Guatemala

21 January 2008
Guatemala / Belize Border, Guatemala
                As we stepped into Guatemala a taxi driver came up and offered us a taxi to Flores for $60.  The exchange for Guatemala is around $1USD to $7.5 Guatemalan Quetzales, so this wasn’t too bad of a deal.  We told him maybe and went to get stamped into Guatemala. 
                After dealing with immigration, we traded what little Belize dollars we had for Quetzales.  Sure enough we had $70 Quetzales, so we were covered for the cab ride.  The driver helped us load our bags in the bag of his station wagon and drove about quarter of a mile to the first gas station.  He pulled over and we were able to decipher that he needed $20 right now for gas.  When Doug handed him the $20 Quetzales the driver began rambling about something.  After a few minutes we finally realized he wanted $60 USD, not Quetzales.  Well $60 USD was way out of our budget, so we declined the ride and went to grab our bags.  He then began offering us a ride to the nearest bus station which was 3 kilometers away for a mere $20 Quetzales.  We declined again and walked back towards the border.  About 200 yards down the road we found a bus stop that said they had service to Flores for $35 Q per person.  Perfect.
                The “bus” arrived and turned out to be nothing more than a slightly enlarged van.  The driver and his son were kind enough to take our bags and wrap them in a tarp since they would be riding on the roof for the next two hours, and it was drizzling.  We got in the van and began our trip to Flores.  Well the van was packed.  There were four total rows of seats (including the drivers), each made for 3 passengers, and somehow we topped out at 22 passengers.
                Also surprising was that the first 45 minutes or so of our trip was completely on pot holed dirt roads.  Along the way we were treated to a number of animals crossing the road in front of us.  We saw dogs, chickens, sheep, horses, cows and pigs.
                We arrived in Flores…or so we thought.  We began to walk around to find an ATM since we had zero cash on us.  We went to 5 banks, which had two ATMs between them and neither of them worked.  While we were talking to somebody about banks, directions and what not we discovered that we were actually in a town called Santa Elena and that Flores was an island North of us.  We down towards the river and finally saw Flores.  Flores is a small island within a lake/river and has a single bridge connecting it to land.  We walked over to the bridge which thankfully wasn’t too far away.  After some difficultly found an ATM and then quickly found a hotel.
                We knew we wanted to go Tikal today (ancient Mayan ruins), so we asked our guy at the front desk about information for going today.  He took us the tour agency about two store fronts down and we were signed up for the 2 pm shuttle. 
                While we waited for our 2 pm tour we shopped around and found a place that would provide transportation to a place called Yaxha (more ruins).  We decided to book that tour as well.
                Our tour bus arrived around 2:30 pm and we were told we needed to be back just before 6 pm, so this would be a whirlwind tour of one of the largest Mayan ruins in Guatemala.  We arrived at the map and it showed walking times between the different parts of the ruins.  Most of the times were about 25 minutes.  This would definitely be a quick tour.  We took off at a “power walk” pace and saw probably about 80% of the ruins.  It was nice because there was a slight drizzle, so there few tourists, but because of our time crunch we didn’t get to see as much as we would have liked.  The ruins were amazing.  Tikal has some grand ruins, with towering temples all tucked away deep in the jungle.  While we were looking around we got a glimpse of our first monkeys.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to get any good photos of them.
                When we got back to the hotel we found a little place for dinner and tried some excellent beer (Bhrava) from Nigaragua.  Then it was off to bed for the day.

22 January 2008
Flores, Guatemala
                The previous day we were trying to decide if we wanted to take the bus to Antigua this day, or wait another day.  The decision was to take the bus that evening to Antigua.  Even though everyone we spoke to, and the books said it was very dangerous to travel at night in Guatemala, we decided to be dangerous.  The tour agency we were going to go to see Yax-ha with arranged for our night travels on the luxury bus. 
                Our tour also came with a meal from the restaurant across the street.  We made sure our meals were made before the tour for lunch.  The guide arrived, and ended up being someone who would drive us to the site which was an hour and a half away.  He was a very nice man with a small grungy car, who drove crazy.  The drive was once again scenic with farm animals on the side of the road, but it wasn’t raining. 
                Arriving at the ruins we paid our entrance fee about $80Q, half of what we paid at Tikal.  The driver was to wait for our return.  This was a nice arrangement.  We were able to decide when to leave for the ruins, and our driver was to wait until we were done, it didn’t matter how long.  Right as we were using the baños, and checking out the ruins map, a couple of American’s from Alaska came up the hill from the river.  Their names were Matt and Kori.  This was excellent, we ended up exploring the ruins with some good company.
                These ruins were beautiful, and quiet.  Because this was not the most popular spot, probably second or third to Tikal, there were hardly any other tourists.  At one point the four of us were sitting on top of a ruin, and some monkeys showed up on some nearby trees.   We did monkey watching for about 30 minutes.  The monkeys were jumping, and slowly made their way to a set of trees slightly closer to us.  Close enough for our small camera to get some photos.  This was awesome; the sun was starting to show.  The four of us were sitting up on some ancient ruins watching monkeys. 
                After checking out the ruins we walked down by the river which is supposed to have crocodiles in it.  Unfortunately we didn’t see any.  It was time to eat.  We walked up to the car to get our bag, and returned to our new acquaintances boiling water for pasta.    It was nice to converse and hear stories.  These two had already been all over south East Asia, China, Europe, and Central America.  They were able to give us advice, with website as a reference.  After lunch we said our goodbyes, and headed back to Flores. 
                The bus to Antigua didn’t leave until 11:00 that evening, so there was time for our website update.  The agency who sold us our bus tickets, offered us free internet usage.  This was perfect.  Doug hooked the computer up with their internet line, and began the upload.  We were keeping our fingers crossed that this wasn’t another Belize incident.  But no, the internet was faster, and the website uploaded everything in about an hour.  We were even happier that it worked after the upload. 
                After our chores, we cleaned up, and went to dinner.  With our bus tickets we received another free meal from the same restaurant.  This wasn’t so bad.  Then we packed up our stuff, and took the bus at 11:00.

23 January, 2008
Antigua, Guatemala
                Our bus arrived in Guatemala City and a shuttle was waiting to take us to Antigua.  45 minutes later we were there.  The town reminded us a lot of San Cristobal in its appearance.  We got our stuff and began to look around for a hotel. We were approached by a gentleman who was very eager to show us around.  He brought us to a hotel that cost about $20 USD a night and was pretty clean.  Then he gave us information on the volcano tour.
                We ended up taking us to a tour agency so we could book the tour but we declined saying we wanted to shop around.  A little later we found a place that would do the tour with a guide for half the price of the first one we went to.
                With our afternoon tour booked, we gathered our clothes and dropped them off at the laundry and then did a little exploring before it was time to nap.
                After picking up our clothes we were off to go hike up the active Pacaya volcano.  Our bus ride to the beginning of the hike was about an hour and half.  We stopped halfway there to hose down the brakes because they had overheated and needed to be cooled down.
                About 5 minutes before we would get off the bus, our tour guide was picked up and he began to tell us about the hike.  It would be about a 3 kilometer hike, and this volcano was the most active of the all the volcanoes in the area (38 total, 3 active).  Then he proceeded to tell us it was necessary for everyone to have a walking a stick. He was selling them for $5Q.  We declined the offer.  Getting off the bus we were mobbed by little kids selling them for $2Q.  We still declined.
                The hike up was easy enough. The only difficult part was we wore our sandals, and the guide wanted to stop along the way for the group.  The only real difficult part was the home stretch to see the lava.  This was because the lava rock was solid at points, loose at others and in some spots, just downright hot.  As we were walking on some of the more firm spots of lava, we could see bright orange in cracks about a foot or two beneath our feet.  The area didn’t have a lot of lava moving (there was much more on the Big Island in Hawaii), but it is impressive to see nonetheless. 
                It began to get dark and the prospect of walking over loose or hot lava rock in dark (especially since lava rock is black) we turned back a little early.  We arrived over at the grassy hill side that looks up at the volcano and proceeded to wait for the rest of our group.  The drawback for using the cheap tour is that there are more people, more people means you have to wait longer.  Well most of the people there didn’t have the foresight to leave until it was after dark, so now we have to wait until they make it back.  The biggest issue with this was the temperature had plummeted and the wind was roaring.
                After some time we finally were all back and we began the hike down in the dark.  Thankfully we had brought a flashlight with us but there were some slips here and there, thankfully no wipeouts.
                The bus ride back was uneventful (with the exception of having to stop twice to cool down the brakes).   Thankfully when we arrived in Antigua Anna recognized our street and we were let off right near our hotel.
                Both of us were starving and our spirits were down a little because when we checked into the hotel the lady had said the water was hot in the evenings from 6pm to 9pm.  Well it was 9:15pm now.  We were cold, dirty and hungry and the prospect of an ice shower wasn’t too appealing.  We arrived at our hotel and the door was locked.  We tried our room key but it didn’t work.  Thankfully a minute later a gentleman opened the door for us.  Expecting the worst we asked if the water was still hot.   “Si,” He replied.  We practically flew up the stairs and into the shower.
                After cleaning up we walked through the town trying to find a restaurant.  It must be the off season because nearly everything was close.  The first place we found was an Italian place with over priced food, but we were tired and hungry so we took a table.  Thankfully the pasta and bread we had been excellent.  After eating it was off to bed.

24 January 2008
Antigua, Guatemala
                The big stop today was going to be the market.  We walked around for awhile looking at various things.  The market was divided up into sections.  The first 15 minutes or so was spent walking through the food section looking at produce, and raw meat before we finally found the hand crafts.
                Once we were in the hand crafts we came across a couple of items that we liked.  After doing a little haggling we purchased an item for us and another for Doug’s Mom (sorry everybody, we are keeping it a surprise until it arrives there). 
                After purchasing our items we realized it was going to be a lot easier on our backs to send a package home.  We went to the grocery store and got a box for our stuff and then to the post office.  They handed us around 40 stamps to put on the box.  Of course these aren’t the sticky kind; these are the “lick the back” kind.  Thankfully they had some sort of sponge thing that helped a little.  One section of our stamps started to fall off the box so when Anna tried to tape it down she was politely warned that we could not do that.  So a few more minutes of sponging, and licking and the box was ready to go. 
                Next stop was trying to find a place to update the website.  We found cool little bar that had the cheapest rates we could find (around $0.75 an hour).  Unfortunately the beer prices didn’t match the internet prices ($2.25 a beer) and we left after getting our update completed.
                Being in Antigua for a couple days now we still hadn’t really looked around the city much, so we went for a little walk stopping in a plaza for ice cream.  We also found a couple of old churches to admire.  The town really is quite pretty, it is easy to see why this is one of the top destinations for Spanish Immersion courses. 
                One the way back to the hotel we found a restaurant to eat at for dinner.  We had a couple chicken sandwiches and some interesting nachos along with a couple of the local beers, Gallo.  It was time to leave.  The next day we decided to go to San Salvador, El Salvador.  After researching all the different prices for the travel agencies, $22 US was the cheapest price we found for a direct bus ticket. 

25 January 2008
Antigua, Guatemala
                The morning began early, around 7:00 we were up, and ready to go out to breakfast by 8:00.  We stopped by a little café for a hot chocolate, café, and a sticky bun.  The shuttle to take us to our bus in Guatemala City was to pick us up at our hotel around 9:00. 
                We gathered all of our stuff up.  The room was scattered with all of our stuff, somehow we managed to shove all the clothes and crap into our three bags.  As we waited for the shuttle outside of the hotel Doug noticed on our ticket the travel agency wrote down Santa Lucia #4, we were staying at Santa Lucia #2.  It was 8:55 by the time this was noticed.  Doug went inside, asking for directions for Santa Lucia #4.  We ran the 3 blocks to Santa Lucia #4, it was 9:00 exactly.  There were 2 other guys waiting for their shuttle as well, so we waited.  After about 20 minutes, the other two guys had the hotel call their travel agency regarding their shuttle.  Doug then asked if he could do the same for us.  We hadn’t missed our shuttle, it was just really late.
                The ride in the shuttle was interesting.  It was completely full of different people.  The first stop was the airport, then another bus station. Then it was time for our drop off.  The shuttle driver explained to us the fancy bus we had paid for wouldn’t leave until 4:00 that afternoon, but the normal bus was leaving at 1:00.  Well by now it was 11:45, so we decided to go with the normal bus, and received a very small refund of 30Q (around $4).  Anna went for a walk around the surrounding blocks for some lunch.  After walking around aimlessly, she found a little café nearby who put together fried chicken, rice, salad, and homemade corn tortillas.
                The bus ride was pretty normal.  Arriving at the border, first we went through the Guatemalan immigration.  They swiped our passports, and then we got back on the bus, and crossed the river into El Salvador.

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