Lots of Traveling and Colonial Capitals

Instead of taking the easy way out and paying $20+ for a tourist shuttle from our jungle hostel to the next destination in Antigua, I decided to stick with Mira and Milly the Czech guy and his German girlfriend and opt for cheaper public transportation. We had to be up at 4:45 to catch our first connection back to the regional hub (only a few hours after we had gotten back from the party the night before). The first leg of the ride was crowded and rainy - our bags which were strapped to the roof of the van got soaked. When we were dropped off in Coban, we hurried into the closest comedor to get some breakfast. After coffee and a tiny portion of eggs and beans with corn tortillas, we made our way to a bus station to catch a ride to Guatemala City.

Within twenty minutes, our bus had already broken down. We didn't really mind though - we had no problem going with the flow, and we weren't in any rush. Finally the five Guatemalans under the bus fixed the problem, and we were on our way again. I napped for a few hours and awoke to a completely different landscape. We had crossed to the other side of the mountains and entered the rain shadow. Only a few dozen kilometers from the dense jungles of Alto Verapaz, the southern state was almost desert-like in its dryness. Our bus thumped along through the shrub land scenery to the beat of Mexican love ballads. It seemed like a movie - too perfect and too tacky to really be happening.

Eventually we made it to Guatemala city. No one on the bus seemed to know where we had to go to find a connecting bus to Antigua - everyone we asked gave us different advice, and both the Lonely Planet and my Rough Guide had conflicting information. My map made it seem like the two stations were within walking distance of one another, but the LP made it look like it would be a $10 cab ride - big difference. Finally, a Guatemalan guy asked us if we were going to Antigua and said we could just follow him - it was walkable he said. When we got off the bus, a bunch of taxi drivers surrounded us and told us that all the bus stations had been rearranged and the new one for Antigua was a short cab ride away, but definitely not walkable. The three of us and the Guatemalan guy squeezed into a cab with all of our bags, a guitar, and Mira and Milly's two surfboards. We had a great time joking with the cab driver about surfing through the streets of Guatemala City - each of us took a blind spot and helped the driver navigate.

We made it to the bus station just in time to catch our connection. --- First a note about Central American buses. Remember the big yellow school buses you used to ride as a kid? When their North American life is over they are shipped down to Central America to be used as public buses. The drivers paint them psychedelic colors and post tributes to Jesus and patron saints on every free inch of wall and dashboard space. They are very trippy, and very fun. --- Off we headed for Antigua, rolling and sliding across our seats as the manic driver raced around switchbacks, tires squealing at every turn of the wheel.

As we rolled into town, I started to get flashbacks of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Antigua is the old Spanish colonial capital - a beautiful collection of stuccoed homes, businesses, and churches laid out in a grid surrounding a central plaza in the shadow of an enormous, active volcano. It was destroyed during an earthquake in the 70s, but has been revitalized by becoming a UNESCO world heritage site. We checked into a cheap hostel after our 10 hours of travel and met up with the British kids. We got some dinner at a restored colonial courtyard restaurant and enjoyed some of the best Guatemalan food we had tasted up to that point. The next morning, I wandered around the city by myself and soaked up the rich and relaxed energy of the cobblestone streets, brightly painted stucco, and lively Mayan market at the edge of town.


After I had seen all I could, I hopped in a shuttle to Panajachel, a small backpackery town on the northern shore of Lake Atitlan. Completely unexpectedly, the shuttle stopped at another hostel and picked up the British kids. Some Israeli girls hopped in the van too, and decided I might as well try out my Hebrew since it had been a while since the last time I had used it. I asked one of the girls where in Israel she was from and what they were doing in Guatemala. They were doing the typical post-army trip to Latin America. She asked me if I was Israeli, and I said I was from New York. She then switched into English - "Really? Me too! I'm from Long Island!" Go figure...

We bounced through the mountains until we rounded a turn and came to a spectacular view of the huge lake below us with the silhouettes of four giant volcanoes on the far shore. We leisurely strolled through the streets of the laid back village and boarded tiny motorized wooden fishing boats to get to San Pedro on the other shore of the lake. I sat in the back with a local Mayan family, and I helped the old woman in front of me hold up a tarp against the leaky window to keep from getting soaked every time we hit a wave. The two women sitting next to me were dressed completely in traditional Mayan style - embroidered cotton skirts, lace shawls, and elaborately braided hair. They were all speaking their local Mayan dialect, and I was fascinated listening to the ancient sounding glottal and fricative noises that I have never heard in any other language. One of them turned and startled me with perfect Spanish, asking me where I was from, where I was going, why I was there, how I liked Guatemala, why would I ever want to leave, and when I was coming back. She showed such passion for her country, even though her people had suffered from decades of discriminatory policies and conditions of near-slavery at the hand of Ladino governments. They taught me a few phrases in Mayan, and then we docked and parted ways.

When we arrived in San Pedro, the Brits ran into some of their Irish friends, and we sat down for drinks on lakeside dock with a fantastic panoramic view of the mountain scenery. An old Mayan woman stopped by to sell us a few loaves of freshly baked banana bread and cinnamon roals, which we devoured instantly. After checking into our hostels, we met at an Israeli style lounge down a long sandy path through the village. We sat on pillows on the floor and had some tasty Middle Eastern food and beer while the Shantim around us chatted in Hebrew and smoked the local herb. Exhausted from a long day, I went back to my hostel and crashed early. What a relaxing and peaceful place to spend a few days for Christmas!