After the easiest border crossing known to man, I got to Guatemala unscathed at the beginning of last week. The Mexican border control decided not to charge us the 306 pesos it supposedly costs to leave the country overland so I felt rich by the time we hit the Guatemalan side of the border. Shame it was in the wrong currency. Thankfully, that’s nothing dodgy money-exchangers can’t fix. So soon I was slightly less rich in the correct currency.

My first stop in Guate was Xela (which it’s not called in the guidebook but which everyone calls it. Except the lovely Danish people who lent me a hand at the ATM when I was trying to interpret the messages on the screen when my bank decided not to let me take money out. Thank you, Barclays, for costing me 30p in texting credit to verify the transaction. That could nearly have bought me a beer, you know). I didn’t stay too long, just 3 days / 4 nights, but what I mainly wanted to do there was climb a volcano. And so, with what turned out to be a lovely group of people who shared awesome travel tips and encouragement, I did. Stupidly early in the morning. Santa Maria isn’t active anymore but when we (finally) got to the top (3772 m.), after 3 1/2 hours, we got to see and hear Santiaguito erupt, just before the clouds started coming in at 9.30am. It was a pretty tough climb (for unfit people like me at least) but it was so worth the pain! It’s also pretty satisfying knowing that I don’t need to go on a stairmaster for the rest of my life because I’m pretty sure I’ve now done a lifetime’s worth of it. On the way down, though, trying really hard not to trip like I tend to do, I did something to my left knee and it hurt the rest of the way down. And it has been hurting every time I’ve had to walk down a street or hill since. So from now on, I can only walk uphill, not down. So I’m hoping it’s an even slope upwards from here to Brazil. That’s likely, right?

It was also while in Xela I had to stand in a bar next to the Fuentes Georginas and watch Guatemalans cheer as Holland took Mexico out of the world cup. It was a sad moment that even the hot springs were unable to make up for.

Distances in Guatemala are smaller than in Mexico and the bus system tends to fall into two very distinct types – shuttle service or chicken bus. Both leave during the day so it’s hard to gain the kind of time the Mexican night buses let you do. From the hostel I stayed at in Xela, there were quite a few people heading towards Lago Atitlan around the same time (there is definitely a backpacker route in these countries and right now I’m on it, whether I like it or not) so I ended up going on the chicken bus with someone I’d met on the shuttle from San Cristobal. We made it to the bus terminal way before the bus was due to leave so we had an hour and a half to get comfortable on board before it departed Xela at 2 o’clock. But the ride was awesome! For 30 QTZ, we got to San Pedro La Laguna in 3 hours, the last of which was down a rather steep slope – the kind where you remind yourself that the driver does this every day so he must know what he is doing and that you’ve never heard about chicken buses plunging into the lake.

San Pedro was great. It’s distinctly a backpacker hangout but as long as you accept that, it’s easy to enjoy it there. I ended up mainly hanging out with the people I met in San Cristobal and Xela but they are a fun crowd so I can’t complain. Ring of fire happened pretty often so my liver has had better times but this was the view of the lake at breakfast – that made it worth getting up in the morning:

I spent a day in San Marcos, visited Santiago another and discovered there is not a rower lost in me the day we went kayaking. It’s a small town so I only got lost once. I would consider that an undisputed victory if it wasn’t for the fact that I was on my own and it unfortunately was in the dark and I misunderstood the directions I was given and accidentally walked up a path on private property. Then I heard a dog barking and decided the only thing I could do was turn around and calmly walk away, hoping it would miraculously forget that it had heard someone coming. It didn’t quite do that so instead of returning to the hostel unscathed, I returned having been bitten in the ass by a Guatemalan dog. Thankfully no harm was done (except to my pride, obviously) but I’m not closer to wanting a dog. I’m slightly closer to wishing I’d gotten that rabies vaccine though.

My favourite day in San Pedro wasn’t even actually in San Pedro at all. There is a huge market in Chichi on Thursdays and Sundays and I tagged along on someone’s trip there. It took 2 chicken buses to get there and the first part, up the hill from the lake, was rough at 10.30 in the morning after the night before. The bus driver also didn’t help it by trying to overtake another chicken bus while driving up the hill, having absolutely no visibility of oncoming traffic. It took him 5 unsuccessful attempts before he got past. And the other bus wasn’t even that much slower. My bargaining skills weren’t in their best state that day so I kept the shopping conservative (please try to understand how hard that was. But it was the only sensible thing to do so no souvenirs for anyone) but I really enjoyed that day and am so glad I went. The trip back also went smoothly, at least once we figured out what the name of the stop was that we needed to change at to get back to San Pedro. There was some serious confusion over the Guatemalan pronunciation. On the last leg of the trip back, we were also treated to some gambling-with-safety on the bus. To save about 18 seconds of time at the upcoming stop, the guy on the bus decided to (while it was still driving down the road) open the rear door, climb out onto the ladder and onto the roof to begin untying the goods that needed unloading at the next stop. We were just completely taken aback by the total disregard for fairly basic common-sense-safety but had to conclude that it is just part of the chicken bus experience.

Most people ended up staying in San Pedro for a while but after 5 days I was ready for a change of scenery. So I booked the shuttle to Antigua (it was just 5 QTZ more than the boat/chicken bus option so it seemed like the smarter choice) and left the lake behind. I loved Antigua last time I was here so I was excited to be heading into familiar territory. I will miss this view though:

The plan now is to find a language school, which I’m looking forward to because it’s ridiculous how little I can communicate. My hand gestures have proven not to make much sense to anyone other than myself.

There aren’t many hills in Antigua so it’s hard to tell if my knee is fully recovered yet or not. There’s a volcano nearby though so maybe I’ll need to climb that to put it to the test pretty soon. Until then, fingers crossed for no more streets like this:

Today I’m listening to: When Saints Go Machine – ‘Church and Law’