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Antigua Guatemala, 4 May 2003

Copan, Lago Atitlan's flower power colony and Semana Santa in Antigua

Odv
2004-09-15 12:04:32

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We left Livingston, by taking the boat up the Rio Dulce to a town with the same name, a beautiful river with great scenery and lots of birds. Unfortunately we could not take any pictures because the camera was still drying up from the water bottle related incident that had occurred in Livingston.

The same day we continued by bus to Chiquimula. The bus driver, as did several other people before and after, asked us if we were Americans. After divulging our nationalities (Dutch and Estonian) they generally seem to find it necessary to inform us of their hatred of all Americans. Since they are on the subject of who they hate this is sometimes followed by the revelation that they also hate gays.

In fact violence against gays, is common in Guatemala, if it becomes known that someone is gay, he may be chased out of town or even lynched. Many of them seem to find a safe haven in Antigua, where the atmosphere is a little more tolerant.

Another social issue in Guatemala is the lower social status of indigenous people. They rarely have good jobs, and their children don't go to school as often as those of Latino descent. This was the root cause of the civil war that ended with the 1996 peace treaty.

The former rebels known as the ex-PAC, are supposed to receive certain payments under this agreement. Apparently this had not happened, so while the teacher strike had ended just after we left Guatemala, it was now the turn of the ex-PAC rebels to block roads just as we returned to Guatemala.

We made it to Chiquimula without any problems however, unlike some other travelers, and stayed there for two nights, not that there is anything to do there, except as we did, to visit Copan, just across the border in Honduras.

Upon our arrival in Chiquimula I put the battery of the digital camera in the charger, after 10 or 15 minutes I tried to turn on the camera and nothing happened. Maybe the camera was really ...