Back in Guatemala

Heading back into Guatemala our 3rd time crossing their boarders!  

It was nice to back in a cheap country!  

Our first stop Flores a cute town in the middle of a lake on a island. Very beautiful however lake Atitlan does outshine it for us.  

Flores is the stop of point for visiting the Mayan ruins of Tikal. These would be our last ones and a lot of people say they are the most impressive.

The cold front was still following us (hadn’t mattered so much when it rained in Belize as it was hot) and decided to bucket it down almost the whole time.

Including our day at Tikal, it’s a shame as watching sunrise or sunset here is meant to be magical.

We made the best of the weather and still really enjoyed roaming the ruins and learning about them.

Before heading back to the town of Antigua we stopped in the town of Lanquin to visit the Semuc Champay waterfall.

There is a underground river and one parallel on top creating beautiful cascades. 

You can go caving and see the waterfalls underground however you have to swim most of it. I had also heard some parts are very small and you go with just a candle for light that keeps going out. I have gone caving but I do get claustrophobic so bowed out and Mav and Rad didn’t feel like it either. 

We just visited the topside waterfalls and they are beautiful even with all the clouds above. 

Last place in Guatemala, back to Antigua, it felt weird to be somewhere familiar a bit of a second Home almost.

On our 1st day back we meet Brad a food writer from the USA. Apparently a delicacy to the area is ‘bull testicles ceviche’ I just wanted to go along and watch him eat this but we all ended up trying it for ourselves!  

I couldn’t tell you it’s good or how bad it is as it was my 1st ever ceviche so I don’t know how they are meant to taste. But I can tell you that eating raw bulls testicles is an experience! 

We also meet up with Tristan and his friend, Steven who was on holiday for a few days. Together we would be tackling volcano Acatanago with a summit of 4000 meters above sea level this would be the highest and hardest hike we had done yet.

We had been at sea level for a while so the altitude would be hard for us but we knew it would be worth it.

We had a large group 25 people, and Mav and I ended up right at the back trying to keep up. The guides were great not rushing us and helping where they could.

After 5 hours we reached base camp, chucked our stuff in our tents and took in the stunning views around us.  

We had dinner and watched the sunset over Guatemala. The neighbouring volcano fuego is normally active, with mini explosions of lava coming out the top. We all really wanting to witness this however 2 days before had been the Red moon and the volcano had gone crazy and erupted 5 times more lava than normal. So for us and the next for days it was very quite and we didn’t get to watch it erupt, it just smoked a little.

We woke up at 4 AM to hike to the summit for sunrise. It was slow going as no one could breath properly at the altitude and the wind chill. The achievement I felt at the top was worth it!  

Watching the sunrise over clouds has always been a bucket list item for me and it didn’t disappoint.

Getting down from the summit was much easier. You could just run and the deep sand would catch you.

We had breakfast and headed back down the volcano. Didn’t even take us half the time to go up!

We had a day of rest and chilling with boys along with some naughty meals (Dominoes and Texan BBQ yum) to reward ourselves. Then it was time to say goodbye.

Steven was heading home to Canada, Tristan to El Salvador, Mavreen to lake Atitlan for a few weeks before Home, Rad and I had flights to Brazil for Rio carnival!