On Sunday morning November 29th I took the optional OAT tour Life in Guatemala’s Mayan Villages. As such we went by tour bus to the village of Santa Maria de Jesus. Although this village is only 4km from Antigua it seems like it is isolated as we saw no other tourists the entire morning.
Richard had plan for us to arrive just before mass let out at the village church so we could see all the people wearing their traditional dress. But, alas, for some unknown reason mass was let out about 40 minutes early! So we only saw a few people who hung around. Still we tour the small church.
After a walk through the village market, we took the bus to another village, San Juan del Obispo. Here we met up with Lucy the owner of a small shop there that makes handmade chocolate solely for hot chocolate. We got to see the whole process.
Once the cocoa meat is separated, then you must press it out by kneading on a type stone board in order to turn it into cocoa butter. Then you add sugar and any other natural flavor you may want to add. The final product is a hard paste which is either made into tablets or dry into powder. These tablets and powder are sold so customers can make hot chocolate by simply had hot water or milk and mixing.
After a large lunch, we then left for the airport in Guatemala City. On the way, we saw more eruptions from Fuego Volcano.
We arrived at the airport over 2 hours early for our flight only to discover it was delayed. They estimated it would be 1:35 hour delayed. However after about 2 hours of waiting, they announced that the flight was canceled as the pilot was incapacitated. Richard, our group leader, was quick to respond. The airline offer him a free hotel and meals at an airport hotel for all 13 of us. But that would have messed up the itinerary so Richard hung tough. The airline finally decided it was in they best interest to cancel another flight that was using the same type of small turboprop plane. Thus the plane to Managua, Nicaragua became out plane to Flores, Guatemala. When all was said and done, we got to our hotel in Flores about 2 hours late.
On Monday morning we left our Flores hotel early and took the 1+ hour bus trip to Tikal Natural a Park. This may be the largest Mayan ruins site as it is massive with just a small part uncovered and then even a smaller part that was restored. The Mayas pyramids were solid stone structures. But the Mayas would built over these pyramids again and again every hundred or so years. So it is common to see three set of stairs when the pyramids make apart.
We returned to our hotel in Flores in the middle of the afternoon. Tomorrow we have a long bus ride to Belize.
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