, we finally settled on the Chinese restaurant at which Steve and Beebee had their first meal in Antigua. The atmosphere is dark and cozy with candles on the tables, the food is pretty good. We had a blast. A great way to spend the last night of K & L's trip.

Shopping	Got ceramics?	Big corn!	Yummy, cheap eats

Cheers!	Kelley orders another	Pretty clouds

We moved today too- Our favorite little place, Santa Lucia #3 had an opening on the top floor so we grabbed it and moved out of Santa Lucia #2, which was downstairs, noisier, and not quite as centrally located. To celebrate, we redid our budget (yuck), went shopping in the market again and made a wonderful tomato soup for dinner. Looks like we'll be eating in a bit more often or ending the trip a lot sooner than we want too. Of course, our newly recognized tight budget didn't stop us from making a bunch of phone calls- internet phone here in Antigua is cheap (about a dollar/ half hour) but the quality makes it frustrating. Not quite as bad as talking on a CB, but not a whole lot better. If more people had been at home or work when we called it would have been a lot more fun. Oh-well.

Finished up the night figuring out our rough itinerary between now and arriving in Guadalajara around the 5th of January. Should be a fun couple of weeks. Steve is very excited about the stuff in Mexico and is very eager to be camping again soon. We plan to head out towards Quetzaltenango bright and early in the morning.

Of course, since we are staying around, we decided to get completely caught up on the website and also see some of the sights in Antigua that we hadn't seen yet. In doing the update, Steve discovered a few pictures from Panajachel that had been forgotten. Beebee finally spent some quality time cleaning out her rusty leatherman tool (another legacy of the fateful trailer blowups in Baja). Maybe tomorrow we'll actually get out of here, and then again… maybe not.

"To Go" means a plastic bag and a straw	Chicken bus	Check out the jam-packed roof of this bus. The inside was just as packed	Women in traditional dress, Panajachel	Strong neck

After a three+ hour drive up torturous winding roads that the guidebook said would take two, we pulled into the second largest city in Guatemala. At a glance, Quetzaltenango, or Xela (pronounced shey-la) as the locals call it, is deceptively small-seeming. Since we really didn't have any idea of where we wanted to go in Xela, we headed on out to Zunil, a small town just outside of Xela, and up to the Fuentes Georginas- a hot spring resort of sorts run by the government. Steve had been to the springs years ago and remembered that there are some cabañas there for rent. Four o'clock on a saturday, however, is not a good time to try to get reservations at this very popular weekend spot. We went ahead and reserved a room for the following night and decided to head back down to Xela instead of camping on top of Sandy in the springs' parking lot. The lot seemed like a good enough place to camp, except that the temps were already down to chilly and the staff suggested that they would get as low as the 40s overnight. That is a little too cold, we've only got two thin polartec blankets and a cotton blanket from Baja that offers next to zero insulation.

While we sat, scratching our heads about where to go next, we happened to run into a gringo who was leaving the springs. He asked about a ride down with us and we happily agreed to drive him to town. Turned out to be a great decision on our part. The young man, named Graham Keeting, had been studying spanish in Xela for the last six weeks or so and his host family runs a small parking lot in Xela. The father of the family (whose name I think may have been Jorge) was happy to let us spend a night on top of Sandy in his parqeo for a mere Q20 (less than $3). Great deal for us, and easy too.

On top of helping us find a place to stay, Graham offered us some money for the ride, which Steve parlayed into a beer and some conversation instead. Thus we spent most of the rest of the night in a cute little largely gringo bar in Xela, drinking good beer, chatting with Graham and people watching like crazy. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Street on the outskirts of Xela		Graham Keeting at the local hangout		Our parking lot home for the night in Xela

The drive was pretty drab with light rain and heavy fog the whole way, but what small glimpses we did catch of the countryside were lovely. Pine trees, towering mountains colorfully dressed natives dominate our memories. Momo, on the other hand, was actually a bit of a disappointment. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because we were a little tired and hungry, maybe we've just seen a few of the best markets around recently, but Momo's market came off as being a little boring and worst of all- there were hardly any blankets to be found! Bummer. After wandering around for an hour we finally did stumble upon a street where several vendors were selling handmade blankets and found one that we liked. The man had the oddest bargaining approach we've seen yet- insisting on writing each price down on a peice of paper then pointing to it and seemingly trying to explain the whole process to us. Irritated by what came off as a patronizing attitude, we gave him a bottom line price and finally had to walk away to get him to realize that we were serious that his price was ridiculous. In the end we were happy with our purchase, a double-bed sized, thick, handwoven blanket for about $18, but the whole experience was a letdown after the fun we had shopping in other markets.

Feeling more than ready for some relaxation, we headed back to the Fuentes Georginas springs to soak our troubles away. What started out as more frustration (lousy, expensive food and big crowds) turned into a very pleasant and relaxing chance to watch local people spending a Sunday afternoon with their families. The springs themselves are wonderful. In the evening, we met up with some other travelers, Steve and Val, who were honeymooning through Mexico and Guatemala from the UK. We swapped some traveler info while Steve tried to maintain a fire in our fireplace (with green wood). Steve and Val took off to soak and Steve and Jocelyn stayed in to eat some hot soup and cocoa by a reluctant fire. Jocelyn finally broke her losing streak in backgammon too.

The all-impotant Soccer field, in Zunil	Bridge with lilys on the way to Fuentes	Sunday and the locals at the Fuentes baths	The lovely, less-used lower pool	View from the Fuentes path
		Sunday morning in San Francisco del Alto -- a small town on the way to Momo

We pulled in to Huehue around two o'clock and found a hotel with parking almost immediately. Seems that most hotels in Huehue offer parking, even the very economical Hotel Central, where we got a very basic room for Q30 (about $4), including parking. In Antigua the parking alone was Q15/night. We found a nice little eatery- El Jardín and Steve tried the Pepian- a hallmark Guatemalan dish that was fantastic. Beebee had one of the best Chile Rellenos she has ever tasted (and she has had a lot). The best part of stopping at El Jardín, however, was running into a friendly lady from the UK named Krystyna Deuss. It just so happens that she has written one of the books that our guidebook recommends for further reading on the area. What luck! Krystyna filled us in on a few fun daytrips and we enjoyed swapping anecdotes about driving in Central America.

The rest of the night we spent strolling Huehue. Steve just about strained his neck whipping it around every few minutes to look at all of the Land Cruisers in town- everything from 55 wagons working as taxis to 75-series pickups. Huehuetenango holds the record so far for highest percentage of cruisers in use that we have seen. That is about the best thing we can say about Huehue, however, as other than stroll and look at cars, there isn't a thing to do there. We finished off the night at a neat little cafe (the only one we found after walking around the whole town) excitedly discussing the off-road-with-magnificent-views-for-miles trail that Krystyna described to us.

Street in Huehuetenango	Tree-filled hillside: looks a lot like Cali	We were so reminded of Northern Calif. hills	An enviable 80 series in Comitán

Feeling a little glum, Steve decided that we may as well head up to the border instead and come back to the Huehue area another time … thinking that at least we could get up to sunny, warm, Mexico and do some camping. It was pouring rain on us within five minutes of crossing the border, wouldn't ya know it? The border itself was one of the easiest we have crossed yet, though for some inexplicable administrative reason they would only issue us tourist cards for 15 days. (By the time of editing this, we would find out that the State of Chiapas only issues 15-day tourist cards. So we need to leave Chiapas to get ours renewed for anything more.)

We headed up the road for Comitán and were delighted to find a city that impressed us far more than it had the authors of our guidebook. It didn't take long to find a cheap place with parking (the Posada Panamericana, very basic but only 70pesos, about $8) and head out for a snack on the picturesque plaza central.

While sitting on the plaza we were suddenly faced with a very real problem- it is cold here. Wearing just about all of our insulative layers we were barely warm enough as we walked around. While we were both excited about the purportedly lovely camping just an hour outside of town, we were downright worried about the temperature. A quick check on the internet confirmed our doubts- low temperatures in the areas we were planning to camp were predicted to drop down to within a degree or two of freezing. It didn't take long for both of us to agree that we aren't equipped for winter camping. So out came the guidebooks and we had a serious planning session over a fantastic dinner of Tamales al Comitano. Delicious!

La Mesilla border -- The picture isn't crooked!	In Mexico -- and we wanted sunshine …	Columns on the parque central in Comitán

Somewhere in the mix we did manage to make a call home and chat with Steve's parents for a while, and we saw a really great mural in the stairwell of the municipal building, and we flagged down a water truck to restock our fresh water supply (much easier to find water in Guatemala, it seems). But overall, the morning was a wild goose chase. At least the sun came out and made it a pleasant wild goose chase, Comitán really is a cute little city and we enjoyed getting to know it a little bit. We also had a very good breakfast on the west side of the main plaza where Bb discovered that hotcakes means pancakes and the pancakes is french toast -- but made with Wonder-like bread (yuck). We also tried atole for the first time and thought is was one of the best breakfast beverages possible on a cold morning- think thick, hot beverage with blended oats.

Mapless and later in the day than we would have liked, we finally headed off towards Ocosingo via what used to be a dirt road- it is now paved. Being paved sure makes the road faster, but the views were so wonderful that we found ourselves wishing it was still a dirt road so that we would have a good excuse to drive it at 20 mph instead of 40 (faster than that would be suicide on the curves). We made it to Rancho Esmeralda well before dark and picked a great little campsight, took a wonderful hot shower, and enjoyed a fabulous family style meal. At nearly $10/person the meal was one of the most expensive we've bought recently, but the food and company made it worthwhile. It felt great to sleep in the tent- the bed up there is more comfortable than most hotels' and there is something about sleeping on your own sheets…

Last night we also met Sebrin, Jessica, Franz, and Anna (spelling may be wrong, sorry!)- all of them tour guides who drive small groups around Mexico in large vans. Interesting lifestyle, Steve thought it could be a fun way to work for a while whereas Beebee was less enthusiastic. When we found out that the companies don't run spousal teams together we decided it wasn't a good idea at all for us. Regardless, we spent the better part of the morning chatting with the guides and Mike about various destinations and got some good pointers from people who have spent some time driving about Mexico.

While Bb took a run (fabulous! she exclaims) Steve chatted with Mike about running the ranch. In the conversation he learned that the ranch was expecting a heavy load on Christmas and he offered to have us return to help out- a few days work in exchange for camping and meals. With that opportunity in our minds, we headed off down a very curvy road toward Palenque. We rolled into the Maya Bell campground (a local fixture for campers) in the early evening and met a couple from Canada pulling a camper behind their jeep on the way to Costa Rica to set up a jungle lodge. Obviously we exchanged some stories and enjoyed meeting one-another. We also happened to see a huge red London-style double decker bus with the website www.bigbusride.com plastered on it. Pretty ridiculous form of transportation for Central America, but we figured it was some sort of big group… Never really saw the people who were on it, but figured we would meet them in the morning.

After complaining to each other for a while about the lousy weather, we decided to put on our rubber boots and hike on up to the ruins. Wow. They were great. The rain lent an air of steamy jungle mystery and kept many of the tourists out of the way of good pictures (every time the rain picked up, people scattered for cover). To read about our day and see some pictures, follow this link to our Palenque Ruins page.

We got back from the ruins a little cold and hungry so we decided to splurge a little and buy some beers and food in the Maya Bell restaurant. The food wasn't exactly bad, but the portions were small and the prices were high. The rain continued. Camping in a muddy campground that has no views, with rain coming down is a pretty not-fun thing to do. Especially when there is hardly anyone else around because they have all fled to drier or perhaps warmer locations. We are craving some sunny beach time in the near future.