While Away...

One of the greatest aspects of travelling with few plans is making spontaneous decisions. A few months ago, before leaving the UK, I watched an episode of Ben Fogle: New lives in the Wild, which was filmed in Guatemala. After a bit of internet research, I found the location: Semuc Champey, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Guatemala. Fast forward a couple of months to Huehuetenango, trying to decide on where to go next, I stumbled across a link to Ch'i Bocól on a forum. After linking the program and the hostel together, we immediately changed our plans to fit in this destination. Our last blog post left us in Nebaj, about to head off to Lanquin, the town closest to Semuc Champey and Ch'i Bocól. We left Nebaj on the 5am bus with reggaeton music blaring and arrived in Coban at around lunchtime. After another 2 hour microbus journey, we arrived in the small town of Lanquin. Having just spent the last few weeks in highlands, Lanquin was sweltering hot so we quickl...

Chicken bus to Xela Sorry for another long break since our last blog. Lots has happened and loads of plans have changed, hopefully for the better. One of our objectives when going away was to go with the flow and take opportunities when they arise and hopefully in the next couple of posts you will see what I mean. For now I want to describe our reasonably straight forward and fun filled time in Xela aka Quetzaltenango. Fresh off the bus from San Pedro La Laguna, Xela was a bit of a shock. A lot more crowded than the picturesque Lake Atitlan, Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala and offers itself as a vibrant new urban scene, if a little rough around the edges. It is a city reflective of a developing economy with new bars and hipster restaurants but bad roads and a lot of stray dogs.  View of Xela from roof of Kasa Kiwi We quickly found ourselves at Kasa Kiwi, the most reasonably priced hostel in the City. We found it to be very welcoming, clean and safe,...

We've finally completed one of our objectives for our Central American adventures: a weeks intensive Spanish course.  However, I need to start at the beginning. On the 25th January, Bryony and I decided to change our plans. Originally we were aiming to head from Antigua (see previous post) to Xela (Quetzaltenango) in order to find a Spanish school but upon looking up some information on Lake Atitlan we quickly had a change of heart and booked ourselves a 3hr transfer to San Pedro La Laguna; a small but bustling pueblo right on the glittering turquoise shores of Lake Atitlan, in the shadow of the San Pedro volcano. The transfer minibus was small and full of other tourists as it pulled away from Yellow House hostel at 8am the next day. As is normally the case in Guatemala, the driving was somewhat dubious and the actual rules of the road difficult to see under a fog of interpretation. Furthermore, the driver seemed to also have other errands to run whilst on the way to our...