Advertisement
On 6th May we caught a little minibus shuttle from Copan into Guatemala and went straight to the old colonial town of Antigua. It is a really beautiful town, full of tourists but we loved it. Lots of colourful buildings and quaint cobbled streets and funky restaurants. That night we went to Café La Escudilla, a lovely restaurant in a little courtyard full of plants. It has a daily special of a soup, main course and lemonade for just over a quid/ R15. Such a bargain and the food is delicious!
The next day we headed into the sprawling Guatemala City to visit the Mexican Embassy to get Kez a visa. As soon as we arrived and saw the sign on the door saying you needed an appointment, we knew this wasn’t going to be as smooth as we had hoped. Then again, when is getting a visa ever a trauma-free experience? We managed to get them to at least check all Kez’s documentation so that the next day we wouldn’t find that something was missing (even though she had everything they asked for in the email). Unsurprisingly they wanted more, so we would have had to make the
90 minute trip to Antigua and back the next day anyway. We spent the afternoon back in Antigua looking around the town and we visited the cathedral and the amazing ruins of the original cathedral that was knocked down by an earthquake many moons ago. We also went to visit an old monastery that is now a stunning 5* hotel. In the evening we went to our first little local restaurant and had the first of many manky meals. The local cheap food in Guatemala is the worst of any of the countries we have visited so far. Normally the food in the little local restaurants has been so delicious and such good value for money but in Guatemala it has almost always just been disgusting. So disappointing. So we went back to the hostel and drank a bottle of wine of the roof terrace as compensation.
At 5am the next morning we were on our way back to the Mexican Embassy. We only needed to be there by 8 but the traffic is so bad after 6 that no shuttles operate. So we arrived in Guatemala City by 6 and spent an hour reading our books in the
church gardens and then had breakfast at a little café before the embassy opened. Kez was first in the queue, with an appointment and all her documents had been checked the day before. Hopes were running high! But of course they wanted more, this time a bus ticket into Mexico (as if Kez would be applying for a flipping visa if she wasn’t actually planning to go). And they have clearly never traveled themselves before because on the local buses there is no such thing as a ticket; you just hop on the bus and pay the guy the money. In the end we had to buy a posh bus ticket from Guatemala City into Mexico and then just throw it away because we would be about 2 hours from the border in a small town and no posh buses go that way and it would make no sense to go all the way back to Guat City just to catch a bus. Oooooookay, rant over. With the ticket in hand all was fine and we could collect Kez’s passport with visa in the afternoon. They don’t issue multiple entry visas so Kez will have to go through the whole
process again in Belize to get back in Mexico. Lovely. In the evening we went back to the lovely café La Escudilla for a celebratory dinner.
Wednesday was Volcano Pacayas day. After a chilled morning and a cheating, lying woman at a tourist agency to book the volcano tour, we were on a huge bus with 35 people even though we paid for a minibus tour of no more than 14 people. Nevermind, we arrived there safely and started the steep walk up from 1800m to 2300m where the molten lava flows freely down the mountain. The last half an hour was tough because the solidified lava is all spiky and can cut you very badly if you lose your balance, as one poor guy in our group found out the hard way. The rocks are also quite loose and unstable and the higher you go the hotter they get. We were very proud of our hiking boots because they survived the ordeal unscathed whereas a lot of other people hiking in trainers had melted and falling apart shoes by the end.
Early the next morning we caught a shuttle to the beautiful volcanic Lake Atitlan. Unfortunately the
whole time we were there it was very misty so we didn’t get the spectacular views of the 3 volcanoes that we were hoping for. We arrived in Panajachel and caught a boat to the tiny town of Santa Cruz. We stayed in an amazing hostel called La Iguana Perdida right on the lake. Definitely in the top 3 of our favourite hostels from the whole trip. We had a double room in a little wooden chalet with a wonderful view of the lake all for about 2 quid/ R25 each. In the afternoon we walked up the hill to the little town to check out their annual town festival. It was quite an experience. Loads of men so drunk that they were falling all over the place and then all the women dressed in local dress (as they always do because it’s a very traditional village) watching in horror and disgust. There was a very modern band playing, shipped in from somewhere else and the whole feeling was just very uncomfortable, no one seemed to be enjoying themselves and it was all very surreal.
At 7pm all the guests and staff at the hostel sit down together at
a big table for dinner. It’s a set menu, served buffet style and for just over 2 quid/ R25 you get delicious homemade soup and homemade bread, a main course and then cake and coffee. All prepared fresh and some of the best food we have eaten all holiday. The first night we had quiche, unbelievably good veg and salad. The second night we had 3 different kinds of vegetarian curry, rice and salad. The whole atmosphere is so friendly and homely as well and we found it very hard not to just stay there a few more nights! After dinner we went back up to the village where things were much the same just with more drunk men lying down and not getting up. We stayed for a beer and to watch the homemade fireworks which were surprisingly good.
The next day we caught a boat to the little Mayan village of Santiago. It was market day there and they have the most beautiful table cloths, bags, wallets, clothes etc all made from the traditional very colourful material. We ended up buying quite a bit but considering it’s the first time we have been shopping in 8 months
we were very disciplined! We also got a little kid called Diego to show us around the village and take us to the Maximon (pronounced Moshimon), a local Mayan god that gets moved to a different private house every year. He gets given new clothes every week and a whole room in the house is set aside for him and his gifts of rum and cigars. It was a very strange experience to go into some stranger’s house to see this wooden god all decorated and 5 old men sitting around him. We also had a ridiculously delicious piece of cheesecake in a local café.
Next up we caught a boat to San Pedro, the hippy town on the lake where people seem to get stuck for weeks smoking weed and chilling out. We just walked through the village to get to the other pier and in doing so must have set the record for the shortest visit to San Pedro. We then caught a boat to the tiny village of Jaibalito and walked from there back to Santa Cruz. We had another lovely evening at the hostel and after dinner Dave, the owner and an old guy who
originally started the hostel treated us to a couple of hours of a guitar sing-along, interspersed with random happy hour prices on tequila shots. There were only about 15 people in total so it was really an intimate evening and so much fun. Our favourite song was one that Dave wrote himself called Chicken Bus, about traveling on the local buses here and it had us laughing like mad! We also liked his song about how he decided to buy the hostel and stop being a lost Iguana himself. Not many hostels have their own theme tune!
In the morning we caught a boat back to Panajachel and then a chicken bus to Xela also known in Spanish as Quetzaltenango. Xela is it’s Mayan name. We had another grim and overpriced meal in a local restaurant for lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the town. In the evening we went to Salon Tecun, supposedly the oldest bar in Guatemala. It’s inside a beautiful building and has a wonderful atmosphere.
Yesterday we went to Momostenango, another Mayan village with a market day. This time it was really a local market with lots of fresh (and not so fresh) fruit
and veg, yucky smelling meat and loads of second hand shoes. They also sell their famous woollen blankets which are beautiful but certainly wouldn’t fit in a backpack! The vibe of the market was brilliant, so vibrant and a real sensory overload. We also had our first good local meal (chicken and rice) for about 50p/ R7 from these two old ducks at the market. The chicken bus ride back was an experience too because the bus was jammed full of people. All the 2-seater seats had 3 people on them and then there were about the same number of people standing wherever they could or couldn’t find space.
Today we have had a relaxing morning and in a couple of hours we catch a chicken bus to the Mexican border and then an 11 hour night bus from the first Mexican town we get to all the way to Puerto Escondido where we will find Andy!
We will be heading back into Guatemala on our way to Belize to visit the Mayan ruins at Tikal and maybe also Semuc Champey, so there will be more Guatemalan tales to tell.
UPDATE: 26 & 27 May - Back in Guatemala, just for 2 days!
On Saturday 26th we left Palenque, Mexico to go to Flores in Guatemala. The 8 hour journey involved a 6am start in a minibus with a random 1 hour stop for breakfast at 7am, no idea why this is necessary other than to line the pockets of some entrepreneurial locals. Then the border crossing and a 45 min boat ride along the river in no mans land. Then an hour’s wait, just for the hell of it followed by another mini bus ride to Flores. Flores is a lovely little town on an island in the middle of a lake, very small and full of tourists but still a very relaxing spot to spend a couple of nights. Our hotel was right on the water and much time was spent swimming in the lake cos it was hot!
The main reason for visiting Flores is to go to Tikal, some of the oldest and most impressive Mayan ruins. We decided to get up to go on the 3.20 sunrise tour, mainly because the sun rising over the ruins and the jungle is supposed to be spectacular but also because by 10am it
is so hot you can’t move. So we dragged ourselves out of bed and the stupid tour agency (San Juan - avoid them like the plague if ever you go to Flores) arrived half an hour late to fetch us. To cut a long but sad story short, after a 45 min speed march through the jungle, when we reached the top of the pyramid, the sun was already well into the sky. So we missed sunrise!!! How bleak is that! Everyone on the tour was so mad and it wasn’t a great start to the day.
We did end up really enjoying Tikal, the ruins are incredibly impressive because there is still so much jungle around them and they appear to rise out of it somehow. The whole history of the Mayans is also so interesting. For example they all had to abandon their cities (200 000 people lived in Tikal) because they had cut down all the trees in the area and as a result there was no rain and no rain means no life. Strangely enough, although this was like more than 500 years ago (we’re not very good with dates) the supposedly intelligent species that
we all belong to has not learnt from their mistakes it seems. Not going to banter on about it but really it makes you wonder about how stupid we really are and how much we’re going to suffer in the future.
We also saw quite a bit of wildlife including spider monkeys and lots of birds!
By 10am we had seen most of Tikal and we were tired, hot and hungry! We had breakfast at a little place and then got the bus back to Flores for a very welcome swim and sleep. The sunsets over the lake were amazing and combined with 2 for 1 cocktails were the perfect start to the evening. Our second night we joined the locals for tacos and burritos on the square while watching a local basketball match.
Flores and Tikal were very different from the rest of Guatemala but still great places to visit!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0408s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Lisa Marie/Indy
non-member comment
finally seeing Guatemala!
I love the added pics! Guatemala looks so lovely. I've especially enjoyed the photos, because two of my art students were adopted from Guatemala. They often talk about it, so it's been great for me to put some images with their descriptions. Thanks for sharing!