The best laid plans ...

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Our last stop in Guatemala didn’t quite work out as planned. Having discovered that one of our debit cards had been cloned and so the account suspended until we return home we rather lost confidence in Guatemala’s sketchy looking and apparently insecure cash machines. Without wanting to risk our second and now only debit card we totted up our remaining Quetzels (the local dosh). With minimal cash-in-hand we decided to give the Mayan ruins of Tikal a miss and instead cross into Mexico a little early than planned and so avoid any further Guatemalan cash machine incident. It was indeed a shame to miss out Tikal but with Southern Mexico chocked full of Mayan ruins to explore we felt that we’d probably get our fill.

Ignoring the unfortunate debit card fraud incident Guatemala was an exceptional and highly rewarding place to travel. Of course the volcano hikes were a major highlight but Guatemala was much more than just those. We had met a culture that let you blend in much more than our previous stops (aside perhaps parts of Panama). Consequently we felt more involved and engaged with the country and its people rather than feeling like the standard arms length observers. It seemed that one of the main reasons for this feeling was that Guatemalans appear to universally do. They get on with things and don’t waste their time looking over their shoulder wondering what next door or those funny Gringos are doing. One symptom of this was everywhere we stayed was owned by enterprising locals unlike the accommodation in the countries before which were largely in foreign hands. Another symptom was that you could walk into a shop and can easily buy exclusively Guatemalan products and produce (from Granola to Cola) with the shelves not besieged by the normal army global brands. So you can stay with Guatemalans and you can eat Guatemalan produced food which to us are two very key elements to have a proper and real travelling experience.

As we head to cross the Usumacinta River into Mexico looking back on our 15 days in Guatemala we can confidently say it delivered in spades.

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