Traveling
with Sam
has always been a good experience.
So when he suggested to go to Guatamala in October 2000, I immediately booked
a flight. He went a week earlier and was there to
pick me up from the airport in Guatemala City. The rainy season just ended
when the plane landed and even though a hint of rain would be in the air for
the coming weeks it would be warm and dry during my stay.
The small city of Antigua is the
place to be in Guatemala. It is situated
next to a vulcano, about an hour drive from the airport, on a bit
higher altitude, so it is not too hot.
many bars. Many young people come to Antigua
to study Spanish and the city is totally geared towards this.
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Sam on Lake Atitlan
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Being
surrounded by three immense vulcanos, Lake
Atitlan is of hallucinating beauty.
On the waterfront between these vulcanos are a few small Maya villages
that attracted quite a hippie gathering in the 70's.
Most of hippies are long gone or must have overdosed. Still there are a few lost
souls left, who are not enterily happy with the new wave of
tourists, mostly young happy and inquisitive people
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with a solid
education and a bright professional future. Or in their eyes typical materialist
consumers representing the big bad world they left behind decades
ago. And it is not going to improve. Mass tourism to this
area of the world is just around the corner.
This is just exciting news to Frank, a young kid, living in San Pedro,
who makes his money 'guiding' new arrivals to one of the few hotels
in town. He is already practising his English on every occasion,
even though plenty of foreigners speak at least rudimentory Spanish.
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Frank
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rum&cokes till closing time. A Honduras native,
she speaks English so well, you get to think she has lived in the US for
many years. And amazingly she could write us a letter in Dutch after only a few
hours study. If you ever need a Spanish language teacher in Antigua,
she must be the best.
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One
afternoon when we were sitting outside one of the local establishments, we
heard loud weeping coming from a group of Mayan women next door. When
we
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walked out to look what had happened, we noticed that almost everybody
in the streets was walking with tears in their eyes. People had turned
on their radios loud to the local news station. We wondered what it all meant,
maybe a military coup or another earthquake in this political and physical
instable country? It turned out that one of the local buses, carrying
mostly Pedranos, had had a frontal collision with another, leaving 25 dead
and dozens wounded. Guatemala's roads are difficult to navigate as they are
mostly two lane roads through mountains, and the local busdrivers make
a habit of overtaking on blind corners, putting their lives in the hand of God,
so arriving safely is mostly a miracle. What happened was not an accident,
but an inevitable reoccurence until somebody stops the
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A burned Pepsi truck, with bottles strewn across the road.
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madness. This is not
going to happen soon, as even the day after this accident, the
drivers were pushing eachother of the road on the usual blind corners.
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Continental has flights from New York to Guatemala city for about $650 return,
although I was able to reduce that to about $500 using priceline.com.
A cab from the airport to Antigua is about 100 to 200 quetzal ($13-$26).
We stayed in Antiqua in hotel Los Nazarenos, which offers a basic double room
with a good hot shower for 100 quetzal ($13) a night. Call owner Roberto
on +502 832 4918 to schedule a pickup from the airport. Room, board (3 meals a day)
and four hours of private Spanish lessons a day will set you back about $50 a week,
making Guatemala one of the cheapest places in the world to study Spanish
and to have a great vacation.
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