Brenna Abroad

Our wonderful driver picked us up at the Guate City airport Sunday night to take us to Antigua. I was so happy to finally meet him, after sending 60 emails back and forth coming up to this trip- I could not have planned it all without his help and patience in answering all my questions.  If anyone decides to go to Guatemala, try and hire Alfredo Garcia for transportation.

We made it to our hotel, about a 10 minute walk from the city center, after 10:00 that night. The owner was there to greet us and show us up to our room which is absolutely beautiful.  We were especially excited to have hot water at any time of day (I know, we’re spoiled).

We went to bed and woke up early since this was our only full day in Antigua. When I walked outside the room, I got to really notice all we had missed out on in the dark the night before. Everywhere you looked, there were plants and flowers.

                             

We had a beautiful terrace with a hammock surrounded by greenery, looking down at the courtyard.

There were steps that went further up as well, leading to a rooftop terrace with great views of the volcanoes. While we were up looking around, one of the volcanoes started erupting, sending ash up into the sky.  This was our first time witnessing something like that.

Once we were done watching, we went on down to the courtyard to eat breakfast and do some blogging. The owner of the hotel came over to talk with us for awhile, her adorable Shih Tsu “Mimosa” coming to greet us as well.  The owner gave us a map of Antigua, pointing out some places she thought we should check out.  Realizing there was a lot to see that day, we went and grabbed our go bag and started walking to the central plaza.

The park was really enjoyable in itself.  We would sit on a bench and people watch for quite awhile. You do get a little bit used to saying “No gracias” non-stop with all the little kids wanting to shine shoes (we weren’t wearing shoes that were shine-able, though), the beautiful Mayan women coming around trying to sell their gorgeously made scarves and shawls, and different men wanting to sell musical instruments, necklaces, or cigarettes…but you can’t blame them for trying, and it was interesting seeing the different aspects of the culture.  I figure I will buy a scarf or two at some point before the trip is over.

We went walking around town, checking out the different cathedrals and ruins.  They were absolutely beautiful, each in their different way.

We also stopped at some markets, amazed by all the color everywhere.

We walked down different streets, and eventually came across the beautiful arch, which I had to get a picture of at every angle.

We stopped and drank some local coffee and some local beer and hung out for a bit, and then decided it was time to find a restaurant for lunch. We searched for awhile, but we found Cafe Sky on the outskirts of town which had a fantastic terrace with views of Antigua and the surrounding volcanoes.

We found another cathedral, ruin, and market all in the same area, so we walked around there for awhile before heading back to the park.

Giving our feet a rest, we sat there enjoying all the goings-on around us.  Dogs were happily running around, parents were setting their little children up on horses for pictures, a man was trying to teach a kid to juggle, and a teenage boy next to us- who had been anxiously waiting while holding flowers and an adorable love letter glued to some colorful paper- finally found his girl, making her blush and smile real big.

We got some more coffee and waited for a friend of Anthony’s from high school to come meet up with us for dinner. She is currently living in Guatemala City, teaching English to different age groups, so it was great hearing a little about her time here. She was also the one who had previously reassured me that we would be perfectly safe coming to Guatemala, so we appreciated that she had saved us from ditching our plans of coming here. So if you’re reading this, Kristen, thank you!

After dinner, we stopped by a store on our way back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the evening on our terrace, looking forward to our upcoming stay at the lake.

We did finally make it to Flores Friday night at 11:00 PM. Our hotel sent a taxi to pick us up, and we checked into our hotel and went up to our room. Apparently there was a club right next door, blasting reggaeton music. While this kept us up for a little while, we were so exhausted that we eventually crashed, waking up to the sound of wildlife outside and our alarm going off. We gathered our things and caught our shuttle to Tikal.

After a little over an hour, we arrived at Tikal Inn within Tikal National Park. We checked in and were shown to our pool-side bungalow. I was extremely impressed with the place. I knew beforehand that we would only have electricity (and hot water and wifi) a few hours a day, so I was expecting the most basic of accommodations, but the setting was beautiful, the bed comfortable, the pool extremely clean, and the wildlife surrounding it all was so unique. Not to mention, it was 75 degrees and humid, which is pretty much my ideal weather.  We dropped our stuff off and got some coffee at the restaurant.

Then we started our trek to see the ruins! Tikal is an ancient Mayan city that was found deep in the jungle of Guatemala back in the 1800s. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is an absolutely amazing place to see. The park is huge, so it takes a day or two to walk through and see all of the temples and pyramids and shrines, but we got a good head start on it before lunch Saturday, making it to see the Grand Plaza and Temple V, along with a few smaller ones along the way.

 This was my first experience with ancient ruins, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I loved every minute of it. It is crazy to think that a people who lived from 600 BC to 900 AD built these massive, amazing temples, the tallest of which stands 212 ft (64.6 meters) jetting out high above the trees.

After awhile, we were getting hungry, so we walked back to the hotel and ate lunch. We took a nap, got in the pool, and I took a cold shower. We also snapped some pictures of birds and took advantage of the short span of time with electricity and wifi to charge our gadgets and try to get in touch with the rest of civilization, and ate some dinner at the hotel. We tucked in nice and early, so that we would be rested for our tour that started at 4:00AM.

We woke up at 3:30AM, surprisingly rested and excited and grabbed our flashlights to meet up with the rest of the group.

We walked in silence through the jungle until we got to the Grand Plaza. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the temples in the plaza at this time to show how magical they looked with the only light being that from the stars above shining down on them.  Our guide showed us how the sound of his clapping bounced off the stairs of the temple, sounding like the call of a quetzal.

We continued on our way, stopping only to look at a trail of leafcutter ants (which, according to Wikipedia, “next to humans, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal societies on Earth) carrying their leaves to their nest.

When we arrived at the base of Temple IV, which is where we were to wait for the sunrise, it was still pitch black outside, so I had no idea how many stairs we were about to climb. I could only see a small stretch at a time with my flashlight through the fog. But apparently, it was a whole hell of a lot of stairs. I was panting about halfway up (and you’d think I’d be all in shape after that run through the Houston airport the other day, right?!). Finally we made it up, the first ones there. We climbed the temple steps to the highest part we could get to, and sat down. It was complete silence.

We saw above all of the trees and could hear it raining below us. We sat there for close to an hour, and the sun started rising about halfway through, though we couldn’t see it through all the mist. The sunrise isn’t what actually makes the sunrise tour so special though. The special part is hearing the jungle wake up. For quite awhile, I was afraid we weren’t going to hear it. Everything was silent. I started thinking maybe the animals didn’t know it was time to wake up with all the fog and rain below us. Then suddenly, we heard the call of a quetzal, as though it were telling the rest of the jungle “It’s time to get up!” After a while of that, some other birds started joining in. And a while after that, the howler monkeys started roaring. We all sat there listening for awhile, enjoying the peace of sitting above the trees with nothing but ancient ruins and the sound of wildlife and rain below us.

After we came back down, we started the actual guided tour. Our guide gave us a kind of behind-the-scenes look at the restoration process. Only a fraction of the structures in Tikal have been excavated so far, so it is an on-going process. The process itself is very slow and laborious. It was fascinating learning about it.

Shortly after that, we came across a complex of ruins with a shrine at the start. Our guide explained the different symbolism within the shrine as well as what the hieroglyphs meant.

We then ventured on to the “Lost World” portion of the park, a group of pyramids and temples set within the wilderness of the jungle. Our guide told us that at the time Tikal was built and inhabited, the jungle was not there.  Seeing the place, it was so hard to believe that instead of the lush rainforest there now, there were cornfields.

He then took us back to the grand plaza to explore for awhile before heading back. Anthony and I had already explored most of it Saturday, but this time, we climbed up to the residential complex that ancient Mayan royalty lived in. We walked into the “bedrooms” and took in the views.

At last, our tour was over, about 4.5 hours after it started, and we walked back to the hotel to eat our free breakfast. The rest of the day was spent wasting time until our shuttle came, and then wasting more time at the airport for our flight that was delayed only one hour this time, and then shuttling to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua, which I will discuss next time!

One thing you always have to keep in mind when traveling, particularly in developing countries, is that shit happens.

Our plans for our first day in Guatemala were to fly into Guatemala City and then fly to Flores, where we would walk the island, have dinner and drinks, and tuck in early for the night. So last night, I checked into my flights for the day to make sure we didn’t get bumped from any of them. I went to bed, seeing on my phone “MCI to IAH – On Schedule  IAH to GUA – On Schedule GUA to FRS – On Schedule” and felt at peace.

We woke up at 5am to finish getting everything together and head to the airport for our first flight. At 5:45am I looked at my phone and saw “GUA to FRS – Cancelled”. Shit.

We immediately sprung into action, calling the airline to see what was up. They confirmed it was cancelled for “internal reasons” and suggested we reschedule a new flight right away. They only have this flight twice a day, so we would have to wait until early the next morning which meant our hotel for the night was a waste of money and we’d have to find a different one last minute in Guatemala City. I contacted our driver in Guatemala, who is a life saver and is also the one who booked the flight, and he said he’d look into it. I cancelled our reservation for tonight, even though we were going to be charged for it anyway because it was within 24 hours.

We hopped on the first plane, and knowing that I couldn’t do anything about the issue for awhile, I tried to relax. I looked down at my boarding passes and noticed that the flight we were on would land at 10:43am…and boarding for the next one was at 10:50am…. Shit.

We talked to the flight attendant, and he looked concerned, but said “You should be able to make it, but I will tell everyone else to stay seated when we land so that you guys can run out first. And I would definitely run a little. If you don’t make it on time, I would file a complaint because they should not have allowed that connection.” So he was not terribly comforting, but very helpful.

Sure enough, when we landed, he announced “If everyone could stay seated, we have a couple passengers who have a very, very, very tight connection that need to get off of here first.” So we heard the bell ring, grabbed our bags, and made a run for it.

And ran. And ran. While carrying all of our luggage. We got to a part where we had to go up a floor. Anthony stopped, so I stopped, trying to catch my breath and swearing to myself I’d work out more. He took one look at the escalator that had a ton of people just chilling on it, then at the 5 gajillion stairs in front of him, and started running up the stairs. Shit.

I hitched up my bag and ran after him.  Finally, we arrived at the tram, making it on as the doors were closing. I stood panting while we zipped through the terminals. Then we stopped, and we were off running again.

We made it! I checked my email and see that our driver had gotten things sorted out for us- we were rescheduled for the flight in the morning, and the airline was going to take care of our dinner and hotel. Things were turning around for us!

So then we landed in Guatemala City, and things went smoothly. We get our card, our money, our bag, and go to the desk for the airline that would be taking care of our hotel and dinner. The first guy we talked to informed us that the flight isn’t cancelled after all, but is delayed until 10pm. The next people we talk to assure us that the flight is no longer cancelled or delayed. They gave us our boarding passes showing that we are to take off at 5:30pm. Because Guatemala. We then start calling the hotel again to try and re-confirm our reservation tonight without being charged twice. Success. Our luck had improved tremendously.

We were excited and relieved and went and got our free meal and then arrived at the terminal when boarding was to begin… except no one was there. A few people eventually trickled in but no employees. Finally, I turned my wifi on and saw that our flight was delayed until 10:00pm. SHIT.

So here we are. Sitting at the airport, drinking Gallo beer and laughing about the whole ordeal with the other people waiting on the plane. Hopefully, in a few hours we will be getting a taxi to our hotel in Flores, but who the hell knows.

Because Guatemala.  And shit happens.