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Central America

February - April 2016
A 42-day adventure by annalovestraveling Read more
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  • annalovestravelingCentral America

    New trip, new adventures

    February 28, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    - even though I didn't expect the first already on my way to Guatemala. Despite my dad's reassuring me that long-distance flights are barely ever delayed, we left London (heading to Miami) 50 minutes late, since the plane was smaller than the planned one and so some people had to be convinced to take a later flight and their luggage needed to be found. Already before I had been a little worried about my connection to Guatemala only one hour after the planned landing in Miami - with the delay now I was sure I wouldn't reach it. However, thanks to my express connection ticket I arrived at the gate less than 5 minutes before it closed.
    Finally in Guatemala City, another problem came up: there was only one ATM in the whole airport - and it was out of order. At this point I was really happy that I had brought some dollars, because otherwise I wouldn't have had any chance to get to my hostel.    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 1

    Guatemala City

    February 29, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Despite everyone's telling me that Guatemala's capital wasn't a really nice place to visit, I wasn't keen about leaving right away after the long flight either, so I took one day to explore the city. My first thoughts were that people had been understating, but when I arrived at the historic center it didn't even seem that bad. There is a nice historic route which you can walk all the way from the railway museum, past different churches and cultural centers, down to Parque Minerva, which contains my personal highlight: a huge relief map of Guatemala.
    Aside from that and an old mansion called Casa Mima, I spent my day enjoying the sun and eating coconuts (one of them, already peeled so you can drink the coconut water and eat the frute, costs amazing 5 Quetzales / €0,60 !). Also, I saw many women in their beautiful traditional dresses.
    In turn, the Guatemalans were rather curious to see ME, they turn ans looked at me. When I was resting at a plaza, a woman close to me in fact starred at me for two whole minutes and then asked me if she could take a picture. Even though this was exaggerated, I can't even blame the people for looking: aside from my bright hair and eyes, I am around 50 cm taller then most of them.    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 2

    Chicken Buses

    March 1, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    It's one of first things a backpacker in Central America learns about: the old buses that look like differently painted American school buses and charge you about 1€ for a 1h-ride. Aside from being incredible cheap, they ate known as a must-do experience.
    Basically, Chicken Buses are just really not comfortable, which is mainly because of the drivers that reminded me of the song “es gibt nur ein Gas: Vollgas“. That means, in every curve you could watch people clinging on the back of the seat in front of them and leaning into the opposite direction. After an hour you have had a compete arm workout. I was impressed by the driver's helper who stood the whole ride next to the open front door without seeming to be afraid at all.    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 2

    Volcán Fuego

    March 1, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    It was a mere coincidence that enabled me to watch a spectacle I never thought I would ever see. This morning, after having arrived to Antigua, I went looking for an Agency that would take me to another of the volcanoes (Pacaya). It wasn't that easy though, since most of them are pretty expensive and didn't go before the weekend. Only one told me they would have a trip before that, but it was only two hours later. Giving it a last try I met Rolando, an independent tour guide who offers tours to all four of the surrounding volcanoes and who also told me that Fuego was highly active right now and worth going.
    At first I was a bit suspicious of that man that didn't belong to any agency and even offered every trip for by far less money. Only after having checked his reliability with my hostel I booked the tour - and couldn't believe my luck.
    With a group of Spanish students (there are a lot of schools for foreigners here) we went to a coffee finca the same afternoon. At first it was really foggy and we couldn't see anything but lighting bucks and bats. We even heard some coyotes! But most of all we heard the loud explosions of lava at the top of the volcano, even though we were 10 km away. We waited for around two hours and were already starting to leave when all of a sudden the clouds of ash moved enough for us to see the steady eruptions and the lava flowing down the mountain. It's just impossible to describe this view!    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    2
    Day 3

    Antigua

    March 2, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Yesterday I arrived at this beautiful old town and besides admiring the four stunning volcanoes (Agua, Fuego, Acatenango and Pacaya), I also spent some time walking around Antigua. It's incredible charm mostly keeps you from visiting any sights, since you just want to stroll around and enjoy the flair.Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 3

    Volcán Pacaya

    March 2, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    This afternoon we went to another volcano, this time getting closer. Even though you are not allowed to go all the way up to the crater anymore, we hiked around half the height of Pacaya. People offering horses followed us all the way up until we reached a former crater and the point were the lava from the last eruption in 2014 had turned solid. However, it is kept warm through the subterranean lava of the still active volcano (of the 37 volcanoes in Guatemala only 3 are still active, two of them around Antigua). In fact, it is so hot that we grill marshmallows on it.

    (Fun fact: when driving to the starting point of the hike, we passed a funeral procession. The hearse and about 50 persons were blocking a narrow, curvy mountain street.)    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 5

    Lago Atitlán

    March 4, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Yesterday I arrived at San Pedro la Laguna, one of the surrounding villages of Lago Atitlán. It's really small and consists of tiny streets, around half of them looking as if you couldn't even walk there. It's impossible not to get lost there - first of what I did this morning, since my hostel is pretty far away from everything else. However, therefore it has a terrace with an incredible lake view and jacuzzis.
    I didn't do so much today. After walking a bit through San Pedro I took a boat to the nearby town Santiago Atitlán with Bruno from Paris. We did a Tuk-Tuk tour to the main sights, including a view point over the lake, the coloured cemetery and the point of the lake were Maya women keep the tradition of washing their clothes by hand. In addition, we saw a religious ceremony of a Maya priest.
    After that, I passed most of my afternoon in the jacuzzi and just went out later to have some drinks with Bruno. On my way back I met a really nice English couple who walked me back to my hostel, since I couldn't find a Tuk-Tuk to take me there    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 6

    Rainy San Pedro

    March 5, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    This morning me and two American guys explored the lake by kayak. You can rent them here on every corner and you don't have to be a bargaining genius to get them for only 2€ per hour. Probably you could achieve even a lower price, but in the end I feel bad to complain about prices that are already that low. We followed the route recommended by the rental to a beach on the other side of the lake, but it turned out that it wasn't a really nice place, so we headed back pretty soon. It also was better like that, since it started to get cold and to rain a bit (on the other hand, we were already wet anyway). However, it was really nice to see the landscape from another perspective.
    When we got back to the hostel, first of all we wanted to shower of the disgusting lake water (people wash her laundry here and there must also be any other kinds of dirt in there). Afterwards we still had time to grab some of the hostels Saturday brunch.
    The rest of the day I spent in the hostel, as in the afternoon the rain got really heavily and I didn't really take a trip to the village Panajachel in that weather.    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    Day 7

    Welcome to the Oasis

    March 6, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Today was a long day on the road. My first bus picked me up at 4.30 am - at least in theory. Probably it took thee driver so long to get all the stuff of the market ladies on the bus. I wasn't a big fan of this guy anyway: one would expect that people on a bus would like to try and sleep at 5 am, but he kept shouting into his phone, the breaks in between only long enough so it could ring again on maximum volume.
    After about three hours I arrived at Antigua, where I took another bus to Lanquín, a really small town at an amazingly blue river in the rainforest. When Michael (a guy from Canada) and I got off, we were instantly crowded by a bunch of locals who wanted to convince us to stay in their respective hostel. We went for the Oasis and instantly knew it was the right choice. For about 6€ we got our own bungalow, and on the edge of the hostel's restaurant we have a private river access. I could stay here forever!    Read more

  • annalovestravelingCentral America
    1
    Day 8

    Semuc Champey

    March 7, 2016 in Guatemala ⋅ 🌬 17 °C

    From Lanquín, a tour took us to the 9km away natural monument Semuc Champey. We first had a 40 minute hike to a view point, then went back down to swim down a part of the river, jumping from one step into the other. After lunch, we went into a bat cave, only lighting our way with candles. It was a continuous change between walking through knee-deep water, climbing up and down ladders and swimming (all holding the candle). At the end we tubed down the river back to our starting - of course provided with beer.
    The only sad thing about this otherwise perfect day, was that we were sold the beer by 14 year old boys. Even worse were the maybe 8 year old girls that wanted to sell us chocolate, which tried to convince us in Spanish, English and even French and German.    Read more

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