Advertisement
Published: October 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
What a crazy country! We (me and more 7 backpackers that i met in random places from Tulum to Caye Caulker) entered in Guatemala from Benque Viejo del Carmen, East border with Belize, in September 12th and we had a crazy experience there! From the border we got the local transport to Flores, was maybe one of the longest rides ' till now, but woth it, we saved something like 15 US bucks, but was defenitly crazy! In Flores we went to a really nice dutch-runned hostel called
Hostal Los Amigos, really nice atmosphere and good prices! Inside the hostel we booked the Sunrise tour to Tikal, was a little expensive but woth it, the sunrise even cloudy was amazing! We arrived the site was still dark, then we climbed the highest pyramid to see the sunset from there, then we moved to check to site itself wich is huuuuuuuuge! Were long 3 and an half hours walking trought the jungle checking the ruins, the monkeys, the spiders, honestly in the end of the tour I was exausted and a little bothered! More 1 night to relax in Flores and we moved, with more 2 french girls (the group was getting
bigger and bigger), to Coban and from there to Lanquin, to check the famous El Retiro Lodge, wich is in the middle of nowhere but really relaxed, beatifull and easy to get the Semuc Champey Waterfalls tour, whatever, arriving there the El Retiro was fully booked, so we were in the middle of nowhere without places to stay untill one guy come to us and asked us to stay in the Semuc Champey village, and was what we did! Arriving there I was surprised about how beatifull was the place, much better then El Retiro, the name of the Lodge that we stayed was
El Portal, was almost the same as the famous lodge in Lanquin but with much more stuff to do, we could go walking to the Semuc Champey Waterfalls without guides a lot of times, because to hostel was really close from there, we could jump from the river bridge (this bridge-jumping is included in the Semuc Champey tour from Lanquin) lots of times everyday, we went to weirds caves nearly the hostel, one of those was maybe one of the funniest experiences of my whole life, we went to the cave,wich was completly dark, with candles
El Portal Lodge
Where we stayed at Semuc champey to light our way, and the path inside the cave was completly wet, sometimes we needed to swim with the candle in one hand only with the face out of the water, really funny! And after all those crazy experiences, we could go back to the hostel to relax, have dinner, then drink with the friends, talk about the funniests experiences of the day and at 10pm, when the energy turded off, we could go to the bonfire on the riverside to drink more and have fun. For sure was the best experience in Guatemala!
After there, we moved to Panajachel, a really nice village in the Atitlan Lake, really nice, relaxed, we stayed only one night there ´cause on the next day we moved to San Pedro de Laguna, much smaller than
Pana but muuuuuuuuuuuuch nicer! It´s a really relaxed village also on the lake, we swimed in the lake, did some hiking on the mountains around the village, ate nice and cheap food, anyway, was a fu**ing nice experience! We stayed on the israeli-runned hostel called
Zoola´s, maybe the most beatiful hostel that I stayed so far, and there a re a restaurant there really good with nice
arabic food, it is a little expensive but worth it, it´s really good food!
So, after 5 days in San Pedro de Laguna our big backpacker group sadly splited ( =[ )! Jesse went back home (Seattle), Alex (London) and Maddie (Canada) stayed at San Pedro for one more week studying spanish, Javier (Australia) went to hike in Quetzaltenango, Teresa (Germany) left to Chichicastenango and we (me, Phillip the french-canadian and John the irish) went back to Panajachel to get the bus to Antigua, where we spent maybe the best week so far! We arrived at night and went to
The Jungle Party Hostel, a really nice hostel that a lot of people recomended to me in the trip! When we arrived the hostel was full, so we looked for another hostel in the rain, was a little bit anoying but OK, mission accomplished, we were exausthed so we just ate and then moved to the bed. The next day we checked-in at the Jungle Party and then the party really began! Everyday we got a happyhour from 6 to 8, on the second day there was the "Ladies Night", wich was the following: Every guy dressed as a women
got the drinks for 5Q, nothing! so was that, drinking the whole night like crazy! And nexts nights were somethng like that, drinking, drinking and drinking! During one of the mornings we went to the
Pacaya Volcano, an active volcano near Antigua where we could climb and check melt lava! Was AMAAAAAZING! The volcano and landscape around was really beatifull, we got a really nice wheater and the hike itself wasn´t so hard as the hike at San Pedro de Laguna!
After 3 weeks far from the sea, was time to move! From Antigua (spent 5 days there) we went to
Monterrico, a beach village close to the El Salvadorian border wich is very famous from its black-sand beach and laying eggs turtles. We stayed at the Johny's hostel, really nice hostel and we met a lot of nice people there so, even with bad wheater we enjoyed a lot! We went to a boat tour trought the mangroves close from Monterrico and was amazing! We woke up at 5 am to go to the tour and we checked the sunrise on the mangrove, was really beatifull! And the hightligth of our stay there was to see the puppie turtles
going to the see, reall nice! Unfortunnattely, I was without my camera and didn't take pictures but OK, better the moment than the picture, right?
From there our adventure in Guatemala finished, we got a boat and 3 chicken buses to the El Salvadorian border and, of course, arrived safe. Next destination:
El Salvador!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0507s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb