In the middle of my first visit to Central America: a round trip in South Mexico (Yucatan and Chiapas), Guatemala and Belize. Following the very beaten tourist track, sometimes it´s a bit too much tourism along the way... But for a first getting to know of the area this 3 week round trip is perfect. Maybe I will get back some time to explore some less touristic tracks...

Our first days in Mexico did not feel that exotic yet, rather US-American. But heading further west and south we entered a different world. And now, in Guatemala, I really feel far from home, even though we are in one of the most touristic places in the country, Panajachel. Today we walked for about 4 hours along the lake, a pretty challenging walk for Dutch who maybe hike mountains once a year on average (when on holiday). Our guide liked to pace up and did not look back that much... So I started to wonder if he actually liked to guide us? But in the end all of us found our way.

The remains of the Mayan empire (Chichen Itza and Palenque, and next week Tikal) are equally impressive as our encounters with current-day indigineous people descending from the Mayas. Two days ago we saw two villages near San Cristobal in Mexico, very close to each other but culturally quite different. We were invited to experience their rituals and traditions from very close, but mixed emotions remained since it was all quite organised. Our guide stressed it was not a show but I still felt a but uneasy. Tourism has no doubt changed those villages and I´m not sure if the changes are improving the villagers´ lives.

Yesterday we had a more natural encounter with indigineous people at the Mexican-Guatemalean border. We had to wait patiently for hours in the hot sun until a manifestation of indigineous people was over and the customs office opened again. While the long wait of course was a negative surprise, it was impressing to see how the represented people (there must have been tens or hundreds of different communities represented, each with their own speaker) enjoyed the manifestation and clearly felt proud. Even though the Maya descendants are still discriminated and oppressed across Central America, it is good to see that they get more rights and show themselves to the world.