A Gringa No Brasil

To celebrate my birthday, I treated myself to a short trip to Guatemala. I had a great time, but really wish I had allotted more days for it. Traveling took a lot longer than anticipated, which cut into touristy stuff and sleep time, but we made the most of it.

I traveled with Meredith, another MuniD volunteer from my group, and Fredy, a Honduran friend from Tegucigalpa. We left for Guate early on Saturday morning, and made it to Guatemala City by the afternoon. I met up with Caley, a friend from high school, at a hotel in Guatemala City where she was staying for an International Reading Association conference, and we went out for coffee before I continued on to Antigua. I was only in the city for a couple hours, but it seemed a million times more welcoming than Teguz – probably thanks to the wider and cleaner streets. I think the crime statistics for the two cities are about the same though. Caley’s hotel was in Zona 10 aka Zona Viva, which is more of a ritzy neighborhood. It had a lot of cute cafes, bars and restaurants right around the corner from the hotel, and was much more pedestrian friendly than anywhere I’ve been in Teguz.

After the brief stop in the city, I continued on to Antigua, which is only about an hour away. It’s a very cute colonial city, which was the original capital of Guatemala until it was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1773. The streets in the center of the city are all cobblestone, and a lot of the buildings and monuments that were destroyed by the earthquake have been preserved as ruins. I saw very few Guatemalans while I was there; the place was crawling with tourists and expats. We went out for dinner and then to a reggae concert before heading to bed relatively early to prepare for another early travel day.

On Sunday, we got up early to head to the market in Chichicastenango, which is about two and a half hours west of Antigua. It reminded me a lot of the market I went to in Pisac, Peru (outside of Cuzco). Their main market days are Thursdays and Sundays when the central plaza and surrounding streets fill with stalls and vendors selling everything you can imagine, geared towards both tourists and locals – souvenirs, jewelry, clothing, produce, household goods, flowers, meat, grains, and lots and lots of textiles. Guatemalans are well known for their brightly colored textiles and traditional Mayan clothing. I was tempted to buy a beautiful blanket for my bed, but didn’t want to deal with transporting it so I settled for a scarf – much more travel friendly. While at the market, I managed to see Caley again, but only for a few minutes since she was with her fellow conference people on a busy tour with a tight schedule.

After about four hours of shopping, we headed to the beautifully serene Lake Atitlan, only an hour from the market. It’s surrounded by three volcanoes, which keep the water at a relatively warm 72 degrees despite the fact that it’s up in the highlands. We arrived at the town of Panajachel, but other volunteers had previously recommended that I stay at the Iguana Perdida in the neighboring town of Santa Cruz La Laguna. It’s not accessible by land so we hopped in a motor boat that took us right to their dock. The hotel had a very relaxing atmosphere, which made for a lazy afternoon of resting our feet after being on the move all morning. That evening they served a family style dinner, and we got to know a few other backpackers before passing out from exhaustion.

The next day was another early travel day (have you seen the trend yet – I was trying to cram a LOT of activities into very little time). Meredith and I headed back to Antigua early so that we would be able to do a volcano hike in the afternoon. Fredy decided to sleep in and meet us after the hike so it was a ladies only day. We decided to splurge on a tourist shuttle instead of the crazy chicken busses (used school busses from the States). A word about Guatemalan public transportation – I didn’t think it was possible, but they manage to cram their busses even more full than those in Honduras. In Hondu, the truly crowded busses have two people in each seat (could be more if there are small children involved) and people standing in the aisle between the seats, which makes for at least six in each row. In Guate, they put three people in each seat (again it could be more if there are kids). The two people on the aisle only get half of their butt on the seat if they’re lucky so they usually end up leaning against each other to hold each other up. And then if the bus is super full, one person stands in the aisle (it’s up to you to figure out how to make this work – I had my butt in some guy’s face for at least half an hour until someone got off and gave me their seat), which makes for at least seven people in each row. Congrats Guatemala, you really know how to make a bus ride as uncomfortable as possible. So that’s why Meredith and I spent a few extra Quetzales on a shuttle bus. But wait, there’s more – the shuttle busses are typically used by older tourists so most of the fellow travelers were over 50. The bus, which is really more of a van, has seats for fourteen people plus the driver. We were loaded up with about eight or nine people and the other passengers were already up in arms about how crowded it was and how ridiculous it is for them to pay more money for a shuttle if there are going to be more than five or six people. And then the bus driver made one last stop to pick up a French family of six (two parents, two grown children and two small kids). Needless to say, the other passengers had a LOT to say about that – complaining about how unsafe it is and how they want their money back and how there’s no way the Frenchies should all be allowed on. But the bus driver just ignored them (pretty easy to do since he didn’t speak English and they didn’t speak Spanish) and loaded on the rest. I just kept imagining how they would react to a chicken bus. Yikes.

A few hours later, Meredith and I were back in Antigua. We grabbed some lunch and got ready for our hike to the Pacaya Volcano. In my mind, I thought I would literally be hiking up the volcano and end up at the rim of the cone looking down into a pit of lava. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how it went, but it was still worth the trip. We hiked with twelve other tourists (mostly Americans) through Pacaya National Park for about three or four hours in total. It was a steep climb up one of the mountains facing the volcano. The volcano erupted last May so there was a lot of fresh ash and volcanic rock, but the lava pools that were there before had all dried up so we didn’t get to poke lava with a stick like my guide book said haha. However, there were a lot of heat pockets – kind of like walking over a heating vent in the floor. A couple were even hot enough to roast some marshmallows. Yum :) We stayed past sunset, but it was a bit hazy (not sure if that was just the day’s weather or if it’s always like that around the volcano) so the sunset pictures didn’t turn out so well. After hiking back down in the dark, we drove back to Antigua, ate a late dinner and crashed. I was hoping to celebrate my birthday at midnight on Monday, but we didn’t have the energy and everything was closed anyway.

Tuesday, my actual birthday, was just a travel day. Back to Honduras. I would’ve liked to have stayed longer, but Meredith and Fredy had to get back, and a twelve hour bus/car ride is even worse alone. Now I have to get back to work, but I’m still recovering from vacation haha. Thanks to everyone who sent e-mails, texts, and Facebook messages. 25 is gonna be a good year :)

And check out the pictures! Celebrating My Quarter Century in Guatemala