Traveling around Guatemala

This was our first trip to Guatemala and we wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to explore the new country as much as possible. Therefore, when local transport workers saw our plan, their eyes widened. “This is unrealistic! You won’t have time! When will you sleep?” And they were right - the plan was very tight and quite risky. Nevertheless, we managed to do everything, even slightly exceeded the plan - we saw the eruption of two volcanoes, instead of one. Although there was indeed a little less time left for sleep than doctors advised, and there was no time to eat. Therefore, if you want to repeat our route, keep in mind that it is for real supermen.

We flew to Guatemala via Mexico and it was tough. Recently, Mexican border guards have become extremely picky. Three of us were detained and held for several hours without any explanation. Fortunately, the connection was long and everything worked out. We even managed to get some sleep in the "hotel for an hour" next to the 24-hour meat market. Exotic!

The first day in Guatemala started with a lot of fuss. We endlessly ran around the shopping center, looking for the only bank where they actually change dollars (Donde esta el Cambio, senor?).

And when, after all this confusion, we found ourselves in intimate, cozy, colorful Antigua, we got a real buzz. Well, the best moment of the evening was a spontaneous visit to the observation deck on the hill. There, time simply stopped, the sun froze in a “photographer’s dream” position, and the girls made the look perfect.

Normal people go to the Acatenango volcano (3976, Guatemala) in two days and spend the night in tents on the slope. It's a rather cold and uncomfortable (albeit spectacular) night. Therefore, we decided to make our life easier and run up the mountain in 1 day. And in order not to miss the main show (explosions and lava flow in the dark), we planned the summit for the second half of the day - climb, guide the sun beyond the horizon, attach flashlights and run down.

The implementation of this plan turned out to be somewhat less attractive, but more heroic. We climbed slower than planned, we were extremely short of trekking poles, it was colder on the saddle than we would like (+5, as the forecast promised), and the 11-hour journey with an altitude gain of almost 1800 m thoroughly tired everyone.

AND ALL THIS is bullshit compared to the beauty of an active volcano!! Despite the cold and fatigue, we watched the pieces of lava, enchanted, and rolled down the slope towards some really crazy tourists (not us)

Como, Feva, Atitlan. Now this is exactly what my associative row for the phrase “mountain lake” looks like. In fact, there were much more lakes on our travels, but these have a special, resort flavor. It turns out that the resort is not necessarily about the heat and trying to escape it. Sometimes views and peace are enough.

So our day in the Guatemalan resort of Panajachel could have been a yoga-zen detox super-rest... if not for the mad desire to see everything at once. Therefore, we spent the whole day rushing around on a speedboat, saw several Indian settlements, fed the god Mashimon cigarettes, ground half a kilo of cocoa beans with our own hands, bought a bag of mangoes (for the price of potatoes) and found a real rock bar (like in our native Kathmandu). But the most important find is, of course, condensed milk, because without it, morning coffee, to put it mildly, will not work.

This is Ichimche - the first Mayan pyramid on our trip to Guatemala. Next there will be bigger and better pyramids, but we don’t seem to know about it, so we run around the location full of enthusiasm and take pictures with the stones. Besides us, there are only two guards, one cleaner... and an ordinary shaman who actually casts spells over the altar in a remote corner of the complex. I didn't take a photo of him. Well, you understand:)

And this is Biotopo del Quetzal and theoretically we came here to find the quetzal - the national bird of Guatemala, after which the local currency is named. In reality, it is basically impossible to find it now, because for the next few weeks all male quetzals will be sitting on eggs. Males are needed because it is their tails that are decorated with the meter-long feathers that were so valued by Indian headdress designers. We saw the female right from the parking lot and even tried to communicate with her using YouTube recordings of quetzal mating songs... They attacked the wrong one - this lady didn’t even look at us. So we ended up just walking through the jungle and imagining birds of paradise.

Climbing into a flooded cave with a candle instead of a lantern and without a helmet is just nonsense. But on this trip we went a little crazy and easily support any adventurous plans. Remember the volcano at night? In fact, if you are careful, the route through the cave can be completed by anyone. For example, one of the tour participants is 82 years old and he walked and swam through the cave without any problems.

But on the way back, our girls got a little naughty and climbed through the waterfall on a rope (rather than going around it on the steps). In the process, one of them tripped and broke her finger with that same rope. Therefore, in the evening we had an additional quest - find a working X-ray in a provincial Guatemalan town during a pandemic closer to midnight. Fortunately, we coped with both this task and the storming of the night pharmacy. Therefore, the journey continues, and the injured tourist feels well and entertains the group with a new gesture “Iron Fuck”, because instead of a plaster cast she was prescribed an exquisite metal splint.
P.S. it was the Kam Ba (Marias) cave near Semuc Champek

Don't read further, it's boring.

After a whole day of adventure and water activities, we came to this waterfall. At the same time, it was reliably known that today (Monday) it is not working. Yes, the waterfall is closed for cleaning. It is clear that the water itself flows as before, they are simply not allowed onto the observation deck. As an explanation for this phenomenon of meaninglessness (when you want to spend money, but no one needs it, it’s discouraging), local Indians brought up a damning argument - this is not a private site, but a public one. Doesn't remind you of anything?

The allusions didn't end there. Our driver said that we could “try to negotiate, because you know how it is in Guatemala.” What was meant was the classic situation when the severity of laws is compensated by the optionality of execution. Everything here is familiar and does not evoke emotions. But the unformulated but noticeable disdain for one’s own state institutions hurt my ears.

We recently had something like this in Ukraine, about the advisability of unconditional reverence for the state apparatus. Perhaps it started from the birthday of the Guarantor... I don’t remember. But I remember very well how happy I was when I managed to entertain the group without resorting to corruption. Because I can’t afford unconditional love yet, but this is not a reason to destroy something unfinished or to seduce one’s neighbor. Even if his passport is a strange color. I'm probably formulating it confusingly, sorry. But I warned you at the beginning))

The local guide who took us around the Candelaria caves proudly noted that he is the grandson of a shaman and therefore is well versed in the rituals that are still taking place here in the dungeon. You know - a circle of candles and a stone altar in the center.

We have heard the same story (my grandfather was a sorcerer, etc.) in Guatemala several times. And I am inclined to regard it not as a fashionable fable, but as a sign of the truly widespread spread of so-called syncretism - a combination of official Catholicism with folk shamanism. Moreover, according to some signs, these traditions not only did not die, but continue to develop despite 6 centuries under the rule of the popes.

What is the difference between an adventure and an excursion? Perhaps surprises. And this is probably why most tourists don’t read the route description))

To get to the remains of the May city of Aguateca, you need to sail for an hour on a high-speed boat (30 km/h along a winding river with crocodiles), and then climb for another hour through the jungle. It’s already five o’clock in the evening and it’s really dark in the thickets, fog has gathered in the gorge, and howler monkeys add exoticism with their screams. When you finally get to the pyramids, you are already a 100% different person - ready to perceive any legends and even create new ones. That is why I will not tell you some of the secrets of the city of Aguateca))

Tikal is the same pyramid from Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Gibson's Apocalypse. And they are truly impressive in a cinematic way. This is not just a pile of stones in the forest, but a huge complex with many structures. It’s difficult to even just run around them in one day, and when you start taking photos, your plans generally come to an end. Therefore, we found ourselves a driver in advance - a local guide. He is a Mayan with a science degree and many publications. But despite his solid background and age, our guide turns into a passionate young man when it comes to slandering his ancestors. He fiercely defended the ancient Maya against our attempts to attribute to them bloodthirstiness or lack of ingenuity. So the day passed in discussions and photo sessions, and at sunset we climbed out onto the Yashkha pyramid to sit for a minute alone with the rest of the world and feel the call of the jungle...

There are few real beaches suitable for traditional holidays in Guatemala. So don't be jealous when you look at these photos. To get to this beach, we jumped on the waves on a speed boat for an hour. It's painful and even a little scary. The waves muddied the water and only two of us decided to climb into this warm “primary broth”. And then the storm started. Therefore, it is not surprising that for 2 hours of travel there was only 1 hour in the Bounty advertisement. And of course we didn’t waste any time - everyone was taking pictures like crazy. We had to have time to prove to the world that we are happy and successful. Or would anyone present act differently?

The town of Livingston is a Guatemalan Tortuga. It's almost an island, because you can only get to Livingston by boat. The Garifuna people live here - descendants of runaway slaves and other cheerful guys, with their own culture and exotic language. Livingston has a reputation as a squat and a Rastafarian republic. But after walking through the local favelas, we never met any undisguised dealers or other criminals.

But we chatted a little with the cheerful grandfather Philip. He is 60+, he works as a teacher, he professes the principle “Do not worry, be happy” and therefore in due time he returned to this slum-tropical paradise from the States. “There’s more freedom here,” says Philip, scratching the back of his head and sighing. He is against the highway being built into Livingston and the city changing.

Sometimes the hotel becomes the main star of the day. In our time we have stayed in colonial haciendas, Tuareg tents, the latest glass cubes and inimitable Chinese hostels. This time we were lucky to spend the night in a bungalow perched on stilts off the banks of the tropical Rio Dulce (sweet river).

The houses are built almost exclusively with mosquito nets and are scattered throughout the forest at a great distance from each other. Probably so that I wouldn’t want to sleep at night:) So after dinner I spent several hours climbing along endless bridges in search of crocodiles and precise shots. Fortunately, it began to rain (the first one on the entire trip) and drove me into the house. Tomorrow we will traditionally get up at dawn

Have you heard about Pacaya Volcano on the news? It has recently begun to wake up and may soon explode or leak. But someone managed to climb on it before it all started. To do this, I had to give up breakfast, two hours of sleep and visits to the next Mayan pyramids. By the way, the route is very short, no more than an hour from the car to the observation deck.

The most difficult thing was to fight off our Indian guide, who insisted that we must urgently return to the car as soon as the sun touched the horizon. We knew that volcanoes truly bloom only in the dark, and we held tightly to our right to do stupid things. And while we were waiting for night, we fried marshmallows little by little on the volcano))

Usually people start getting to know the country from the capital. In Guatemala, most tourists bypass the capital altogether, but we devoted 3 hours to it on the last day of the trip. Among the main attractions here: a piece of the Berlin Wall, the May Pyramid next to Starbucks, bored cops under the presidential palace, a drug mafia plane arrested at the airport. The sadness was a little dispelled by the new art quarter, made “to look like Italy”. And in general, the sadness is not for us - at night we are flying to Mexico , where there will again be interrogation at the border and the threat of deportation at the whim of the border guard. The adventures continue!

Kirill Yasko, Kyiv