Goodbye

The rising morning sun transforms the storm clouds and the sea into a golden hue. Pelicans flank our boat on either side as we watch the dolphins hunting.

What sounds like my first bad novel actually happened, because at 6:30 a.m. the sea is still calm and the animals are much more active.

About 1.5 hours later we reached our actual destination, the whale sharks off the coast of Holbox.

Suddenly, everything happened very quickly; the first two climbed over the railing and waited for the captain's command. It didn't take longer than two to three minutes before jumping in, as it is quite exhausting to swim after these large animals.

Then it was my turn; swimming next to these massive creatures was incredibly fascinating, with nothing but 100 meters of deep blue water beneath. I didn't take any videos myself, as everyone else jumped into the water with cameras and various equipment. I didn't want to deal with how to best film the whale shark, so I could fully enjoy those 2 to 3 minutes. Two people from our boat, however, were more concerned with the camera than with the animal itself, and soon the whale shark was no longer visible...

I am truly grateful to have seen that, but I am also aware that 40 to 50 boats daily certainly disturb the animals. Nowadays, only 5 to 10 animals come to the surface; according to our guide, there used to be close to 100.

Due to overfishing and climate change, the animals are lacking food, unfortunately just like everywhere...

The trip went unremarkably, the flight was good, the first night was relaxed. The obligatory bank and hairdresser visit was also no problem.

However, I woke up in the morning before the boat tour with a sore throat, headaches, and a slight fever. I don't know if it's just aftereffects from the last dengue fever vaccination or, as feared, simply the falling 'stress' from the last weeks or perhaps just the weather and air conditioning. But it’s not so bad; I spent the rest of the day in the hammock sleeping, reading, and eating, and went to bed on time at 9 p.m.

As I mentioned, since I had already been to Holbox, I headed directly towards Palenque with a stop in Merida and Campeche, breaking the bus ride into 3 hours, 2 hours, and 7 hours. This decision turned out to be exactly right. By now, the humidity had climbed over 90%, at 44 degrees. Since I had slept poorly the past few nights and the journey to the ferry as well as to the bus had already worn me out, I spent the evening, aside from a short walk around Merida, in the cool room.

Merida and Campeche are nice cities at least in the city center, but one need not stay here longer than half a day or at most a day.

Next, we headed towards Palenque; the roughly 7-hour bus ride passed fairly quickly, but I arrived just in time for the evening rain and had to wait for over an hour at the bus terminal before I could walk the 400 meters to the hostel without getting wet.

The city made a great impression; there are trendy shops and restaurants for tourists, and a few streets over you find markets, street food, and everything Mexicans need, but I preferred it significantly outside the hotel zone :)

Since my hostel was really great, I immediately extended my stay by a night and split the tour to the ruins and waterfalls over two days. We took colectivos (small buses) to the respective attractions.

Each of these small vans departs from a different location; you just have to inquire beforehand where, and it works, even without Spanish...

The ruins were impressive, and one could also climb some of the ruins here. To be honest, I have to say that I will also look at the ruins of Tikal next, but then I will have enough of Maya ruins for a while.

Good thing I wore black pants since otherwise, one could have thought I had been swimming; I could have rung out both the pants and my t-shirt because the sweat just dripped from my back into my pants. The humidity also renders sunscreen useless since you sweat it off immediately.

The first border crossing went smoothly.

In Palenque, I took the first colectivo for about 2.5 hours; I already wondered why I was the only tourist. Well, I had to change buses again.

But even in the second colectivo, there was no one in sight, and the Mexicans got off one by one in their villages.

I actually thought the border crossing would be quite large and that I'd easily find an ATM because I had spent my last pesos on the last colectivo and thus had no money left with me.

I slowly began to sense that I was completely mistaken. Indeed, that was the case, and I was the only one who made the last 500 meters to the border. In fact, I was even the first one who needed a stamp since the border officer had to first change the date on the stamp, and that was at 1 p.m....

On the other side, everything went smoothly, and I had the stamp in my passport after ten seconds.

Now my money problem remained; of course, there was no ATM, which is quite a rookie mistake, so I went into one of the first stores and asked for 'Cambio Euros,' and lo and behold, shortly after, I had my first quetzales in my hand, even if it was at a fantastically bad exchange rate; but that's how it goes when one does not think ahead.

Flores is nice and quite calm, at least now in the rainy season; by the way, it hasn’t rained the last few days, so much for that.

I crossed over with a small boat to reach a viewpoint; 30 minutes of walking and I was there—soaking wet again. The next day I headed at 6 a.m. towards Tikal. Just right, as I found; 4:30 a.m. was too early for me, and after two hours of driving, not many people were there by 8 a.m.

Since I was the only one on the bus who had booked the tour without a guide, I was at least personally sent off before the gathered crowd; thank you!

The decision was just right; I read through the few information signs and simply wandered freely through the national park for 3 hours. Along the way, I climbed on some temples, took two long breaks, observed some animals like spider monkeys, howler monkeys, paca, foxes, and various spiders (thankfully only from a distance) and was back at the bus right on time.

The next day, at exactly 6 a.m., I took the bus towards Rio Dulce, and then directly to my accommodation, which could only be reached by boat. After a ten-minute boat ride, I was a bit further into the jungle. In the mornings, you get gently awakened by the surrounding howler monkeys, and if you manage to fall asleep again, it becomes too warm to sleep by 8 a.m.

I spent the two days just reading and sleeping.

Due to the national holiday, all tourist buses were full, so I took a regular bus to Antigua.

The bus was scheduled to depart at 11:15 a.m. and take about 4 to 5 hours. We left at 1 p.m. and the trip lasted 6 hours. So I’m heading to Antigua one day later.

As luck would have it, Yarden from Israel is also in Antigua right now. We rode motorcycles together in Vietnam 5 years ago, and I saw on Instagram that he is in Antigua at the same time.

So, we explored the city together, enjoyed delicious food, and watched the parades for the national holiday together; impressive.

Together, we then headed to the Volcano Fuego after three days in Antigua.

The struggles of climbing from about 2100 meters to 3600 meters were definitely worth it! The path to the summit was not particularly beautiful, but when we reached the top, the sky cleared, we heard the rumble of the first eruption, and the sight of the massive ash cloud made us almost forget all the effort.

We did not make the way to the viewpoint due to the clouds that kept rolling in, and it would have been another 600 meters of ascent.

It was impressive even so, and eventually, we had to get up for sunrise the next morning at 4 a.m. with flashlight and headlamp.

In the evening, however, it was freezing cold; the 'hut' was very spartan, and everything inside was damp and chilly.

The campfire provided a brief warmth, but with temperatures around freezing, we quickly dove into our sleeping bags or two sleeping bags. Fortunately, as there were only two of us in our hut, we could each use the second sleeping bag; otherwise, it would have been a really cold night.

After too little sleep during the night, we left promptly just before four towards the summit of the 3950 meter high Acatenango.

Since visibility was hampered by fog and darkness, the hike was not entirely easy.

Upon reaching the top, it was even colder, and I literally froze my butt off because while climbing, you naturally sweat a lot, and in combination with the icy wind, the cold was really hard to bear.

Just in time for sunrise, the clouds cleared, and we had a perfect view of three volcanoes.

When Fuego erupted and you could see the glowing rocks and the lava, one quickly warmed up!

Absolutely breathtaking and worth every bit of effort!

After the equally exhausting descent, we headed straight to Lago de Atitlan. The second-largest lake in Guatemala was formed from an explosion of a volcano and gradually filled with water. I had already wondered why no one had tried to cheat me yet; everyone had been quite honest so far. I knew that the ferry from Panajachel to San Pedro should cost around €3. The guy with the conspicuous 'Tourismo' shirt wanted €15 for the public ferry which should take at least 1 hour or he generously offered to drive us across for €35.

As more and more guys with such shirts appeared, I became skeptical and asked Yarden if we could turn around and go to the pier ourselves.

What can I say, the boat cost €3 and took 35 minutes to reach San Pedro...

A nice little place. You can swim at several