And so on to our 10th country on the trip so far – Guatemala. We debated how to get to Antigua from Copan and the answer seemed to be a shuttle instead of the bus as it was cheaper and quicker, and would also avoid Guatemala City which by all accounts is a dangerous and not particularly nice place. However, what we hadn’t taken into account was the size of the minibuses – they are made for midgets! It was a very uncomfortable 6 hour journey with 15 of us packed into this little bus. Le Roux and I are just too tall and broad shouldered to fit into the seats and we wriggled and fidgeted the entire way. With relief we exited the bus in Antigua.
During the bus journey we stopped at this restaurant for a break and had possibly the worst breakfast we’ve ever eaten – the cheese and ham in the very thin omelette were not even warm, the pureed beans were solid, dry and grainy, and the random lump of white cheese on the side was not good. Not a good start for Guatemala in respect of food. Luckily it got better (apart from the dishwater coffee we had in a cafe in Antigua!).
Antigua is a beautiful colonial city which both Le Roux and I loved at first sight. The cobbled streets, colourful buildings and numerous plazas, along with the many old churches and ruins give the place such character and charm. I appreciate that the city doesn’t truly represent Guatemala – it is just too clean, but we really liked the place. We spent our first day wandering around the city soaking up the sights and atmosphere, as well as researching whether there was a live volcano to climb that would enable us to put a stick in some hot lava. Unfortunately, the volcano where friends had previously done this was no longer active so that activity was not to be – the search continues. My ears pricked up with I overheard the lady in our hostel mentioning a chocolate factory to another guest - a must do for me! On finding the place (Santa Domingo) we discovered that it is an old ruined convent that has been beautifully converted into a five star hotel. But it isn’t just a hotel as it has a number of museums, art galleries, craft shops, and exhibitions as well as stunning gardens complete with scarlet macaws and pergolas covered with trailing orchids. I was so impressed with how they had managed to incorporate the various old walls and chapels into the modern facilities which also included concert and wedding arenas. We spent a good few hours here and eventually found the chocolate shop which was definitely worth the hunt. The dark chocolate was divine. However, it was pretty pricey so we picked just 2 truffles each, a little bar of dark chocolate and Le Roux slid into the basket a little packet of chocolate covered coffee beans which he loves!
Later that afternoon we climbed the hill overlooking the city and the view was lovely, if a little hazy, and we were fortunate enough to survive the walk without being robbed. The more we talked to people in Antigua, the more we discovered that it has a horrible undercurrent of crime and there are a lot of robberies, despite the presence of tourist police.
Next stop for us was an overnight trip to Lake Atitlan about 3 hours drive north west of Antigua. We opted to stay in San Pedro rather than Panajachal in the hope that it would be less touristy, but unfortunately it was just as bad with bars and restaurants aimed at tourists everywhere. However, we did enjoy wandering around the town watching the locals going about their daily business - washing their clothes on the lake shore, fishing from little canoes and carrying their shopping or wares in bundles on their heads. This is the first country since Bolivia where we have seen people wearing traditional dress on a daily basis and it was lovely to see. It varies slightly between regions, but we didn’t manage to get many photos of the different outfits as people don’t like having their photos taken. The zoom lens enabled a few shots but no particularly good ones unfortunately.
Our hotel room had a balcony overlooking the lake and the view in the morning of the mist over the water was beautiful. That morning we took a little boat across the lake to the smaller village of San Marco which was much more unspoilt. We climbed the hill behind the village and were rewarded with gorgeous views across the lake to the three volcanoes. We hopped back on the boat to Panajachal, and the highlight of the overnight trip was the journey across the lake. I found it fascinating observing the local people in traditional dress hop and off the boat as we stopped at the little lakeside villages on the way.
In Panajachal, Le Roux went on a shopping spree at the artisan market as we’ve not seen any local textiles since Bolivia either. We had a fun afternoon bartering with the stall holders who would almost always reduce the price by half without much effort. We also visited the Nature Reserve just out of town, where there was a troop of spider monkeys, a type we’d not yet seen. They are very acrobatic and use their tails to swing from unlike other types of monkey - we watched this one monkey having fun swinging around for ages.
The journey back to Antigua was not a comfortable one. Having thought the little minibuses were uncomfortable, the next bus size up proved to be worse. Le Roux couldn’t even get his 2nd butt cheek on the seat and one of us had to lean forward to accommodate our shoulders, also as I was wedged into the window seat, my knees were being sliced up by the wires under the cover of the seat in front – a very long 4 hours! When we reached the bus office in Antigua and were told we needed to change buses to be dropped off at our hotels, we decided it would be far more preferable to walk so we abandoned the bus, much to the relief of our achy bodies!
After a quick overnight in Antigua, we were up early to catch the next uncomfortable minibus to Semuc Champey, about 6 hours north east of Antigua. We passed the time chatting with the other passengers, and it was nice to meet another English couple as we’ve not come across many English so far in Central America (heaps of Canadians though!). We were dropped off at the caves in Lanquin so that we could explore them and then see the many bats flying out of the caves at sunset. The caves were nice but not remarkable although our 14 year old guide pointed out all sorts of formations that supposedly looked like various animals. He kept offering to take photos for us, but he definitely needs to improve his skills as most of them were terrible! We’d been expecting a mass exodus of bats at around 6:30pm, but they just flew out separately over a period of time. It was nice to see but not spectacular. A moto-taxi was waiting for us and I experienced some doubt as to whether it would be able to make the 10km journey to Semuc Champey over the bad dirt roads, but luckily it just took us into Lanquin and from there the hotel pick-up continued the bumpy journey.
The hotel in Semuc Champey was lovely - set on the hill above the river were a number of wooden cabins and an open dining area from which you could see toucans and other birds in the morning. We’d booked a tour which included the famous pools and the water caves, as well as tubing down the river. The climb up to the view point over the pools was steep and I was surprised at how many people struggled with it and they were all significantly younger than us!
The climb was worth it though as the view over the pools was great. There is a natural limestone bridge and then a series of pools down the hill. After the hot climb we were all gagging to get in the water to cool off. The pools were such fun as you could jump or dive in, and slide down the limestone formations into the next pool. We were eventually persuaded to leave as we were going tubing down the river next. We bought a cold beer each from the hotel and then headed down to the entry point. Half the group (including Le Roux obviously!), opted to do the rock jump which was probably 4m high. Then there was the option of jumping off the bridge which was about 10m above the river – needless to say Le Roux jumped and I definitely didn’t! I was quite happy in my tube with my beer just watching the crazy people jump! It was a very relaxing ride down the river and we headed back to the hotel for lunch with quite an appetite after the morning’s exertions.
I bottled the water caves in the afternoon as the thought of being underground in water, climbing through little gaps and jumping into black pools with only a candle for light filled me with horror – pretty much my worst fear, so I went to the entrance of the caves and no further – a lazy couple of hours with my book suited me a lot better. Le Roux and the others loved the experience though – one of the best things he’s done apparently. We really didn’t want to leave this lovely place and could quite happily have stayed a lot longer, but we needed to move onto Rio Dulce on the east side of Guatemala.
The journey to Rio Dulce was another 6 hours in a minibus and was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Crammed in the back with us were two huge parcels of eggs stinking of chicken shit. Also, as they were taking up 2 seats a local guy whose eggs they were was hanging out of the window blocking the airflow into the bus. After an hour or so, people were feeling sick from both the terrible road and the smell, and the little girl in front of me threw up so we had to stop. We all got out for some fresh air and for people to find their travel sickness pills. Back on the road, the driver went over some bumps too fast and some of the eggs came loose from the parcels and started smashing on the floor. This did nothing to help the smell in the van and now we had to try and move our luggage in the tiny amount of space we had so it wasn’t sitting in broken eggs! After about 4 hours we finally got rid of the local guy and his eggs and switched to another, clean minibus for the final leg.
Rio Dulce is apparently the safest place to moor your yacht during hurricane season, as per the US coastguard, so the town was full of American boat owners. One was very helpful to us as the hostel we’d picked from the book was now under new management and was far too expensive, so he suggested another option for us just down the road. It is very nice and refreshing meeting people who are so helpful without needing anything in return. Our room was nice and had a view of the river, but the clientele of the hotel bar restaurant were something else. The only word I can use is “red neck”. The owner was from Dallas, Texas and I had trouble understanding his accent it was such a drawl, and some of his friends were interesting to say the least. While having a drink at the bar people asked us about our trip and so we got talking. I then asked this one guy if he had a boat. The guy across from him, laughed at this and said he used to. It turned out to be a crazy story as the guy had just broken up his 4 year relationship with a local lady and she had in turn burnt and sunk his boat, which he’d just had done up. The term he used to describe his ex girlfriend defied belief – a n***er bitch - I didn’t think people would actually use the “n” word to describe a coloured person especially with people they’ve just met in a bar - incredible.
There wasn’t much to Rio Dulce and we were only there to catch a boat down the river to Livingston. Through the owner of our hotel, we organised a tour which meant we could stop at all the sites down the river and spend as much time as we wanted at each. The trip was great and definitely lived up to expectations. First stop was a fort on Lake Izabel, then we headed back down the river towards the coast. We passed bird island and the water lily lagoon before stopping at the hot spring and cave. The cave wasn’t anything special but it was nice to soak in the hot water at the edge of the river with a drink. As we headed to the gorge there were hundreds of pelicans and egrets in the trees and floating on the water. It was a beautiful ride down river to Livingston.
Livingston also wasn’t any special and we had heard that the number of druggies hanging around meant it wasn’t that safe at night. We were only stopping one night in order to get the twice weekly boat to Punta Gorda in Belize the next morning. A coloured guy called Kippie met us off the boat and helped us sort out our boat ticket and immigration, as well as taking us to our hostel in return for commission from the hostel and a small tip from us. We stupidly stayed at a place recommended to us by a friend, and although it was a reasonable place, it was a party hostel and with a 6am start the next morning we weren’t in the mood for a big night. Unfortunately one of the staff was leaving and so all of the staff and a fair few others were up for a big night and they partied until the small hours, meaning we got very little sleep. Lesson learned – don’t stay in party hostels - you can go out for beers if you want instead!
Sleep deprived and grumpy we headed down to the port for our 7am boat, a little “launcha” which would take us 1 hour across the sea to Punta Gorda. The sea was pretty choppy and I had to concentrate on not being ill as well as hanging on so that I didn’t smash the base of my spine down on the hard seat after every wave. We all got wet on the ride although the people at the back of the boat fared worst. We made it to Belize in one piece albeit a little damp and glad we hadn’t eaten breakfast before we left!
Due to the shape of Guatemala and our proposed route through Belize it made sense to come back to Tikal and Flores later on, so we’ve not quite finished our time in Guatemala yet...
This is a real tour de force, Gillian - keep up the good work!
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