Blogs from Guatemala, Central America Caribbean
Journey to Quetzaltenango (Xela)
Published: May 23rd 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Western Highlands » Quetzaltenango
May 19th 2012
So. This week couldn´t be much different from last. I ended last week sat on a derserted tropical island with some of my favourite people, sipping drinks in the shallows and snorkelling in the sea. I ended this one sat in my rain mac and my prettiest dress in an internet cafe sheltering from the tremendous thunderstorm illuminating the mountains that surround Xela. I was supposed to be going out with my fellow students from El Nahual language school, but the thunderstorm and rain got the better of them and they bailed. My journey here was pretty tough. Hannah and I left Utila on Tuesday.We´d made plans with a camp Brazillian cigar salesman called Alejandro (no, really) to travel with him as far as Copan Ruinas and stay overnight at his place, but that all went ... read more
May 9th 2012
It was an early morning for us today. Our sunrise tour started at 4:15 AM. At about 4 AM the howler monkeys started roring. We put on our head lamps and walked to the main lodge where we met our guide Chino. The lodge was suppose to make us breakfast to go but something got lost in translation and they weren't made. We walked into the jungle in the dark to temple IV. This temple had a set of wooden stairs going to a platform near the top. We sat there for about an hour and watched the sun come up. Then we followed our guide to a bunch more temples. We went back to the lodge for breakfast. We went swimming and took a nap before packing up and going to San Ignagco, Belize. We ... read more
Antigua, so much to do and so little time........
Published: May 14th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Capital Region » Antigua
May 8th 2012
Our last stop on our Central American adventure and that involved a last pit stop in Guatemala.... The lovely Antigua.... Certainly a no brainier alternative to Guatamala City. We arrived after a long 9 hour journey, which stated with the 40 minute rough road back from Semuc Champey and continued with the twists and turns through the mountains.... Not great when you'd had a bit too much rum the night before..... It was about 4pm when we arrived in Antigua and got dropped off in the main square and had a short walk to our hostel..... La Tereza ...., which had some little luxuries like hot water, filtered water, free brekkie, which wasn't your average bread and jam... Pancakes, omelette, scrambled eggs.... Once again Guatemala was spoiling us....This place is really really pretty. Much bigger ... read more
May 8th 2012
Today we went to Tikal using a shuttle we booked when we arrived in Flores. There was some confusion as the company we booked with didn't show up and we went with a different company that traded in our voucher. We arrived and checked into the Jungle lodge. We have been really lucky because we haven't had any of our hotels booked in advance but it is the low season and there are hardly any tourists. We toured part of Tikal on our own today but by 1:30 it was so hot we had to leave. Back in the room we met the resident lizard we promptly named short tail Willie. We hung out at the pool for about 2 hours. The water was hot but felt good after the hot walk. We then went to ... read more
Flores, Guatemala
Published: May 8th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
May 7th 2012
Today we slept in late and then walked to Santa Elena for breakfast which is the town on the other end of the bridge to Flores island. We bought some water at the grocery store and caught a taxi to Ixpanpajul National Park. The cab was basically a motorcycle with a back seat. It seems most of the cab drivers have never been to Ixpanpajul and don't know exactly where to go. We arrived and paid and it turned out we were the only customers there. We spent about an hour and a half walking the path with the hanging bridges. Part of the way through we say some monkeys sleeping in a tree. They were just flopped over the branches and one of them had a baby clinging to it. We went up to a ... read more
Belize City to Flores, Guatemala
Published: May 7th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » Flores
May 6th 2012
Our trip began with a flight from Miami to Belize City. We picked up our bags and made it out of customs fairly quickly. We got right in a cab and headed to the marine terminal to catch a bus to Flores, Guatemala. we should have gotten money from an ATM before we left the airport but the airport was so small we were outside and in a cab before we even thought to look for an ATM. at the marine terminal we bought bus tickets but we had two hours before it left so we took a cab tour of Belize city and had lunch from a local restaurant that looked like the back of someone's house. Nothing is open in Belize City on Sundays so we were lucky the cab driver knew where to ... read more
Lanquin to Antigua
Published: May 2nd 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Capital Region » AntiguaMay 2nd 2012
So after a few days in Flores we hit the road and travelled down to Lanquin in a shuttle bus for about 8 hours. Not the most comfortable journey in the world, not even sure if we were travelling by road the whole time! We arrived at the Zephyr lodge on Wednesday afternoon which was pretty high up in the hills and overlooked the river. Definatley the best hostel we have been in so far. We didn´t get up to much in the afternoon, just relaxed and recovered from our ball aching journey ready for tubing on Thursday. Thursday we took to the river to go tubing, beers in hand and ready for a few hours floating down the rapids. We set off about 12.30 in the back of a pick up truck with 12 of ... read more
Yo Estudio Espanol!
Published: May 1st 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Capital Region » Antigua
April 30th 2012
I arrived in Antigua on March 31/11 and was dropped off at the home of my host family. I was given a quick tour of the house (very nice) and an introduction to my new family. The women of the house are Connie and her two daughters, Cookie and Teresa. The men of the house are Teresa’s husband, Jorge, and two of their sons, Alex (21) and Jose (16). Two other students are also staying at the house; Mimi is from Slovenia and Nadine is from Holland (Sigrid, from Germany, came halfway through following Nadine's departure). Antigua is such a beautiful city. Obviously I noticed right away how clean and fresh it was. The city consists of brightly painted colonial style buildings complete with terracotta roofs and cobblestone streets. The city is surrounded by three tree ... read more
Playa Del Carmen to Flores
Published: April 25th 2012Central America Caribbean » Guatemala » Petén Region » FloresApril 25th 2012
After a day of recovery on Tuesday in Playa following the blue parrot beach club me and the boys went to cenote cristalino, another fresh water pool. We spent the day throwing ourselves off the rocks into the water, I was the only one man enough to go for the dive, nailed it, got a call from the GB dive team in the afternoon asking if I was about for London in the summer, they reckon I am more talented than Tom Daly. Not surprised!!! We met a couple of Belgian lads back at the hostel and went out to the blue parrot beach club with them on Thursday. They were good lads, one of them was freaking mental and spent most of the night trying to convince us to go to a Mexican strip club. ... read more
April 21st 2012
Stress free boarder crossing again due to our early morning start and the fact that it was just as cheap to take the taxi instead of the bus, so we did just that and had door to door service at the time we wanted to go to the border of Belize and Guatemala. By 8.15am we'd filled out our tourist questionnaire and paid our exit tax and were in a shuttle bus waiting to travel the 140kms to Flores... ( think we got a bit ripped off but after Belize this place is so cheap you kind of don't mind....) Rather than the chicken buses we have become accustomed to we got to ride in a people carrier that was brand new, only us in it and it reminded me ... read more
