Zotz not the half of it...

Well it's about that time of year again, where I have found myself chasing dreams and answers on the open road. This time I happen to be in Guatemala!

A beautiful country, it is. Full of Zest and Life, and several other North American brands of consumer products. But seriously, I've only been here 2 and a half weeks or so and I'm thinking it's a pretty nice place to be. And they have McDonalds...

For those who weren't in on my plans at the start (not my fault, talk to my agent), I basically wanted to head back to Central America this year to continue learning Spanish. Costa Rica gave me a good base, but I was sorely out of practice and didn't want to lose it completely. That, and the prospect of being out in the World again were enough to get me planning a trip. If you can call my haphazard style of last-minute-everything ''planning''.

Back in February I happened to be talking to my ex-roommate from CR, A-ron. I mentioned the Guat trip and said offhandedly "yeah man you should come down." Well A-ron is the type of guy who takes those comments seriously, and he started researching the crap out of Guat so as to get the most out of his week here. Reading week for those folks in Jersey falls in March, which worked out great. He talked his roomie into coming too, a walking encyclopedia named Sheil who happens to also have a great taste in music (I realize that some of you are now wary of Sheil's taste in music, since it agrees with mine... what can I say).

Well them boys sure do like their research, and they took to the internet immediately and found some cool stuff to do. Namely, a 3-day hike through the jungle that pops you out at Tikal, the famous Mayan ruins. Sounded good to me! They had their tickets booked before I did! But all worked out well, and at the last minute A-ron even talked an old buddy of his from Bolivia into coming along as well. And, with the addition of a brand-spankin new tent from none other than my own mother, we were set!

We landed in Guatemala city on Friday, March 6 at around 8:45 in the evenin. This will be on the test later, so please pay attention. Haha well we were on a bus to Flores by 10pm, spent a nice night chattin and annoying the people around us who were trying to sleep, and hit Flores Saturday mornin. A quick trip to the Rainforest Alliance office to drop off a bunch of stuff (A-ron had an in there, and we were able to leave extra clothes and such that we weren't going to need on the hike). A nice breakfast in a restaurant, a trip to the grocery store to buy our food for the next 3 days, and we were set. We negotiated a cab ride to a small town called Cruces de dos Aguadas (or something very similar... haha) and headed into the jungle. Actually, the first few hours of hiking were along a dirt road that passed by a bunch of farmer's fields, with the customary cow and little white duck combination that I'm so fond of seeing in Central America.

We were aiming to make it to El Zotz, a set of Mayan ruins in the jungle that haven't really been excavated yet, they just sort of sit there hidden. Pretty cool. We passed an entry point into the GTA (greater Tikal area, sorry Torontonians) and they said El Zotz was only 3 hours away. We were making great time, so we figured we'd be fine. We walked till the sun went down, put on headlamps, and kept trekking... passed the 3 hour point with no sign of the fabled ruins. It was dark, we were tired, but we didn't want to stop because we kept figuring it'd be just around the next corner. It wasn't, so finally we said that's that and set up camp. It was a hurried affair, with a can of refried beans for dinner, and then we were all out like lights. Until about 3am.

Howler monkeys are so called due to their incredible booming roars that can be heard miles away. Most often active around sundown, I believe... but apparently also in the middle of the night when they feel like they need to get some things off their chests. Well it doesn't take long before you're standing outside your tent in your underwear trying to take a video of the blackness around you in order to capture the sounds. It was an amazing experience, we were right in the middle of 2 different groups of monkeys having a turf war. It's a sound like nothing you've ever heard, but I strongly recommend you find a way to hear it at some point in your life.

Next morning, with fresh socks and a fresh appreciation for the jungle, we set off. And around the next bend was... you guessed it... El Zotz. We couldn't see it in the dark, but we were only 2 minutes up the road from our destination. The universe had a little laugh at our expense, and we chuckled with it. Well done, universe.

El Zotz was really cool, the ruins were tough to make out even when standing right near them, since the jungle was so thick. But we got to climb all over them, and with the guidance of a friendly park ranger, even walk through one of them! There was a little tunnel that went underneath one, and he took us through it. Only saw 1 bat, but he assured us it was the kind that likes blood. Haha

It was a great start to the hike, and from the top of one of the temples we looked out over the vast ocean of jungle. And there, 36 or so kilometers away, one could juuuust make out a tiny gray square on the horizon: Temple 4 of Tikal. So I pulled out what was to become a source of much comfort over the next couple days - my grandpa's handy-dandy compass. Set our course, bid farewell to the first leg, and set off down the road. Everyone we ran into was trying to tell us we couldn't do it without a guide, but we knew better than to listen to negative thinking, no matter how rational it sounded. And I'm writing this now, so obviamente all went well, eh!

These blogs have a habit of going longer than you intended when you sat down to write them, so that's about all for now. Gotta go get something to eat, perhaps a steak of sorts?

Thanks for reading!