Articles by Juliette Giannesini
French woman in English Canada. Occasionally: speaks Mandarin or Spanish, bitches about the Canadian weather, writes left-wing rants, gives test to her students so that she can read the paper and have breakfast, speaks of cultural difference or goes backpacking across the world. And enjoys Canada as her new home.
Santa Elena and Street Photography
Santa Elena and Flores, the base to explore Tikal, are twin cities but they couldn’t be more different. The main bus station is in Santa Elena. It’s a huge muddy ground from where depart chicken buses, minibuses, taxis and tuk-tuks. It’s pack with touts, tired drivers and helpers busy to retrieve luggage from the roofs of said buses.
That’s what you first see of Santa Elena.
Tikal and the Lost World of the Mayas
Tikal is probably the most famous Mayan archeological site, both because of the number of temples and because of its location. Indeed, the structures are still hidden deep into the rainforest and while a few peak above the canopy, most are buried under moth and trees.
Basically, if you want to feel like Indiana Jones looking for the mundo perdido, here is your chance.
Christmas, Guatemalan Style
Bang! Most kids had gathered in the streets and were playing with firecrackers. It didn’t take long for the entire town to be all smoky and smell of gunpowder. A few people hand-threw actual fireworks, in between power lines. Ahem… But again, most were probably drunk—to hell with safety!
Crossing to Guatemala
This is what you hear when you get to any frontera in Central America. Here, borders invariably feature a lot of police and military, chaotic crowds, more or less zealous passport checks and a lot of walking. Indeed, the actual border—usually a gate in the middle of the road—is often located a few kilometers from the nearest border towns, hence the need to walk or take a taxi.
Xunantunich and Cahal Pech
Riding the chicken bus is never boring. Like this morning, a cow escaped from God knows where and slowed the traffic down. I also love how locals use pickup trucks: the back is really handy to carry entire families.
San Ignacio and a Day of Chicken Buses
The bus was going fast, way too fast for an old school bus turned long distance transportation. I closed my eyes and focused on listening to the reggae music blaring through the loudspeakers. When you travel, you can’t control everything. You just have to let it go and hope for the best.
Orange Walk, Crossing to Belize
As soon as we exited the zona libre, the bus sped up. All the windows were wide open and the wind was crazy: it was like riding a convertible for two hours. After a few minutes, I gave up on trying to hold my hair back and simply put on a pair of sunglasses to avoid being blinded by the dust.
Chetumal
We are 16 kilometres from the frontiera with Belize. Sixteen pequeños kilometros, but we decided to stay in Chetumal for the night—no point in rushing to Belize City and arriving after dark. In 2001, that’s what we had done and it hadn’t been a very smart move.
Tulum, Playa y Pueblo
Okay: waking up in this amazing setting was worth the cold shower and the chilly night wind. Tulum beach is beautiful. The sea has all the gradient of blue you can imagine and the white-sand is blinding under the midday sun.
Tulum and Ruinas
Tulum is a two-hour bus ride from Cancún. We somehow caught the 10:30 a.m. bus by buying tickets at 10:25. Of course, the two-hour ride turned into a 3.5 hours ride—más o menos as they say.
