So, here I am again. I have been traveling for a month now, you could say time flies. Not me, because I am currently on the bus. I did write my previous blog on the plane, on my way to Guatemala. But I suddenly realized I never posted it. Far too busy with other fun things, let’s just say! I have posted it anyway, if you would like to read it before reading this one, you can do so here. It was funny to read it back because I have stuck to my intentions so far, hiking, learning Spanish, visiting football matches, it will all be discussed in this update!
But anyway, let’s start at the beginning & in this case that means Antigua. That is the city where I started my journey. There I was again, alone with my backpack on my back in an unknown country where I knew no one. Certainly exciting again, in both the negative and positive sense of the word. Then Antigua is a nice place to start. It is actually one of the most prosperous cities in the country. And that means that it is super safe, everyone speaks/understands English and there are a lot of backpackers. That made it very easy to make friends and I have hardly been alone in the past month. That is probably why I will often write in the ‘we’-form. I do say that it was easy, but it took some getting used to in the beginning to randomly approach people. But every time I had doubts, I forced myself through the proverbial ‘sour apple’ & it all turned out fine 😊
So Antigua. On my first day I already had something on the agenda: a football match! And not just any one, a Champions Cup (local Champions League) match. Antigua against Seattle Sounders! That was a nice welcome to Central America. Antigua lost, but it was not because of the atmosphere!
Antigua is a beautiful colonial city with a magnificent view of all kinds of volcanoes. And we immediately crossed off one of those volcanoes: the Pacaya volcano. That is one of the three active volcanoes in Guatemala. Luckily, this one isn’t that dangerous, and that’s proven because we were able to roast marshmallows on it. That, and the fact that I didn’t get food poisoning from it, was really fun. In addition, I tried to keep up with another resolution in Antigua: keeping a sort of rhythm. And by that I mean, among other things, exercising. If I want to travel for a long time again, it’s important to me that I do certain things to feel good and exercising is a big part of that. But also watching a movie or series, for example. All things that this semi-introvert can use to recharge 😊
Then it was time for a 2-week Spanish course. And I was going to do that course in Quetzaltenango (bless you), or the easier Mayan name: Xela. During these 2 weeks I lived with a local host family where Catalina was my temporary mother and took very good care of me. Grant, a guy from New Zealand, was my temporary big brother because he was also in the same host family and at the same school. We walked to school together in the morning with our backpacks, and on the way back we complained that we had been given homework. Haha, that was a real throwback to primary school time. I lived a very normal life there for 2 weeks. I had classes for 4 hours every day, we ate together with the whole family 3 times a day and Grant and I also regularly went to the gym or explored the city.
I also got to celebrate my birthday there (29 already, we’re getting old) and that was a truly amazing experience, something I won’t forget anytime soon. At first I didn’t really want to tell people that it was my birthday, but I also thought it was so lame not to do anything for it. So for lunch (the most important meal of the day here) I bought a cake. When I admitted that it was my birthday, Catalina stopped everything she was doing and flew outside. After about 10 minutes she came back with a feast from the local restaurant, and she had already made lunch. That was really sweet. And for dinner she had specially made empanadas, and we ate them while all kinds of Spanish birthday songs were playing in the background. I had told Grant a few days before that it was my birthday (and that I had no intention of telling Catalina), and he knocked on my door in the morning to give me a present. It gives me a special feeling from people who had not even known me for a week at that time.
Our school also organised activities and we climbed the Santa Maria volcano during the weekend. If you are lucky with the weather you have a great view of one of the other 3 active volcanoes, and we were! And we were also lucky that it erupted at the moment we were eating our lunch. And by erupting I mean a lot of smoke in this case, so no lava. Just look at the pictures yourself, it was very beautiful.
In the end I was in Xela to learn Spanish and I did quite well. I wouldn’t dare say that I could write this blog in Spanish, but I speak and understand it more than fine. I have to be honest that it is not entirely fair if you already speak Italian, that is a big advantage. But the 4-hour 1 on 1 Spanish lessons have certainly done me a lot of good. With them I can now make myself understood in 4 languages (Dutch, Italian, English & Spanish), not bad huh? You can imagine how much chaos it is in my head sometimes 😉. Time to leave Xela, on to Lago Atitlan. How? On foot!
Yes, because why go 2 hours by car when you can also do a 3-day hike? We left with a group of 5 (including Grant, and Leonie who I met in Antigua) and a guide. The first day we walked for about 10 hours and 33,000 steps through the mountains and the forest, and we slept in a small village in the mountains with a few residents. A real local experience. They have so-called ‘temazcals’ there, which are essentially Mayan saunas. Of course, we went in after everyone had taken a nap in the grass.
During the trip and in the village there was also time to play football with the local kids. The first question that is always asked is: “Barcelona or Real Madrid?”. I noticed that Real Madrid is unfortunately more popular here, but that makes sense because not everyone has a TV here. But more seriously: football remains a fun way to connect with the local population. And that is a big difference compared to Asia, it is so much more alive here. Yesterday was Atletico Madrid – Barcelona and it was on everywhere, even the waiter was watching it on his phone. I quickly walked into a house to ask what the score was, that is all possible here.
The second day of the hike was a bit easier and we slept on a kind of petting zoo on drugs, with a llama. By the way, it was a Buddhist llama: the Dalai Llama. Okay, now that the joke has been made we can move on with the story. The next day we had to get up early because we wanted to see the sunrise at the Indian Nose viewpoint. From the side, the mountain really looks like a face, and the viewpoint is therefore on the nose. Here we had a beautiful view over the entire lake, a nice ending. After that, we only had to go down and we arrived safely.
Around Lago Atitlan you have all kinds of different villages and I stayed in San Juan. Grant also stayed here, and that was nice because he would be going back to New Zealand at the end of the week. We explored San Juan & Panajacharel together, and then it was time to say goodbye. I’ve said it before, but when you travel you get to know people very quickly & very well, but you often have to say goodbye very quickly. I notice that I’ve become better at saying goodbye (unfortunately), but it never stays fun. We will definitely stay in touch and there’s a good chance that we’ll see each other somewhere again! 😊
The last few days I stayed in a lovely hostel right on the lake where I also met some nice people, I explored Santa Cruz for a day with Amalia and did a small hike from San Marcos to Santa Cruz with Leonie. And now on the bus to… Flores! I was picked up this morning at 5:00am and will arrive (if all goes well) at 09:00pm. Then you can do the math yourself to see how long the trip is, I could have flown back to the Netherlands in that time 😉
That’s it. It’s great that you finished the whole story and hopefully you got through it easily. You can read what I plan to do in Flores and afterwards next time 😉 For now a big hug & lots of love!