Jake Gordon

Waterfalls And Even More Ruins

16 July 2003

The waterfalls were pretty funky. It was raining at first, which was a bit annoying, but it was quite spectacular all the same. Went right under and behind this huge waterfall at Misol-ha, and climbed up to some caves with water flowing out of them. After having a bit of a picnic, we went on and got in a truck to the next waterfall, Agua Azul. The pickup-truck ride was the highlight here. Wind rushing past, and a duck underneath one of the benches - apparently one of the local?s dinner. There were lots of medium-sized waterfalls here, which weren’t blue as the name had suggested, but brown due to the rain that morning.

Yesterday was the border crossing into Guatemala. I went with Grace, James, Scott and Charlie, whom I’d been travelling with since meeting them on a bus to San Cristobal. A couple of small minibuses and a half hour boat trip - the second bus ride being quite bumpy, with the roof above my seat leaking during a thunderstorm towards the end of the trip!

Guatemala is different to Mexico - more so than I thought. In general, people are friendlier here, but that isn’t hard, as on the whole Mexican’s were generally quite unfriendly. The country is generally much flatter than Mexico, and much smaller.

I’m currently in Flores, a small island-type bit of land in the middle of a lake. Not particularly pretty, but served the purpose of getting to Tikal today. That was quite spectacular - Mayan ruins set in dense jungle, far less touristy than Palenque, and generally much more impressive. An Italian, Franko, and a German, Moritz, and a Dane, Louise are my latest intrepid travelling comrades.

I have a night bus going to Antigua through Guatemala City tonight. After a night there, I plan to visit Lago de Atitlan for a few days before heading to Honduras and the rest of my trip. Moritz and also Louise and Franko may possibly be joining me for parts of it.


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by Jake Gordon, some rights reserved