We went to Guatemala! Michelle and I had a wonderful trip filled with learning, adventure, new foods, making new friends, and strengthening our relationship. Now on the flight home I’m taking some time to capture our day-by-day activities, mainly so we can remember what we did!
We arrived on Christmas Day 2024 and spent three nights in Antigua, Guatemala followed by three nights in Panajachel, Guatemala for a total of six nights. We returned to Colorado on New Year’s Eve.
DAY 1: Wednesday 12/25 – Travel day
Boulder>Denver>Houston>Guatemala City>Antigua.
Highlights: Dinner at Arrin Cuan. We found this by walking around the neighborhood, and stopping in any place that was open on Christmas. Our first taste of Guatemalan food. Delicious, rich flavors and mainly meat-based dishes.
Lowlights: None! No hiccups in our travel day.
DAY 2: Thursday 12/26 – A day touring Antigua
Highlights:
Cerro de la Cruz. Great way to start the day with a view from a terraced public park above the city.
Eruption of Fuego Volcano. We took this video from the rooftop of Iglesia de la Merced, another church that we toured (Q35 entrance fee*).
Convento la Recoleccion Ruins. This was once a Catholic church and monastery. After the Q40 entrance fee*, you can walk and scramble over the ruins. There are super cool octagonal windows still intact – but check out those cracks!
* One U.S. dollar is about 7.5-8 Guatemalan Quetzal (GTQ). So Q40 is about $5-6.
Dinner at Hector’s Bistro. We had read about this place in multiple guidebooks, and it was worth seeking it out. Delicious French food. We met a mother/daughter on the plane from Houston. Turned out they were our neighbors at the hotel. And they had dinner at Hectors the same night as us. We sent them a surprise dessert.
Lowlights:
All the cobblestone streets did a great job slowing down the cars. But they also worked our feet, especially Michelle’s.
The ruins at Convento la Recoleccion smelled of urine. Yuck.
DAY 3: Friday 12/27 – Hike a Volcano
We wanted to do some more adventurous hiking, but we didn’t realize how popular the guided hikes were, especially at this time of year which is the busiest for the tour operators. We lucked out with a last-minute cancellation for a hike on Vulcan Pacaya. While the hiking was less extreme than other volcanoes in the area, Pacaya is still an active volcano and we were able to visit one of its lava fields.
Highlights:
‘Skiing’ down the mountainside. The ashen rock was so powdery! Check out Michelle’s dusty footsteps. Kind of reminds me of PigPen from the Peanuts.
Roasting marshmallows over the vents in the lava field. The lava field was formed in the 1976 eruption. It was plenty cool to tread upon, but there were a number of shafts down into the rock where steam was escaping. The steam was hot enough to be uncomfortable on my hand, and it was enough to roast a marshmallow! (The tour guides were ready.)
After the tour (and after a shower), we finished the day with a tasty local meal from a tiny restaurant around the corner from our hotel. The place is called Delicias de Abuelita which translates to Granny’s Delights. This was basically street food (home-made) with a small indoor seating area. We sampled everything on the menu! My favorite was the rellenitos and Michelle liked the doblatas.
Lowlights:
There was an hour-long van ride to the start of the volcano hike. The driving was fine, but we shared the van with a California family – friendly parents but their kids (adult kids, actually) were awful, awful awful!
DAY 4: Sat 12/28 – Mountain Bike around Lake Atitlán
Many highlights from this bike ride – too many too list. We booked our tour through MTB Guatemala. This is a fantastic, professional operation and we totally lucked into it with a last minute sign-up. Brendon (owner and tour guide) worked hard to ensure all the logistics ran smoothly, the equipment was in good shape, and he and Oscar were very conscientious guides. We learned a lot about Guatemala in general and the region specifically. Very highly recommended – we will tour with Brendon again if we can!
Highlight of the trip! Unplanned lunch with local townspeople. This was an awesome experience, something you can’t ever plan, and only happens a few times, if ever, in a lifetime. I wrote a separate post just about this. (Link to Guatemala Part 2 – Village Celebration) This was one of my favorite moments of 2024. Really cool.
Some mountain biking photos:
Lowlights:
None! What an amazing day!
DAY 5: Sun 12/29 – Boat tour of Lake Atitlán and its waterside towns
The lake is surrounded by many villages in which the Maya culture is still present and traditional dress is worn. We had made friends with another couple on the mountain bike tour, and we split the cost hiring a private boat for the day. We visited four towns: Santiago, San Juan, San Marcos, Santa Cruz.
Highlights:
It was fun having other people to connect with. Scott and Jules are from Golden … just a few miles from Boulder! They’re fun, easy-going people and it made for an enjoyable day of shopping and exploring the little towns around the lake.
San Juan is a super colorful city. If there was a race with the other lake-shore towns to win the most tourist dollars, San Jaun has won it by painting Instagram-able murals, banners, and other beautiful engaging decorations throughout the town. Loads of people everywhere. Here is a photo of the main tourist road. Cool umbrellas!
Lowlights:
San Marcos could have been a much nicer town. Seems like the hippies are too permissive about the dogs – there is literally dog $h!t everywhere. Disgusting. Also, the town is known as a spiritual destination, with yoga and meditation and massage. However from what we could see, all these places were behind closed or locked doors, as if they wanted to keep the riff-raff out. Maybe they need to do so, but it left an impression like the gringos had taken the town away from the locals.
DAY 6: Mon 12/30 – Rest and relax in Panajachel
After five days of exploring, we enjoyed a day of R&R hanging at our beautiful Bed & Breakfast, called Jenna’s River B&B. It’s located a few hundred feet above the lake, looking out across the water toward two of the volcanoes that ring the lake. We slept in, had a late breakfast, read our books, journeyed into town for a few hours (there is a great museum where we learned a lot about the history and the geology of the region), and packed up for tomorrow’s long travel day.
Highlights:
The museum in Panajachel is small but worth a visit.
Meals at Jenna’s are a home-made affair.
Lowlights:
We wanted to find a nice restaurant in town, but most of the places we saw were tourist-oriented. We settled for another dinner at Jenna’s which was once again delicious.
DAY 7: Tues 12/31 – Travel day
Panajachel>Guatemala City>Houston>Denver>Boulder
Another fairly easy travel day. The flight from Houston>Denver was delayed but not terribly so. The roads surrounding Denver Airport were iced over which made for some white-knuckle driving, but the ice relented as we moved closer to Boulder, and we arrive home safely.
Thank you, Guatemala, for a wonderful visit!
johnny88keys 