How Guatemala Became Part of the Journey
I spent about a month in Guatemala in 1995, although when I first left home I certainly did not have any idea that this trip through Central America was going to turn into four months of traveling. I had already spent about a week in Belize, and somewhere along the way I met twin sisters Jane and Lisa. They were headed back to Jane’s home in Guatemala City and invited me to come stay for the week, an offer I could not refuse. We decided to stop at Tikal first.
All images added to this page should be full-size and clickable, just like the newer Julie page. For now I kept the original girl-on-bus image as the hero and left photo spaces where the rest of the Guatemala photographs can be woven in later.
Tikal and Into Guatemala City
Tikal was my introduction to Guatemala, and what an introduction it was. The ancient Maya ruins rising out of the jungle were unlike anything I had ever seen. This was still at a time when travel was very different from today. There were no smartphones, no Google Maps, and certainly no ability to instantly look up every place before arriving. You learned about places from guidebooks and, more importantly, from other travelers you met along the way.
After Tikal, instead of taking what I remember as a pretty rough 12-hour bus ride to Guatemala City, I flew down and met back up with Jane and Lisa. The flight avoided that long bus ride, although even then I remember thinking that maybe next time I should give the bus a try, just for the experience.
Jane worked for the United Nations and was leaving to take a new post in New York City. She and Lisa put together a big going-away party for about 70 UN officials and other people from all over the world. Here I was, basically a wandering backpacker who had just come out of Belize and Tikal, suddenly at this big UN party dancing and hanging out with all kinds of interesting people. That was one of the things I always loved about traveling the way I did. A few days earlier I had no idea where I would be, and suddenly I was at a party with people from all over the world.
When Jane and Lisa left, their chauffeur dropped me off in Antigua.
Antigua and Learning Spanish
Antigua was a great old city, and it became one of the most important parts of my Central America trip. I knew that if I was going to continue traveling south, I really needed to learn more Spanish, and Antigua was one of the best places in the region for total-immersion Spanish schools.
I enrolled in a school and lived with a local Guatemalan family. Every morning I spent four hours one-on-one with my own Spanish tutor. Four hours of sitting across from one person speaking Spanish is pretty intense, especially when you are trying to learn quickly, but it was exactly what I needed. We spoke only Spanish, and the family I lived with only knew a couple of words of English. At noon every day I would walk home to my “family” and eat lunch, which was the biggest meal of the day.
After lunch, two tutors from the school would lead an excursion somewhere. One Monday we went to San Antonio Aguas Calientes, about fifteen minutes away. The local craft there was weaving, and we saw absolutely no other nonnatives. Other days we went to museums or outlying villages. It was not simply learning Spanish from a textbook. We were using it every day with real people.
I also loved getting up early, often around sunrise, going down near the town square or bus station, and getting on one of the local chicken buses heading out into the countryside. Sometimes I really did not have much of a destination in mind. I would ride out to a village simply to see the countryside and practice my Spanish with local people. Those chicken buses were part of the education.
Climbing Volcán Pacaya
Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, some of them very active, and naturally I wanted to climb one. The famous Volcán Pacaya erupts fairly regularly, but is often quiet enough for the long hike up to the crater. At the time, guards had to be hired as escorts because banditos regularly robbed people who attempted the climb alone.
After a long, rocky hour-and-a-half bus ride to the center of a tiny village, the hike began. Everyone carried a flashlight because we planned to be up on the rim for sunset. The climb took about two hours, and the final push up the steep cinder cone was arduous. With every step forward, it felt like you slid two steps backward. The wind howled constantly, ash got in your eyes and inside every piece of clothing, and later you found it in places unmentionable.
Our group of about fifteen climbers stretched out for several hundred meters, and the stragglers had to keep up or risk meeting up with the banditos. The summit rim was absolutely wild, like a lunar landscape. The views in every direction were incredible. Some of us hiked down into the crater while others simply tried to stay low to escape the wind. The ground was very warm and gave welcome relief from the cold wind.
Just after sunset, we buried ourselves up to our necks in the buoyant cinder-like sand, and the ground was so warm it felt like a sauna. Then fog suddenly moved in and completely enveloped the group. We had to leave quickly and stay close together. We descended rapidly in standing or sitting glissades, and the 45-minute climb up became a five-minute joyride down. We regrouped at the bottom of the cone, but still had a long dark hike back to the bus. We were sore and exhausted, the ride back to Antigua was cold and bumpy, and most of us dozed off.
Our small group represented nine different countries, and many friends were made. Less than two weeks later, as I rode along the Pacific Coast toward Monterrico, I watched Pacaya in the middle of a full eruption. The scene was magnificent, but also a bit of a wake-up call.
Lake Atitlán and Panajachel
No one visits Antigua Guatemala without the obligatory visit to Panajachel. Back then it was populated with old hippies from the 1960s, and it sometimes felt like there were more foreigners than locals. But the location was magnificent, on the shore of Lago Atitlán, a deep and stunningly beautiful volcanic caldera surrounded by mountains and volcanoes.
I spent the day on a boat cruising the lake and stopped for a couple of hours at Santiago Atitlán at the far end of the lake. A religious holiday and parade were being observed, and again I was the only nonnative for a few hours. That was the Guatemala I wanted to experience. I was not traveling to stay at resorts. I wanted to be in towns and villages, riding local buses, eating with families, and watching ordinary life happen around me.
Chichicastenango
The next day was spent at the market at Chichicastenango, or “Chichi” as everyone seemed to call it. Everyone goes to the Sunday market in Chichi. Local people from many miles around packed up the goods they had made all week and brought them to market. The streets were filled with textiles, food, crafts, smoke, colors, and people.
Bartering was expected, and on the ride home everyone compared the day’s “booty.” By this point my Spanish was improving enough that I could actually talk with people. I certainly was not fluent, but I was no longer completely helpless either. Every day of traveling became another Spanish lesson.
Ten Minutes to Pack, Then Monterrico
My favorite spot in Guatemala was the wild black-sand beach on the Pacific Coast. I had gone to Panajachel and Chichi for the weekend with my school group, and we got back to Antigua around supper time. The professors were preparing to drive the van to the coast to pick up four Kiwi students and asked if I wanted to go along for the ride.
A new week of school was supposed to begin the next morning, but I really wanted to see the “west coast.” I had already spent a couple of weeks on the “east coast” in Belize, where the water was calm and blue. I told the professors that if I went along for the ride, I would probably want to stay for a few days. They said, “Sure, no problem, grab your stuff!” I had about ten minutes to run home, pack everything, and say goodbye to my Guatemalan “family.” Then I was off to the beach to practice my new language skills.
Monterrico was awesome. The four Kiwis were waiting at the boat dock, and I said goodbye to everyone and jumped on the boat. The 15-minute ride through the mangroves ended at the barrier island. Getting off the boat, I walked down the only street in town, which was sand, toward the beach. A beautiful sunset was in progress. I took several pictures as I walked along the beach toward Hotel El Baúl Beach, a cozy ten-room hotel run by former Peace Corps volunteer Nancy Garver. Rooms near the water were five dollars a night for two beds, and a German guy I met walking along the beach and I decided to split a room.
I stayed there three nights and had an excellent time. I met many fun travelers, including Katrin and Beth, both of whom became friends.
Beth, Katrin, Ted, and the Birthday Party
Beth met a little girl of about ten years old who came to visit her every day. Three women, I think they were Aussies, also became friends with all of us. One of the three had a birthday, and we had a surprise party for her. At midnight we surprised her with wine, cake, and funny gifts. The night was fun, but the real surprise came the next morning.
We had planned to spend the morning in Biotopo Monterrico-Hawaii, a 20-kilometer nature preserve full of tropical wildlife. Leatherback and Ridley turtles laid their eggs on the beaches there. The boat ride, really a big dugout canoe, began before sunrise, and we were all a bit hungover and dragging. But some of us had arranged for the two women who ran the hotel’s outdoor beach café to prepare a big breakfast for everyone to celebrate the birthday. It was great, but there was one problem.
The little girl who had befriended Beth had a birthday too. Only Beth and the little girl knew this, and the child thought the party, breakfast, and piñata were for her. She was so happy until she realized it was not for her. After some quick whispering among ourselves, we let her whack open the piñata, cut the cake, and be part of the celebration. She was so happy.
Beth continued writing to her family for a while. The little girl came from a very poor family with about ten siblings. I first met Beth in the middle of the night. I was sleeping soundly, and Beth was in the next room yelling at Ted, “It’s gonna bite me, it’s poisonous, Ted, do something!” Ted was saying, “It’s dead, go to sleep.” The next morning I found out that a scorpion had fallen out of the thatched ceiling and into her bed. Yikes.
Ted was a great guy. I hung out and talked with him for quite a while. He was retired and lived, or really traveled, around Central America for most of his golden years. He had a great attitude, a mail address in Miami, and had to return every now and then to stay legal. I wrote to him a couple of times, and I think Beth stayed in touch with him too. Ted died the following year of a heart attack. I always smile when I think of Ted.
I met Katrin, who was Danish, on my last day on the coast. She was a really fun person whom I kept in touch with. Katrin, Beth, and I headed back to Antigua the next day. I had to get back to school, Beth was headed home, and Katrin was northbound.
A Month That Changed the Trip
Three days later, I headed to Costa Rica.
I had spent about a month in Guatemala, and by the time I left, the entire nature of my Central America trip had changed. I had lived with a Guatemalan family, spent hours every day learning Spanish one-on-one with a tutor, ridden chicken buses into villages just to talk with people, explored Tikal, climbed an active volcano, watched that same volcano erupt from the Pacific Coast, crossed Lake Atitlán, wandered through Chichicastenango’s market, and met travelers and local people from all over the world.
Jane and Lisa had helped lead me into Guatemala. A United Nations going-away party had somehow become part of my backpacking trip. My Spanish teachers opened up the countryside around Antigua. Katrin, Beth, Ted, and a little girl on the coast became part of the constantly changing collection of people who made the trip what it was.
And somewhere during all of this, the idea of taking a relatively short trip through Central America disappeared. I just kept going south.
Guatemala reinforced something I had already begun learning from my earlier travels: the best experiences often happened when I had enough time to change my plans. When somebody said, “Do you want to come along?” I usually said yes.
Sometimes I only had ten minutes to pack. And some of those ten-minute decisions became the stories I still remember more than thirty years later.
