Blogs from Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 12

On Sunday March 3 we hired Álvaro, son of the owner of Hotel Bambú, and went off with two other gringos (Robert and Carol, from Washington state) to explore the village of Santiago Atitlán. Álvaro speaks excellent English but has never been to the US. He is well educated, and will probably inherit Hotel Bambú some day and ruin it by good management. Santiago Atitlán is about a mile down a back road from the hotel, a very Maya place. The market there has good hand woven textiles, which Robert and Carol were looking for, but not us. We have a beautiful glass beaded frog and a coffee mug we liked, and a red embroidered table cloth, but nothing else. Our luggage is too heavy already. This village is the home of a hybrid Christian and ... read more

Yesterday was an exciting day. Yesterday I was reunited with my bag. Guatemala City airport sent it swaddled in cling film, covered in a variety of red stickers, directly to the door of my room. The important thing about my bag arriving was, of course, that it was full of lots of lovely donations for the Nuevos Horizontes shelter. And as yesterday was my first visit, I think that's perfect timing on the part of the airport. I met Allison, the volunteer co-ordinator, and the two other new volunteers outside El Cuartito cafe and we walked to La Democracia (where the main market is) to get the bus. The shelter is spacious, purpose-built house set in an almost Mediterranean landscape. At the moment, it's overflowing with small children, mostly boys, who were very excited to see ... read more

Directly up 15a Avenida from the Hostal (and not at all in the place given by Rough Guide), La Dispensa Familiar sits hidden behind the busy market of La Democracia. Since I gather Steve is interested, I thought I´d give a little description. There are two guards and a row of lockers just inside the wide door, but inside things are much like a normal small supermarket, except a lot dirtier and more chaotic. I was somewhat surprised to see a man´s full torso sticking out from one of the top shelves - turns out he had climbed up to do the stacking. There´s not much fruit and veg inside, as why would you buy it from a supermarket when you could barter for it in the market? (This is something I´ve not quite had the ... read more

After 4 nights in Player El Tunco we headed up to Guatemala. The beach was beautiful and we had a great time relaxing and catching up with other people we met in San Juan Dur Sel. Scott got a haircut, we swam in the ocean each day enjoying the sun and ate great food each night! Guatemala has a population of 13.1 million, famous for maya sights and the budget was around $20 USD a day. After a 7 hour shuttle ride we arrived in Antigua which is an hour from the Capìtal of Guatemala city. Antigua is one of the main tourist cities in Guatemala and is a town nestled between three volcanoes, the streets are all cobbled stoned paved and a city rich in culture and history. Antigua is known for its craft markets, ... read more

Not to start off this blog post bragging - but with 20(ish) countries under our belt, Sara and I might be getting a hang of this traveling thing. Within 24 hours in Guatemala, we'd made it to our destination - a sweet hippie-infested town called San Pedro la Laguna on the beautiful Lake Atitlan, signed Sara up for her first week of spanish classes, and secured ourselves an amazing apartment with wifi, a kitchen, warm water shower AND a balcony with a hammock in view of the lake. How did we get here? Well... Before I start - I apologize for the photos being out of alignment with the blog, thats just how this site works. Sara's sister Fay dropped us off at LGA airport at 4am for our 6am flight - it was terrible timing ... read more