getting into hot water in Guatemala

Every year on 1 November, the Day of the Dead, the communities of Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez in Guatemala hold their kite festivals.  My assignment in Guatemala finished on 30 October so clearly I had to stay on to see this - and then for a few more days as there was no point rushing back to Panama when the office would be closed for three days for public holidays.

So I organised a trip with the Quetzalroo Hostel to the Sumpango festival.  Being a hostel trip, we set off late, and we had to stop en route for people to buy beers, and then again for people to eat fried chicken ... but eventually we arrived and of course being Latin America we hadn't missed anything by arriving a little late.

The kites were mostly waiting up one end of the field, although a couple had already been gingerly lifted up above people's heads and taken to the launching site at the other end, awaiting lift-off.  Except that it is very difficult to get such large kites airborne.  During our two-three hours there we saw I think seven successful launches and a great many more failures.  Up to sixteen metres in diameter, and made entirely by hand of brightly coloured tissue paper on bamboo frames, the kites apparently take months to make and can cost thousands of dollars so it must be heart-breaking for those that see their creations come crashing down, bamboo splintering and paper tearing, after rising just a few metres. Although it is good for those that succeed in getting their kite up as there is significant prize money given out by the event sponsors.

There seems to be no consensus on the origin of the festival nor the exact meaning of the kites, although most stories suggest the kites were originally advised by a shaman as a way to scare off evil spirits on the day when they would otherwise disturb the residents of the towns.

The next day I set off on a long trek: city bus across town, long-distance bus taking me five hours north-east of the capital, a tuk-tuk taking me the next 3km along a dusty road through the banana plantations - and later, after a couple of hours looking around the Mayan ruins at Quiriguá, a long hot walk back through the plantations and three different 'colectivo' small buses until I finally arrived at the town of Rio Dulce around 7pm.

This meant I was ready the next morning to take a launch along the river to Livingston, via floating gardens of water lilies and a spectacular winding canyon dripping with greenery.  This trip is usually done by tourists for the journey itself rather than for the destination, but Livingston is a lovely little town, very different from the rest of the country as it is the home of the Garífuna (mostly descendants of escaped African slaves) and sways to a Caribbean rhythm.  Sadly I did not have time to stay overnight but caught the next launch back to Rio Dulce, with time at least to see the old Spanish fortress of San Felipe.

Could I squeeze any more sightseeing in the next morning before the long journey back to Guatemala City?  I hadn't planned to, but the hostel manager insisted I go to see (and bathe in) a waterfall an hour outside of town.  He told me it is unique in the world as a hot waterfall.  So I borrowed a bikini from a very kind woman also doing the trip there, and we made our way to the falls.  They don't even seem to have a name, but are indeed hot (presumably coming from a hot spring somewhere up the hill) and although I had only ten minutes to swim around under them they were definitely worth the trip.