It turned out to be a great decision.
Costa Rica has some amazing things going for it. It's beautiful, the people are friendly and open, the food is great, etc. But it has one characteristic that just doesn't seem as strong as it does in many other Latin American countries: a strong sense of cultural heritage. Guatemala, on the other hand, is teeming with it.
We only had four days in Guatemala, so we couldn't venture too far from the capitol, but we got very lucky, because the places that we did go to were all fantastic.
First off, we left Guatemala City as quickly as we could. Interesting little factoid: during the 10 minutes in a car that it took us to get out of Guatemala City we saw not one, not two, but three Chuck-E-Cheese restaurants. They were all engaged in the ongoing battle of brightest neon lights with their fierce competitors: Taco Bell, Pollo Campero (KFC of Guatemala), McD's, BK, and all your other favorite places to eat.
We took a chatty shuttle from the airport to Antigua, a historic gem of a town about 40 minutes away. Antigua serves an interesting purpose in the Guatemalan tourist scene, because it is the central hub of non-spanish speaking tourists. There is an intensely high concentration of bilingual Guatemaltecans who are willing to pack you in a 15 passenger van with 20 other unsuspecting victims and cart you off to anywhere in the country, be it 15 minutes or 15 hours away. This fact made Antigua a pretty good springboard for us though, because we could leverage the availability of transportation to get to see as much of the country as possible in the limited time we had.
Tourist Antigua itself is an adorable little cobblestoned, colonial town, that's built in a traditional grid, with houses that all have internal courtyards and high walls facing the streets. Given the reputation that Guatemala has for crime, Antigua stays very safe, and we felt no concern walking the streets at nearly any hour. It is an extremely touristy area (language schools are huge) so we made sure to dine on the variety of ethnic food that isn't normally available here in CR. In two days I think we had Greek, Indian, and a 12 oz bowl of molten garlic cheese that somehow made a viable excuse for dinner.
After bouncing around in Antigua for a while, we decided it was time for adventure #1: Volcán Pacaya. This is one of 3 active volcanoes around Antigua and true to form for every country outside of the US, for a fee, the Guatemalan parks service will let you hike, virtually unchaperoned, right up to the flowing lava. Unfortunately for us, it was a day without much flow, so instead of roasting our marshmallows over a river of molten rock, we had to settle for a gas vent that was so hot that the rocks around it were glowing red hot and Leslie's marshmallow was immediately incinerated.
From there we headed up to Lake Atitlan to spend an evening in this little laketown, which served mostly as a staging point for the next day's adventure. We did take the opportunity to eat at a vegetarian mediterranian eatery that was used to inaugurate the culinary adventure we're going to be starting this week (more on that to come).
Lastly, we spent a day prowling around in the largest market in Guatemala. This market is held in a large but culturally bustling town called Chichicastenango and stretches for as far as the eye can see, and then a little bit more. We romped around for a day, tasting everything edible that was being sold and looking at all of the amazing colors and skill that go in to the Mayan fabric work. The most notable thing we saw while we were there though, which was simultaneously super sad and super adorable, was the five year old kid that was walking around in the front of the church spit-shining shoes.
All in all, the whirlwind trip was amazing and we would have loved to have more time. We highly recommend Guatemala for any adventurous spirits out there.Hugs,
TeamWander
PS. A side note about the vegetarian adventure. Starting this week, Leslie and I are going to be doing our best to eat as vegan/vegetarian as possible for three weeks. We know it won't always be possible, but we won't ever find ourselves in another place where produce is so fresh and so cheap, so we wanted to give it a shot while we could. We're going to do our best to post photos of all the cooking adventures as well as a few good recipes, so stay tuned. To whet your appetite, here's the cornucopia that came out of the trip to the veggie market today.
