Vagabond and Beyond: Crazy Beautiful - Bienvenido a Guatemala

First impressions of Guatemala would be crazy but beautiful. We are nearly four weeks into living among the beautiful volcanic landscapes of Guatemala and Mexico is now unfortunately a memory, but fortunately for us, a happy one. The Guatemalan part of our trip started off with a relatively hassle free border crossing. Note to hopeful travellers to Guatemala, as long as you overlook the dangerous driving and road conditions and stay the hell out of Guatemala City you’ll have a great time exploring this place. We found our feet in Xela for a few days before moving on to San Pedro La Laguna, our home for a month while we enjoy the views of the surrounding volcanoes and Lake Atitlan. There we will take Spanish lessons for 4 hours a day and on the weekends hike the nearby volcanoes, kayak the lake and meet locals and fellow travellers. The long lasting impression that we will reminisce most about is the unbelievably friendly people that we have met in this beautiful country.

It’s been a while since I have posted a blog so I will split this one into two as too much to mention in one post. Picking up from where we left off after Day of The Dead, we got up early the day of our border crossing into Guatemala; it was a short night’s sleep due to the early hour of our departure and the party that took place on the hostel terrace the night before for Day of the Dead that kept us up longer than we planned. After circling San Cristobal for an hour picking up people, it was an easy two hour drive to the border town of Ciudad Cuauhtemoc on the Mexican side. After some confusion with the immigration officer thinking Sarah was German we were back on the bus and on our way to be dropped off at the Guatemalan border town of La Mesilla. From what we hear it’s down to luck when it comes to being charged a fee or not being charged a fee to enter Guatemala, technically there is no fee but some corrupt official might not like the look of a person and slap on a random fee to enter the country. Luckily we must have appeared somewhat presentable that day as we were through immigration with not so much as one question, only a friendly “Bienvenido a Guatemala”. We switched buses here and the change in landscape between the two countries was immediate. Before the border it was unimpressive plains and now once in Guatemala the boring plains were replaced by far more scenic steep mountainous jungle roads. A few weeks earlier the English couple we had met along our trip had their bus to Guatemala cancelled twice due to bad weather and road conditions. Seeing the roads in dry weather it’s clear to see how any attempted pass would have failed in rainy season. Many parts of the roads were still partially collapsed, full of landslide rubble or flooded. The only positive that could be taken from travelling these “roads” was the beautiful dramatic scenery. After another bus change and a couple of very close calls (near head on collisions!) we arrived in Xela (Quetzaltenango).

Xela is a high altitude (therefore cold at night) town that is placed within the valley of a few volcanoes which makes it a nice place to start off visually, the town itself is nothing too impressive. A lot more towns in Mexico gave better first impressions than Xela. It didn’t help that we had no quetzals (Guatemalan currency) and we needed to pay for food, hostel etc. but we were warned not to use any of the ATM’s in the main square (Parque Central) as they are nearly always subject to electronic fraud. Couldn’t find any other places to get out money and as it was now dark, so we took the chance and embraced the fraud culture of Parque Central. (3 weeks on I’m glad to say that it looks like our gamble paid off as no strange withdrawals from my account, yet!). Next day we took a self-guided walking tour around Xela, plenty of cool markets around but no main attractions to speak of. From what we hear there is a lot more to Xela so a longer stay is probably needed to really appreciate the place. In the Minerva market Sarah bought a skirt for about 20 cent and I got a top for about 40 cent, a good days shopping by any standards. There was some planning needed for our trip to San Pedro as there was presidential elections the day of our planned departure so the infamous chicken buses had to be given a miss on what could be a turbulent day.

Next day we met our English friends who had been in San Pedro for about 3 weeks and were visiting Xela for the weekend. Turns out their journey from San Pedro to Xela was not a good one as there shuttle hit a curb and the bus flipped on to one side while skidding along a mountainous road with sheer drops. Luckily everyone on the bus only suffered some cuts and bruises and everyone got out fine but they understandably looked shaken by the experience. Went to police station with them to file a report as they broke their camera in the crash, a sceptical police officer finally did up the report after finally being convinced of the photos that they took of the crash.

Our final day in Xela and also the day of the presidential elections started off badly when we saw our transportation yoke (would barely classify it as a car), it was not the shuttle we expected but a “car” with the drivers family already in it. It turned out it was only our transport for half the way and a quick switch to the shuttle we got to experience the nightmare that is the roads to Lake Atitlan. They just seem to get worse the more you travel here, took an hour to do what could be done in less than 10 minutes on a normal road! No problems though and we were delighted with the views that we saw as this would be our home for the next month. Thankfully the elections went off without any problems. Both sides were accused of buying votes and in the end they chose to elect an ex general (nicknamed general de la muerte (general of death) ) who from what I can gather committed terrible crimes during the civil war here in which 200,000 were killed. As head of military intelligence he was accused of genocide and torture and apparently there is photo of him during the war standing beside 4 dead indigenous people who were tortured and this guy is the new El Presidente! He has even denied any genocide took place in Guatemala while United Nations confirmed that there was a genocide campaign against the Mayan people by the military. As my Spanish teacher said in our first class, the people have very short memories here. How bad was his opponent that they chose to elect this nut-job!! People want an end to serious crime here so who better to elect than an ex general who obviously is a ruthless leader. Thankfully in San Pedro, the politics and crime of a lot of Guatemala is left at the door as you enter a world of welcoming people and beautiful landscapes.