A short lesson on chocolate

One of my favourite places in Antigua is Choco, the chocolate museum and shop. Here you can experience every aspect of chocolate in the place it was born.

The choco museum

 You smell the aroma as you savour the free samples while watching the chocolate get made on a table in front of you. You can even make your own chocolate from scratch, grinding and roasting the cacao beans and everything!

Chocolate making

After spending way too much time in that place, here is a quick run down of what I know:

1.       The cacao bean was first discovered by the Mayans in Central America. Everyone would grow the cacao plant in their backyards and grind it up and roast it, mixing it with water and chilli for a delicious cold drink. It was a massive part of their culture with the drink being incorporated into marriage ceremonies, other celebrations and daily life.

2.       The Aztecs rocked up later and conquered the Mayans. They couldn’t grow cacao plants where they used to live as it is a finicky plant and needs it’s own special place with lots of rain, well drained soil and constant cover under the canopy of the jungle. The Aztecs fell in love with the cacao bean and would trade it at first with the Mayans and later use it as a currency. They believed it had been a gift from an Aztec god and it became something only wealthy people could access. They started mixing it with other spices.

3.       The Spanish rocked up and took a whole lot of stuff from the Aztecs and Mayans. They took the nobles’ treasures, including the cacao beans, back to Europe.

4.       Chocolate became a huge fad for the wealthy in Europe and many different ways of eating it came about. Europeans used slave labourers to far cacao in central and introduced the bean to other places like Africa and Indonesia.

5.       Chocolate became a health drink because of  its high caloric content and physicians promoted it. A physician started advocating mixing it hot with milk...hot chocolate.

6.       The Industrial revolution: all of asudden they no longer had to hand roast or grind the beans and could use hydraulics to press it. The solid chocolate bar was born!!!!!!

7.       Chocolate took over the world and is worshipped now almost as fervently as it was when the Mayans first started roasting and grinding it. Australians eat on average 60 100g chocolate bars a year vs. Germans which eat 114 100g chocolate bars.

I thought we would eat more

I think my mixed blood of German, Chilena and, of course, Australian has resulted in an insatiable desire for chocolate because I most definitely eat more than my fair share in one year.

Hmm...what an amazing bean

The land of Volcanoes and Churches

To travel through Central America without knowing Spanish is a bit of a wasted opportunity. This year is supposed to be about really experiencing new things. For this reason we decided to enrol into Zamora Academia in Antigua for one month and learn Spanish. At$200 a week including all classes, food and accommodation, this is a pretty sweet deal.

Antigua is a picturesque city of cobbled streets, bright houses, old, colonial ruins, many beautiful churches, cafes and bars surrounded by volcanoes. It’s amazing; you forget they’re there but when you look up they tower over everything. It is a very cool city, a cultural hub.

4am Dulce Tipico

Our first week there was the best time to be there. Not only did it cross over with Bernie and her sister Anni’s trip letting us all study together, but it was Semana Santa. Semana Santa is the week before Easter, a week of religion and celebration of Christ. Each church(and there are a lot of them) makes a giant pedestal the size of a bus with a scene from the life of Christ on top. Families and friends work for hours in the day or through the night to make Alfombras, the most beautiful, intricate and bright carpets in the streets. The carpets are made of sawdust, coloured sand, flowers, leaves and any other offerings. It is a source of pride for each group and they spend months designing the carpets and making stencils. After hours of work and the creation of art which is truly beautiful, hundreds of people from the church carry the pedestal in ‘La Procession’ through the streets and over the carpets, destroying them. There is no prize for the best carpet and no incentive to do this, the people do it for a love of god and to embrace their tradition. It is amazing and so different to anything in Australia.

The whole week had a festival vibe with markets, food stalls and even people carrying fairy floss and balloons following the processions. 

A Procession

Friday morning was the big processions and the five of us stayed up till 5 am, drinking in chic little bars and going for a 1am latte so we could walk the streets to see the most beautiful of the carpets get made. 

An evening drink before the festivities

A Snack at the most beautiful burger king in the world

A 1 am Latte to keep us going

I would pay a lot of money for some of the carpets I saw that night(if they were permanent).  At 4 am the procession came out of the church and destroyed everything.

My Favourite

An interesting aspect of this celebration is that Easter means nothing here. There is no giving of chocolate, no easter bunny and just the usual church service. We had our own celebration of easter: chocolate gifts, the most amazing hotcross buns and banana bread I’ve ever had from Dona Louisa and nachos and guacamole in the beautiful setting of the lovers park where a couple can be found making out at any time in the day. 

Easter picnic with the crew: we had a few curious onlookers to take our photo

Mayan chocolate gifts- an awesome easter

Pirates of the Caribbean: Heaven

In Florres, we heard the same thing- go to Lanquin, stay at Zephyr- it’s the best place in the world. To say we had a route planned in Guatemala is a lie, we barely planned before this trip. We had a week to spare so we hopped on a shuttle to check out this ‘Zephyr lodge’ and ‘Lanquin’.

Oh. My. God.

Turns out the travellers knew what they were talking about. I was expecting an ‘eco-lodge’ on a muddy jungle river with a bar and rope swings into the river to cool yourself from the muggy, Guatemalan heat. What I got was a quaint and beautiful wooden hostel on top of a hill in the middle of mountains I didn’t know existed, overlooking extensive valleys and rivers, surrounded by a cool and beautiful forest. 

My dorm bed was a double mattress shared with Jade in a loft with a big window overlooking the luxuriant valley and little village of Lanquin. 

This was totally unexpected and paradise at $4 a night. The food was organic, healthy and amazing and the happy hour dark and stormy’s pretty damn good.  The only downfall was that walking into the hostel was like walking into an Australian bar-so many Ozzies! Luckily they were all particularly decent. We’d had no set plans and now we didn’t need them: we were staying!

Of the four days we had here, we spent a significant amount of time wandering through the hills, along the river and through the very basic, very rural village. 

Jade, dressed by H&M

We still managed to find super cheap burritos (1.20 for 3), mojitos and frappacinos. (Note: Guatemalan coffee is famous and frappacinos are the best)

 We swam in the icy, crystal clear water of the river, drank coconuts and spent an afternoon lazying in a tube floating through the national park river, past our hostel, the little local kids, paddocks and cows, mountains and under bridges. There was the occasional extreme moments where we needed to navigate currents but the only casualty was Nico who managed to wrap himself around a tree at full speed.

Carlos’s extreme tour

It is said that one of the most beautiful places in Guatemala is Semuc Champey, a one hour drive from Lanquin. For $20 we had the opportunity to take a tour and after much discussion we decided to go for it. I can honestly say this was the best $20 I’ve ever spent and one of the most amazing days of my life. Every aspect of this tour was crazy and extreme, set in the most beautiful location in the world.

The one hour drive involved 11 people standing in the back of a small truck as it weaved up and down mountains, through little villages and dangerously close to the edge of cliffs. The landscape and views from the top of these mountains were breathtakingly beautiful and I felt I could almost see all of Guatemala stretching out in front of me as I knocked my hip and shoulder for the fifth time against a metal bar from my standing place. At one point, for 20 minutes we were caught in the most bizarre parade in a little village. Each truck ‘float’ had a different child dressed as different themes; a swimmer, soccer player, someone on a couch. We had no idea what was going on but, as we were last in the line of floats making a slow procession through, we waved from the back of our pick up truck float like the rest of the parade .

We arrived to a beautiful river of deep, aqua blue icy water in the middle of the national park, hours away from any help. Our first activity was an initiation. Each person had to sit on a seat of a rope swing that our crazy tour guide, Carlos, would lift above his head and release over the boulder riddled river. When he yelled ‘jump’ you jumped or you fell onto a rock and died. Each person would have fallen at least 5 meters and I touched the ground on impact but it was an insane adrenaline rush in a beautiful location. Almost everyone did it, even though it was stupid and crazy, and it was amazing fun!

After our little bonding session we walked to the Lanquin caves. 

The cave we went through has a river running through it. At points you wade and at other points you swim. I thought the ATM caves were awesome but this was actually the coolest thing I’ve ever done. No torches, only candles. Imagine swimming, climbing and wading two hours in a cave by candlelight. It was an adrenaline rush in itself, casting an eerie light on everything and making me feel like I was in Pirates of the Carribean. Turns out this tour was only for adrenaline junkies. On approaching a 4m high waterfall I jokingly said to the guy next to me ‘now we climb’. Man did I eat my words. Carlos pulled out a rope and away we went, climbing up a waterfall with my candle tucked in my bikini, trying simultaneously to not swallow water and not die. Turns out candles don’t work well if you wet them. We swam through tunnels with our candles in our mouths, fell through a 30 cm hole down a 2m drop into a pool at the bottom of a chamber and even did a jump off a ledge in the dark, into a small pool surrounded by rocks. Only a few people were stupid enough to do this and I can honestly say it is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done; it was such a narrow space to aim for and a very long way to fall. Carlos was a fantastic ghoul, swimming through secret passages underground and turning up a few minutes later screaming. That guy loves his job.

After surviving the cave, Carlos took us to the Bridge. The Bridge, our hostel told us, is not for jumping off. Standing at 12m high with numerous boulders underneath, it’s both stupid and dangerous to jump off. Unfortunately for us, adrenaline is a highly addictive drug. Carlos, of course, did back flips off it instantly. 

Jade and I spent minutes standing on the edge working ourselves into hysterics. Finally I took the plunge and it was crazy. I just kept on falling. Luckily no one died and I can now write to say it was completely awesome and turns out Jade is a bigger adrenaline junkie than any of us-go figure.

That morning was one of the most incredible mornings of my life, the best thing I have done in central. I was so happy and content. Sitting on the grass, enjoying lunch I thought it was over. I’d forgotten that we’d yet to get to the most beautiful place on earth! A short 1 hour jungle trek up a mountain brought us to a viewing platform of Semuc Champey. 

Semuc Champey is a ‘surreal swimming attraction’. It involves a number of stepped turquoise pools filled with the same crystal clear, icy cold mountain water that makes this place. At the end of the pools is a 15m high waterfall going into the river. If the hostel was set in the most beautiful place on earth, this was heaven. The trek was hard but we were expecting it as it was the only thing carlos warned us about, I got dizzy from my lack of water.

After standing on the vieving platform over the edge of a cliff 50m in the air, we headed down for swimming. This place was idyllic and perfect. We spent hours exploring the pools, swimming through secret passages under ledges, floating on our backs taking in the spectacular cliffs and mountain landscape and, of course, ledge jumping and waterfall sliding with Carlos.

 It was so perfect, made more so by the many Mayan kids selling home made, traditional Mayan chocolate discs to enhance everything(I swear they were laced with something-there is no way I could get that high from just ife)

 


Finally, after the most perfect of days, we clambered into the pick-up truck and took the bumpy ride back to the most beautiful place on earth. Words can not express how amazing and awesome this day was. It is the best tour I have ever done and I highly recommend everyone travels to Guatemala for this.  Book your flights!

Star Wars love and new buddies

I’m sitting on the balcony area of my hostel in a warm afternoon breeze and listening to tribe called quest. I’m overlooking backpackers in hammocks, lush Guatemalan mountains and breathtaking valleys. This is absolute heaven, this is Lanquin.

Crossing the border to Guatemala was like any other border crossing: epic.

Step 1: Get up at 5:30 for my last sunrise, pack and catch the 7:30 water taxi off the island to arrive at 8:30

Step 2: Pay 25USD for ‘luxury bus’ and wait for bus to arrive

Step 3: 10 am, watch ‘luxury bus’ arrive, note it is actually a shuttle, watch bus drive off with a ‘flat tire’

Step 4: Wait 1 hour with Danish girls for said bus to return with new tire-11am

Step 5: Take 3 hours to travel 150km to border in non-airconditioned shuttle with seats so small my shins bang against the bottom of the seat in front of me

Step 6: Get out of bus, walk across border, get ripped off by Belizeans who take the rest of my money for ‘departure tax’(30 USD), get asked for a further $7.50 departure tax and pass ‘go’ monopoly style

Step 7: walk past the Guatemalan immigration office

Step 8: walk back and pay more money for stamping my passport

Step 9: Collect more bruises in the shuttle  for another 3 hours as we go through the jungle and little, colourful villages, admiring the colourful skirts and blouses of the women and many little houses, flowers, shops and chickens.

Step 10: clamber out of the shuttle and into a smaller shuttle for the final transfer

Step 11: Get taken to 3 ATMs and rejected 2 times before having money to pay for accommodation

Step 12: cross a bridge over the lake to an island in the middle of said lake -Florres, Time 6pm

Despite my frustration at border crossings, Florres is totally worth it. A little, cobbled stone, colourful village on an island in the middle of lake Peten Itza, how romantic. The town was beautiful with little wooden peirs you could jump off into to the lake, flower filled verandahs, beautiful guatemalan churches and street food!

Chilling out for the arvo

The perfect verandah!

 Our hostel (Los Amigos) was also awesome-colourful hammocks, a beautiful restaurant(that you could only eat in if you had a couple of hours to spare-these guys were slow), sunken gardens, a night club and internet! 

Jade looking cool, as usual 

 Of course, this is where I met up with Nick and Jade, my new travel buddies. 

My new travel buddies!

Our days were spent lazying on the dock, jumping into the water and sunbaking or walking the cobbled streets eating chocobananas(frozen banana on a stick coated in chocolate-so good). Our afternoons involved drinking frappacino’s while lying on our hammocks promising ourselves we’d exercise that day. 

Frappés, the flavour of Guatemala

Nights found us on the dock or in the park, eating amazing street food(3 tacos with everything-$1.20, 3 tostadas and 2 profiteroles $1.20) while watching the local basketball games.

Of course, it was my time to get sick. From Belize I carried with me a parasite we’ve all heard of-giardia. Think stomach cramps, loss of appetite and other unspeakable things. I was pretty sure but not 100%, I needed Dr. Nick and Dr. Jade to back me up. Luckily 3 month expired antibiotics saved the day and 3 days later, with no alcohol for 48 hours, I was 100% cured. Lucky as this one doesn’t go away by itself!

The highlight of everyone's trip to Florres is this: In one of the most northern points of Guatemala, hidden deep in the jungle, you will find 5 pyramids literally towering above the tree tops. This is the mysterious Tikkal, one of the largest Mayan ruins in Central America/ the world. The towers are a reflection of Orien's belt(as per usual with these celestial obsessed people) and are central to one of the biggest Mayan cities. It is a constant battle against nature with the dense, lush jungle threatening to swallow the site forever. It is this wild,  alien jungle which made this site so perfect for Star Wars episode 6 to be filmed here, the part with the Ewoks of course. Anyone who has met me knows I have a deep and true love of star wars and my first crush, Luke Skywalker.

Taking on a lost world

Getting up at 4am we clambered into a shuttle where I slept my way to Tikkal for 2 hours. You’d think we’d make sunrise but no, we get up that early because by lunch time it is so hot you need to leave. I was in absolute heaven, soaking up the Starwars jungle vibes, hiking the towers, holding tarantulas(turns out they do bite-should have checked before getting personal with one) and spotting toucans. 

My New Friend

Climbing to the top of the tallest of the towers, all I could see was jungle stretching forever with the few pyramid peaks majestically towering above it all. 

The land of Star Wars

Jungle Pyramids

It was a crazy and beautiful spot but the early start definitely took its toll on some of us.

Jade taking a nap

Elective Attempt 2

Elective attempt 2

There is a Gillette razor add playing on cable right now. A guy gets given a razor and backpacks for 5 weeks, the razor reliably lasting the entire time. During that time he learns a few life lessons: never say no to a gift, take every opportunity and fun is universal. These are the lessons I’ve learnt in the last week. I am sitting in a hostel garden on a beautiful wooden table, colourful lanterns above my head, the morning light streaming through the tropical, green foliage and waiting for my avocado shake. I am in Florres, Guatamala and I have just had the most incredible week.

In my last blog I’d just arrived in the place I’d promised never to go back to, the dangerous, dirty Belize city. That night Milagro took me to buy food for everyone, 20 people for 1 week, and also gave me a little tour of the city. She told me what I knew, people don’t come to Belize city unless they are visiting someone and never walk outside after the sun goes down. We headed back to her beautiful, perfectly matching and tasteful house where I met my new roommate-Rowan. Rowan is Milagro’s 13 year old son. His life, he quickly informed me, was Harry Potter and Adelle. He loved animals and ecosystems, was top of his class in most things, had climbed a mountain that year to raise money for the blind and was, himself, blind. We had fun rooming together and I learnt a lot; you can’t just leave stuff lying around on the floor, always put knives handle up anywhere, brail is really hard to read and we make references to our sight all the time. Luckily, Ro was chilled and laughed when I said things like ‘what are you watching’ and ‘running without music, I’d be running blind’-my goodness, talk about foot in mouth!

My Brail lessons

The family was amazingly generous; Milagro opened the house completely to me and it was crazy fun. Everynight a different brother or friend stayed, it was a social and fun house and I felt immersed for the first time in Belizean culture.  At night, when we weren’t partying with the team, we would cook up a storm of Belizean delicacies; chicken salad Belizean style, stewed chicken and rice, desserts-it was awesome! Milagro used to work in the family business, a bar, before she took on saving children’s lives. For this reason she is perpetually fun and every evening meeting would involve rum punch, a pool and really good food with plenty of laughter mixed in. She is also proper Belizean and speaks proper creole; everyone is either ‘gurl’ or ‘mun’.  Her husband, Jo, is a carpenter who makes the most beautiful mahogany furniture. He is obsessed with animals and is building a habitarium for reptiles. He once travelled to Australia to look for a snake and his children share his love of animals. He grew up in Jamaica but left because it was dangerous. He was pretty cynical about Belize city and pretty much laid down the rules: no running after 6, no wearing ipods out or carrying money unless you want to get mugged.

Rowan and Milagro

Tostada night with Milagro

The Medics of American Paediatrics and all that Jazz

On Sunday, after a cinnamon coffee and a jog, I went to Mayra’s house to meet the medics. Mayra’s house, it turns out, is a bright orange mansion with a pool and spa complete with a bride, a private pier, boats and a huge patio. The medics were a team of 11 paediatrician and medical students from Norfolk, Virginia. They were loud, social and fun. They’d planned one week of outreach clinics up the Belize river, deep into the jungle in the little villages. The week started with a pool and tamales party with much rum punch. It was crazy different to anything I’d experienced so far but so much fun.

The week of clinics that followed were incredible. 

A small gathering

We would get up nice and early, pile into a van with 10 suitcases of supplies and travel between 1 to 2 hours through the jungle to set up(stpping for a morning coca-cola on the way-crazy Americans). On arrival there would be at least 20 people waiting. In the morning, I was in charge of oral hygiene. My prop was Danny the dinosaur, a fluro green dino teddy with a set of human teeth. My speil was ‘show me how to brush danny’s teeth and you win a prize’. In  some towns he was a hit, a celebrity, and children would fight to brush his teeth over and over. The more well-off villages he was less awesome and I really had to sell him to get any contenders. There was always one kid who fell head over heels in love with Danny, we had to chase a 2 year old in Caye Caulker who managed to run out the door with him. It was fun though, by the end of the week most of the children had been re-educated on how to brush teeth and got a free toothbrush. 

Danny the dinosaur and friends

In the afternoons I would sit in on the consults or run my own (supervised) consults. Very much the usual- rashes, URTI’s and obesity with a lot of poverty in the mix.

Waiting for clinic

A typical clinic

Post clinic clean up: Dr. Rick checking his BP 

My charge 

Las Fiestas

Every night we would have a different form of gathering. One day it was a BBQ at Dr Eck’s(our Belizean Dr contact) family house on a beautiful river amid ricepatties. The sun was setting and illuminating the rice paddies with their iris’s and the occasional cow. The food was amazing with chicken BBQ, cole-slaw, amazing rice and beans and even chicken feet for those who were game(like pork-crackling but made with chicken). Another night we had a salbutes party at Mayra’s mansion, swimming in the pool and macheting open coconuts to mix with rum. It was very, very fun and the Americans were awesome.

Caye Caulker: the luxury edition

Our last clinic was in Caye Caulker and, even though I didn’t have accommodation, I decided to go along and try and find a bed somewhere. The clinic was full on, busy but good with lots of Spanish only consults.

Clinic in Caye Caulker

Once we’d finished I was struggling to find a place to sleep when a doctor couple, Ashley and Scott, offered me their other double bed. Despite the threesome jokes this turned out to be the party room. Our hotel was amazing with a giant pool complete with water features and a spa, a deck overlooking the ocean and amazing, giant rooms with their own kitchen.  We headed to the lazy lizard for afternoon drinkies before getting our last meal from WPP, grilled fish, rice and beans, potato and chocolate cake-beautiful. That night the party continued in our room with coconut rum, lying in the hammock and a bit of latin dancing(Jesus attempting to teach me). It was a good night but very loud.

Scott and Ashley

The next day involved me getting up at 5:30am, hung over, and heading to the deck. For some reason I can never stay in bed past 5:30 after I drank too much. On the deck was Dr. Rick-an ex-vascular surgeon now retired who had teamed up with me a few times last week to see patients and also was the only one game enough to try chicken feet with me. We sat on the deck chatting about life and watching the beautiful sunrise over Caye Caulker. Everyone left for a tour and Scott, Ashley and I headed for a breakfast where Scott passionately discussed the problems with todays nutritional practice and I ate my sugary cinnamon roll. My soul reason for going to that cafe was because the grandmother of an obesity consult patient I saw the day before baked the most incredible pastries(the families reason for the childs weight)- I had to try them!

Chilling

That afternoon Dr. Rick talked me into going somewhere else I’d said I wouldn’t return to; San Pedro. Last time I was there I’d felt trapped and needed to get out. This time, it was more beautiful and relaxing than I remember. Dr. Rick and I drank Sangria and ate fish, enjoying the breeze and chatting about specialties, his family and the world in general. We dodged golf carts and headed to the rum factory where the guy recognised me, how embarrassing! He fed us his usual rum but this time got out the 95% proof-my god it was like drinking paint stripper! Dr. Rick definitely handled it better than me. After some more sangria I thought maybe San Pedro wasn’t as bad as I remembered.

Sangria times with Dr. Rick

The rest of my time was a blur of beaching, lying by the pool and getting sunsoaked. The highlight was when Jesus, Dr. Rick, our new friend Sarah and I did a sunset sail. The boat cruised around the island in the perfect, balmy breeze as we ate salsa and chips, drank rum punch and a little of Dr. Rick cream punch and just enjoyed being alive. That night we went gambling at the chicken drop: a famous island game where you drop a chicken on a grid of numbers and the number it poos on is the winner. I was 33 and luckily I was very drunk as the chicken stood on 33 and pooed on the number next to it! Sigh, $500 almost won! The whole experience was loud and very full on but very, very fun and a good way to end my time here. The next morning I watched the sunrise again(another hang over) before packing up and saying goodbye to my new friends.

Sunset Sailing

Chicken Drop

Our Hotel Room

Sunset Sailing

Our boat

   

This whole week has been an incredible, incredible experience and such an adventure. I met some really amazing people and had such adventures. I also learnt so much, experienced new things and broke many of my personal promises. This is what travelling is about.

Sunsets in Caye Caulker