#el paredon

[narvuhs]

[lostraveleros]

Vom Landesinneren zieht es uns Richtung Pazifikküste und perfektem Sommerwetter. Nach 5h Fahrt erreichen wir El Paredon.

Ein wahres Strandparadies mit perfekten Surf-Bedingungen. 🏄🏼‍♂️ Wir mussten also einen Surf-Kurs machen 😜 Super spaßige Erfahrung! Haben uns für morgen gleich nochmal ein Board reserviert. 😍

[ninks]

Speed-sightseeing in Guatemala

After my week in New York I flew to Guatemala City. Due to an ever decreasing budget I organised a Workaway work exchange at El Paredon Surfhouse for a month as a receptionist. 

El Paredon is a small village (1500 people, 70% is under 30!) located about 2 hours from Antigua, 3 hours from Guatemala city. The manager, Ismael, said he would come and pick me up from the airport as it is a bit complicated to get to the beach with public transport. This was excellent; not only a free pick up service right from the airport, but Ismael showed me around Guatemala City and Antigua for the first few days because he had lots of errands to do in the city during the day.

Findings in brief: Guatemala City - a place I hope I will never ever have to go to again. A big noisy city with nothing of interest (to me). All the “GETTHEHELLOUTOFHERENOW!” bells were constantly ringing while I was there, despite having a local showing me around the place. Yes, some nice buildings, parks and modern areas but there’s far nicer towns everywhere. My advice: head straight for Antigua if you get in by plane, or go up north to see the pyramids. If you are overlanding from another country, avoid the city altogether.

Palacio Nacional de la cultura Antigua was the contrary: it is one beautiful, massive outdoor museum. Typical colonial style, the main square and its surrounding cobblestone streets with low-rise buildings remind of other Spanish style old cities such as Arequipa, Cuzco and Cuenca. Yes, it is overrun with tourists but that is usually for a reason: there’s lots of stuff to see and do. And being in gringoville does come with some advantages: an abundance of great coffee and food!

There is a hotel called Casa Santo Domingo which is built around a museum and you can visit this for free. It's ruins of a monastery and the nicest time to visit it is at night when they light up candles all over the place.  

the ghost of this photographing monk can still be seen

One of the first drinks I was introduced to was a Michelada: a concoction made of tomato juice, spices, lots of tobasco sauce, lime, ice cubes and an upside-down beer that you just lift up every now and then to add more beer. It was very Bloody Mary Beerie, but nice and refreshing. There were several other varieties too.

Micheladas

You see chicken buses everywhere, called that because people are packed inside them like live stock, trying to push three or sometimes four bums onto a bench made for two. These buses originate from the USA: they are the famous yellow school buses that have failed their warrant and are not worth fixing up again. Once they come to Guatemala they get pimped up with colours, bells and big bumpers to look like a cross between a monster truck and a lit-up christmas tree. Tacky as it may be, I like them.

When I got to El Paredon Surf House we had just gone into the low season; so the weekends packed out, leaving the weekdays almost - empty with between 2 and 6 people on average. I was very lucky to end up here because there are lots of dogs around and guests often brought dogs too. Sometimes we had more dogs than guests on the premises. 

Above is the house I was sharing with Maggie, the other volunteer, and Solovino, the hostel-dog.  Below some pictures of the hotel.

As the village is so small, it didn’t take long before I came in contact with the workers of La Choza Chula, who sometimes came for a meal or a few drinks. They help the local community in developing entrepreneurship and education for its citizens. One day they called me to ask whether I could come and be the judge for an afternoon. They had been giving workshops on how to develop and run a business, and had a small pool of money to help develop the best idea(s). So here I had to sit and listen to these ladies explain about their ideas, the costs involved and the benefits it would have for the village if they would succeed. In the end we managed to allocate some to all of them, some a bit more than the others, but all fairly. It was a fun experience! 

Explaining her business plan in front of the terrifying judges

In between working we went to the Lake Atitlan for a couple of days. This is Central America’s deepest lake and it has loads of small communities and villages dotted along it, which can easily be reached by boat. Almost each village has their own dress and each village has succumbed to supplying to the demand of the never ending stream of gringo’s.  Some places are very hippie-ish, others just super touristy but it is a very nice place to visit all the same. 

This is the dress of the men that live around Atitlan

The lone rower

We stayed at the beautiful Posada de Santiago in the town of Santiago on the Lake Atitlan. The posada was located right on the shores of the lake and it had the most magnificent gardens and houses, it is one of the nicest looking hotels I have stayed at. 

Some of the touristy villages on the lake

Beautiful green Guatemala

I ended up at a restaurant one day with Ismael, after a short car ride and a boat ride to cross the river to get to the place. They pride themselves on the fact that they have never had any incidents of violence in over 50 years. I am guessing this is to do with the fact that all the waiters walk around with a big loaded gun over their shoulder! The randomness of that...

After a beer and a sunset we headed back to the Hotel Paredon. 

I also went and climbed the volcano Acantilango - I won’t get into too many details other than that it was much harder than anything I have ever done or had anticipated. For more information please refer to my previous blog. However, here is a nice picture of the sunrise taken from that volcano.

As always, before I knew it my time was up! I now find myself in Antigua on my last day in Guatemala. One month was just so short, especially when not having time to travel and sight see as much as I would have liked to. On the other hand, I prefer it this way, when you spend a few weeks somewhere you really get to feel the place and get to know the locals and the expats. A few days of sightseeing and a “tick” on your list to say you have “done” a country or a town doesn’t do the place any justice and I loathe people that think and talk in that way. As a matter of fact, there’s even people that consider they have been to a place just because they spent a few hours at the airport or a night in the hotel of a country!  I will be taking a transfer tonight at 2 AM to be precise, to take me to Leon in Nicaragua. I have exactly 2 weeks of travelling left and then I start co-leading the Transamazonica: a classic Volvo 4WD tour with 40 cars, going from Paramaribo to Rio de Janeiro, a whole new genre of adventure!  But let’s not tick that box just yet...

[dewisselophetspoor-blog]

Sunrise cabin view.

[archaeologicalnews]

Lost Maya city of Noh Kah has been mapped

Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have at last confirmed that the forest in Quintana Roo hides an ancient Maya urban centre covering more than 34 hectares, containing at least six architectural groups.

For people who lived in the area, El Paredón, a wall covered with creepers and roots, was clear evidence of an ancient city that had been “eaten” by the jungle.

The researchers could give the site no other name than what the locals called the area; Noh Kah, “Big City”. For two years, specialists from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) along with archaeologists from the INAH carried out detailed field collection of ceramic material and the topographic survey of the ancient metropolis. Read more.

[omarghh]

[tuckersherman]

Beachsky

[gallivanderer]

El Paredon, Sipacate, Guatemala

The king wall or boss wall, so the name implies a paradisical place so elusive that basic knowledge of Spanish or little desire to talk by acting and improvised sign language will likely only get you half the distance to arriving in a spot that you will probably never forget for the rest of your life.  Places like this just don't exist for very long and if they do you wouldn't even know about it in the first place because you wouldn't and he wouldn't and I wouldn't have been there to tell the story of marvels.  What I'm talking about here is the catch phrase "to-be-off-the-beaten-path"  It's harder than you might initially think.  It, the place needs to have certain qualities about it that draws you in and only you and maybe a few others but not the rest of the circus show to it.  It can't be just an boon arse-loch of a place, otherwise there's really no point in going there, is there!?  Word of mouth is the key, not everyone's mouth, just a chosen select one or two that you can trust with your life or have that little feeling about in your gut that what they say is worthy information.  El Paredon is just that.  You need to be adventurous, have a firm grasp of the Spanish language, be willing to change buses, modes of transport and direction at a whim of 2 seconds notice.  When you finally get there, I hope to hell that you know how to swim in a Tsunami and learn to love it fast.  I also hope that you have packed with you various forms of insect repellent because this will test your zen-abilities.  Mosquitos that almost speak to you all day long telling you ...zzz "you are off the beaten track my friend".  I won't tell you about the rest of the splendors except that there are many, too many to recount or spread the proverbial word about.  Take a side step off "the gringo trail" you'll be rewarded.