Guatemala trip, part 1!

Hello again! I’m finally back from my trip! Just to remind you, we here in Costa Rica got all of Semana Santa (that is, Holy Week) off of classes since they close the public universities anyway. Ashley Lyons (one of the girls with whom I traveled to Nicaragua) and I bought tickets months ago to head up to Guatemala for the week and experience the world famous Holy Week celebrations in the city of Antigua. We had a fantastic time, and this trip will be every bit as memorable as the Nicaragua one was. I’ll try to be a bit quicker to get all the details about the whole trip than I was with Nicaragua, but once again there is just too much to tell! We’ll give it a shot though, right? So…

Saturday, April 4
Like our last trip, we elected to travel by bus. Flying would have been twice as expensive, and this way we would have the opportunity to spend some evenings in other cities on our way there and back. As such, we had another extremely early bus to catch in San José, so Ashley stayed over at our house in the guest room the night before. Not a whole lot happened this first day – it was mostly time spent on the bus (and much of that sleeping, due to our early rise). The first leg of our trip took us north to Managua, so we had done this part before. On the bus ride up we watched no less than four movies, and all of them pretty stupid.
When we actually arrived in Managua we struck by the incredible heat. For unknown reasons, the bus drivers for the company we take up there, TicaBus, keep the air in the vehicle somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so after getting off the bus extreme heat seems even hotter yet. We arrived in Managua in the early evening, so we wandered around a nearby mall a bit before finally going around 9:00 or so to a nearby restaurant we had found on our previous trip, in which there was live music almost every weekend, and this Saturday was not an exception. And so, for a few hours we enjoyed some very fun Nicaraguan folk music, some with fairly obvious political overtones. The only thing I didn’t really like about the place was that the entire establishment was a bit pricy, and after filling up with people it became fairly obvious to us that we were spending the night with Nicaragua’s upper crust. I don’t have a problem with people with money in general, but here I sort of got a negative feeling of being somewhere I wasn’t part of the club. Hard to explain. Anyway, the music was great and gave us an excuse to stay out until midnight or so before another super early bus the next day.

Sunday, April 5
Another relatively uneventful day, but I suppose travel days are just like that. Having stayed out the night before we slept quite a bit again on the bus, waking up now and then for border crossings, movies (a much better selection this day – and I’d like to note here that watching Speed while on a bus is an interesting experience), and the occasional initiative to do homework. Though we did not stop anywhere except at borders, I suppose I can say now that I’ve at least been through the country of Honduras. It looked pretty enough from the highway view we enjoyed, and I’d certainly like to come back some day to spend some more time exploring it.
Our second and final country we crossed into for the day was El Salvador. Reading about the country in Ashley’s Lonely Planet book was a bit frightening, to be honest (I’ll spare you the details), but we certainly had a fine time there (even though it was only two days en route to Guatemala/Costa Rica). Our hotel was fairly nice, if a little far off from the bus stop. Our first night here there was only one person on staff, an extremely helpful and kind young lady who recommended us some things to do for our evening. We ended up simply going to a nearby mall, which actually turned out to be a very cool place. Though filled with shops one can find in many U.S. shopping centers, the place had a very unique feel to it and even though I’m not one for malls I was impressed and content to spend my evening wandering about it. At the end of the evening, we went to the mall’s movie theater to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great for two reasons: one, it was in Spanish (dubbed, not subtitled, as are all movies down here that small children might go see), and I would say I comfortably understood 95% of the dialogue, which made me feel pretty good about myself; two, it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. The movie selection was my suggestion, and though I think Ashley may have been a bit skeptical at first, she loved it to. When it was over, we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep before yet another early morning.

Monday, April 6
The day before, the taxi driver who brought us from the bus station to our hotel offered to pick us up in the morning, and we accepted. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up, and we had to call another one. Luckily we arrived at the TicaBus station on time and had a comfortable and brief bus ride to the Guatemalan border and on to Guatemala City. Once in the city we opted to take a taxi instead of finding buses to Antigua, sharing the ride with a woman from Portland (with whom Ashley talked the whole ride, as she too is from Oregon) and a young French guy.
One of the only regrets I have about this trip is that we didn’t get a very complete picture of Guatemala. Holy Week in Antigua is ridiculously packed, and as such we had to make reservations at our hostel months before. Not having any specific itinerary in mind at the time, we booked for the whole week which would limit our travel opportunities a bit. Due to its fame and popularity as a tourist destination, Antigua really is a world apart from its country – the streets are perfectly clean, the shops and food is (relatively) expensive, and poverty is hardly visible. That comment in itself is not a complaint, but just a recognition that the Guatemala we experienced was a bit separate from the “real” Guatemala (I imagine it’s similar when one visits Cancun).
That having been said, Antigua was amazing. The hostel where we stayed was fantastic – I don’t think I’ve ever been welcomed so warmly or treated by such friendly hostel staff. The hostel, named simply Hostel 5, is run by a family who speaks near-perfect English (but respected our desires to practice our Spanish with them). Small but comfortable rooms, private bathrooms, and free breakfasts all contributed to a weeklong stay that left us very much satisfied with our near-random booking from months before.
Since we arrived in Antigua relatively early in the day, we didn’t waste any time in getting out and exploring. It didn’t take us long to find a ton of markets and street shops filled with things we resolved to hold off on buying until the end of the week (when we would have a slightly clearer idea about what our options were – and how much money we would have left!). One of the first people we met in Antigua was an outgoing guy near the central park who was offering free tourist info and a variety of bus options for day trips outside Antigua. Knowing we wanted to venture to Atitlán Lake sometime in the week, we eventually came back to him and bought some tickets for the following day.
In one of the shops we dropped into we ended up meeting another friendly guy with whom we ended up having a long conversation. Rodrigo is a native Guatemalan whose first language is K’iche, one of the more common native dialects in a country filled with indigenous peoples (and pride). Rodrigo had actually just gotten back to Guatemala after having spent ten years or so in the United States, illegally. His stories about his border crossings, encounters with la migra (immigration police) – both U.S. and Mexican – and his life in the states were fascinating. One always hears such stories from the media, but it’s nothing like hearing about such experiences first-hand – I’ll take Rodrigo’s version of an illegal’s life in the States over Lou Dobbs any day! Interestingly, Rodrigo was never caught or sent back to Guatemala; rather, he decided to return to Guatemala simply because he missed his family and – get this – he preferred taking his chances, economically speaking, in Guatemala rather than the U.S. because of the current crisis. Crazy.
After our fill of shopping and exploring, we headed back to the hostel for a bit to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner and possibly evening entertainment. One of our greatest resources for the week turned out to be a widely distributed magazine that is circulated throughout Antigua giving a ton of information about nearly all the restaurants, shops, events, ceremonies, and entertainment options for the week. As such, we were able to find some great live music almost every evening we were there, and our first night was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, we ran into the first procession we would see. One of the main characteristics of an Antiguan Holy Week is the elaborate processions that go through the street for almost all of Lent, but particularly for this week. They typically consist of banners marking the particular church or religious group presenting the procession, a swarm of people in full costume (mostly Biblical garb of some sort), and enormous platforms/parade floats which are carried on the shoulders of the people in the processional. I’ll get into more detail when describing processions later in the week.
We had dinner at a little place a few blocks away from Antigua’s Central Park, where the food was great, but the evening was a bit awkward as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant other than wait staff and musicians. Nevertheless, the live music went forward as planned and we enjoyed a series of musicians playing guitar, flute, drums and singing. The guy on flute, while not extraordinarily musically gifted, was particularly entertaining simply because I’ve never seen anyone get so physically into their own music (eccentric and unpredictable convulsions – yes, that’s the word – characterized every one of his songs). At the end of the evening, all of the musicians got together for a few great joint numbers. Afterwards we went straight back to the hostel to sleep up before our early bus to Atitlán.

Tuesday, April 7
The shuttle for which we had purchased tickets the previous day picked us up at 8:00 am for a two to three hour drive to Lago de Atitlán. This lake, another popular tourist destination, is fairly well known, and for good reason – it is absolutely beautiful. It’s an enormous lake, with an ample amount of villages all the way around it. Some of the towns are sizeable and touristy, others are strictly indigenous communities in which Spanish is hardly spoken (if it all). The lake is also characterized by three impressive volcanoes which surround it, adding to the beauty and intensity of the landscape. Interestingly, Ashley and I had just read a short story in our Latin American literature class by Miguel Angel Asturias describing a mythical collide of indigenous peoples, Spanish conquistadors, and personified forces of nature that explained the formation of one of the volcanoes which, as legend has it, covers a hoard of priceless treasures the natives hid from the European invaders. This certainly added to my fascination with the lake.
It is truly lamentable that we only had one day (6 hours, actually) to spend here. The lake deserves so much more time than that, and I believe one could easily spend at least a week exploring both the communities and the landscape there. When we got off the shuttle, we ran into a ton of street vendors selling the same beautiful art, crafts, and clothing we had seen in Antigua. Again, we would have loved to have spent more time here, and as such we didn’t really know where to go. In the interest of saving both time and money, we finally elected to take a private boat/taxi to San Marcos, a small community apart from the larger and touristier towns of the lake. From the dock at San Marcos we made our way to a nearby swimming area a mix of Europeans and local kids were enjoying the crystal clear waters and cliffs of various heights to jump off of. The water, while of course nothing like the North Woods lakes I’ve swam in, were a bit chilly. Nevertheless, we had a great (albeit short) time enjoying the water, clear skies, and beautiful landscape surrounding us.
Shortly thereafter we just managed to catch a boat back to the town where we needed to hop on our shuttle again, and having an hour or so of time left when we arrived we did a bit of shopping. Much to my delight, bartering is a much more common practice in Guatemala than both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and I was happy to help Ashley now and then, as she was a bit too, um, shall we say polite? to contest the prices that the vendors try to extort out of their white customers.
Finally hopped back on the shuttle and rode back to Antigua. That evening we went to a comfortable café with good food and, once again, live music. It was a very strange act – musically it consisted of basically one guy who sang and played guitar, but for some reason he was joined by a clown who made balloon animals, flowers, and other such things while the first guy sang and played. Very strange. Anyway, after the music was over the guitarist sat down for a drink and a meal at the table next to ours, and after his friend the clown left he started to talk with us. He was a really nice guy (and a pretty good musician, too!), and invited us to join him for a few hours at a café he usually went to after performing. We accepted, and headed across town to Café No Sé, a cozy little place with low-key live music of its own and a dark relaxed ambiance that reminded me of an English pub for some reason. After a few hours of music and conversation with our new friend (and some more locals we met there), we headed back to the hostel, exhausted by a long day.

Ok, I’ll take a break for now but hopefully get another post up soon. I’m trying to keep these things at around 2,500 words maximum, otherwise a single post just gets way too long. There’s lots more to be told, so check back soon for stories from the next few days. I also should have pictures up within the week. Until then, take care!!