I made a quick decision last week to come to Guatemala! My brother Eoin is taking a break from his long bicycle trip down through Central America and I found a cheap ticket ($240 roundtrip!) to Guatemala City for the last part of May into the second week of June. The flight was easy and pretty sparse so I got a row to myself on the second leg of the trip. I arrived late at night in the capital and was delighted to see Eoin and his couchsurfing host at the airport to pick me up. Man, Eoin looked pretty scrawny. He´s been on the road for about a month cycling most days. I think he eats beans most of the time. Eoin, eat some cake!
Over the past few days we´ve taken a bus or minibus (the worst!) nearly every day. Overland travel is pretty rough at times and my tummy has been threatening diahrea (can´t spell that one.) It does have its advantages too; for one thing, it´s pretty cool to see rural parts of the country that we´d never get to see otherwise.
One of the highlights was our trip to Semuc Champey, a series of turquoise limestone pools in the middle of a jungly forest. It wasn´t so much how beautiful the pools were that really got me, as much as it just felt great to take a dip after a bus trip followed by a baking hot 3rd world back-of-a-pickup truck ride 30 or so minutes into the jungle. It was sweltering and my arms felt cooked up, so it was a wonderful feeling to get into those cold pools.
A major disappointment on several turns has been having to back track along our route. We are severely limited by how often and in which direction our transportation chooses to go. We had to back track from Antigua to Guatemala City (a 2 hour trip) and most annoyingly, had to back track from Semuc Champey to Coban in order to get up to Flores (where we are now), the closest town to Tikal. That was maybe the worst day so far – nine hours in a damn minibus! The sweaty, tired feeling was a bit overwhelming at times. We´re about to depart for Tikal; I´ll write more soon!