I thought that the best and appropriate way to end my Guatemala blogs would be with pictures of the sunset. The Pacific coast has miles of black sand beach that just stretch on and on. Beautiful.



We had a wonderful time in Guatemala and will definitely go back some day. There is still the other side of the country to go and see.



If you go, please frequent the few establishments that I mentioned.

Well, I am finally winding down on my Guatemala posts. Tomorrow will be the last. For today I am throwing in the last miscellaneous photos and thoughts.


This is a photo of the water heater you will most commonly find in lower end establishments. When you see a hotel that says 'agua caliente' and is in the $5 a night range, this is what you are gonna get. Surprisingly, it works fairly well. It helps if you don't put the water pressure up too high (it can only handle so much flow) and that the weather there is warm anyway.


This plant is called a prayer plant. They open up during the day and close up during the night. It is one of Anna's many business ventures. She grows them at her coffee finca and then ships them to Florida for sale here in the U.S.


The following pictures are from a hike we did to El Brujo, the river and bridge near Acatenango. There are very steep parts to this hike as you go down one mountainside to the river and then up the other mountainside to the village over there. We only went down and back up to Acatenango. That was enough for me. The thing is, the locals often walk back and forth this trail as a daily commute! And often carrying huge loads on their backs or heads!



At the bottom is an Indiana Jones style bridge. A little nerve racking.




There are some beautiful views in this valley.



We were in the wrong part of the country to go to the really big Mayan sites. The most famous in Guatemala is Tikal and that was 12 hours away. The closest we could visit was Iximche, Tecpan. Once again we ran into the extra charge for gringos and that there was NOTHING in English! What could have been a really interesting visit was kinda ho-hum because we couldn't read anything. And there were plenty of signs of information, just all in Spanish and the local Mayan dialect.





So tomorrow we will say 'adios' to Guatemala.

You may have wondered how come my foodie blog didn't have much on the Guatemalan cuisine. It really boils down to being not all that impressed with my meals and because I was so much more interested in other aspects of my trip.

I am happy, though, that our food costs were kept to a minimum. Most of the time we ate at comedors. These locals kitchens usually looked similar to the one above. Very simple. So simple, in fact, that comedors don't really have menus. They just focus on one thing a day. You go in and ask what they have and they will say, "today is chicken" or "today is beef". Then there are the staples that you get with all meals, corn tortillas, rice, and black beans. You might get lucky and get a veggie that day or a side of guacamole. Ronnie always ordered eggs, because he is a vegetarian. These simple meals are simply cheap. Breakfast would be $1 and the meat meal (lunch/dinner) would be $2. So we easily were eating for less than $5 a day.


Here you see two typical comedor meals. The one above was ordered by Dean for breakfast. You see the beef, beans, and cheese. The one below was a dinner beef meal at another comedor: beef, rice, guacamole. Both with the ever present tortillas.



On our last week, while at the timeshare, we ventured forth in search of seafood. In this case we went to a restaurant in town along the beach. Mari ordered the fried fish while we both ordered lobster dishes. We ordered mediums and got three halves of lobster each. Guess a large means you get four halves = two wholes. Lobsters from the warmer waters don't have claws like their cold water cousins. Both are dishes were topped with shrimp as well. The only noticeable difference between the two was that one had onions and the other did not.



The only other noteworthy meal was the fajitas that we had while watching the sun set over Lake Atitlan. My chicken fajita mixture came sizzling hot.

Other items worth mentioning but without pictures...

I loved the chocolate con leche (hot chocolate) here. They heat the milk on the stove and melt in their Guatemalan chocolate. It's similar to Mexican chocolate in that there is a bit of cinnamon and other spices. But it is really rich because they are not using a powder but are melting in pieces of chocolate.

Licuados can be found everywhere. Basically a licuado is a smoothie. You can get your blended fruit done with water, milk, or with yogurt. Tropical fruits can be blended by themselves or as mixto (mixed). Banana, papaya, mango, pineapple, watermelon and occassionally strawberry. If you are in a mercado or need it 'to go' then they pour it into a baggie and hand you a straw and you walk down the street drinking from a baggie.

If all else fails to satisfy you or if you just have a craving, there is no problem with finding hamburgers, hot dogs, and pasta.

We made some new friends on our trip. This is Mari. She helps Ronnie with his Spanish, cleaning the cultural center, his laundry, etc. While there she celebrated a birthday. We gave her an American birthday with candles on her cake and singing English and Spanish 'Happy Birthday'. Candles on the cake are not something they do down there.




I mentioned Hector before. He worked for over 20 years in the Los Angeles area doing construction. He's helping Ronnie build his house in Acatenango. Here he is holding up a plant called florifundia. Apparently this plant is perfect for an episode of CSI. He says that if you drug someone with it they will apparently die. Then four days later they'll wake up. Imagine being buried alive and then waking up later! Yikes!



I mentioned that a panaderia opened in the center. Sergio is the bread baker. Because the most people don't have ovens in there homes, they have to buy their baked goods. Every village will have at least one panaderia. The bread is baked and sold out of the cultural center. It is delivered to outlying villages by a deliveryman on a motorcycle. The bakery had only just started when we first arrived and by the time we left two weeks later they had gotten more clients, opened the bakery and were making about 100 quetzales a day. Very promising.



This is Mari's mother. One day she made tamales for us. Her version used potato instead of corn, which suited me just fine. I've never cared for tamales or many corn products like polenta or corn tortillas. She also was nice and did our laundry for us.



Here is Mari with her little daughter, Gemma. When we did the pinata party she was too shy to participate.

As I said in my Feb. 16th post, Lake Atitlan is beautiful. Guatemala is pretty cool with 20 volcanoes. The Philippines has a load of volcanoes too, but not all close together like they are here. Lake Atitlan has three to look at with the gorgeous lake in front.

The main town at the lake is Panajachel, or Pana for short. It is the second most touristy town after Antigua. There are plenty of hotels, restaurants, and vendors. Below is a picture of their main church.



When we had dinner at the Sunset Cafe, we met a couple of Mayan women. Dean bought nuts from this woman, who weighed it out with an old fashioned scale.





I bought this embroidery work from this woman. It was quite the negotiation. I think she started out asking $60 and I got it down to $15. Then Dean asked her how long it took her to make it and she said a couple of months. Then I felt bad.




The next day we took a water taxi to Santa Cruz where Ronnie's friend has a hotel.



Water taxis are used by all the locals. Note the Mayan women's hair and outfits.



Santa Cruz is a steep hike up the hillside. We hiked it one day and the village itself is very steep. All the streets just keep going up, up, up.



This is Ronnie's friend, Rosa, owner of Casa Rosa. The hotel sits right on the lake. It ranges about $30 a night. If you decide to take your meals there, Rosa cooks them for you and you can eat family style with the other guests.



Her property is so lush with vegetation, you can't see the hotel.



There are often yoga retreats there. Rosa also has a small rental house for rent for longer durations. It is very nice and Western. Santa Cruz has a diving shop so that you can scuba dive the volcanic lake and a spa owned by some Americans. So you can get a nice massage from a certified CMT.

One beautiful place in Guatemala is Monterrico. Monterrico is on the Pacific coast about 30 miles north of the El Salvador border. Rivers from the highlands flow out and create a huge region of swampy mangroves. The town itself is a laid back vacation town. It's small and caters to visitors who are mostly from Europe and Canada. There are small hotels and bungalows for rent along the black sand beach.





One thing about Guatemala is that there is very little English spoken. You really need to have at least beginner's Spanish. Our cab driver took us to a place called Johnny's Place which seemed to be a haven for gringo tourists. Here is where we met Sender, above. Sender spoke perfect English! The reason? He had grown up in Los Angeles. He and his mom had crossed into the U.S. when he was 3. He lived there til about 18 and then returned to Guatemala. After starting a family he crossed back again to look for work. He had some interesting stories about coyotes - the illegal immigrant smugglers.

Anyway, one of the things you can do in Monterrico is go on a boat tour of the mangroves. We weren't going to do it for fear of mosquitoes, but because Sender spoke English and guaranteed there would be no mosquitoes, we went. Cost - $8 each. BTW, he was right - no mosquitoes during the middle of the day.



Sender guided us gondola style through the swamps. Dean just had to give it a try. Luckily he did not end up in the water. But he did find out just how hard it is to pilot the boat.



Here is a car ferry. Because of the swamps it can be a long way around to drive to the next town south on the coast. Many people opt for the water taxi and these ferries to get across.



This fisherman was fishing for shrimp, but wasn't really having much success.



The mangrove roots grown down from the above. In the dry season the water is primarily brackish. In the wet season all the fresh water from the rivers raises the level of the swamps up several feet and these roots would be under water.



If you read Lonely Planet it will tell you about the nature preserves to visit in Monterrico. Well, let's just say they aren't anything like what you are used to.

First you should know that any of the parks in the country will charge Q10 for locals and then Q40-50 for tourists. Then be aware that you will get no information in English. Everything is in Spanish. Now this makes sense for a Spanish speaking country, but if you are going to charge more money for foreigners the least you could do is provide a paper brochure with some basic information in English (the most universal of travel languages).



Here are some baby sea turtles. This southern area of the Pacific coast still has sea turtle breeding grounds. Hopefully they will survive. The locals eat the eggs and the government cannot enforce laws to stop them. So there seems to be some sort of agreement that they can take so many eggs as long as so many are also saved and given to preservation. The turtles come primarily during the wet season.



The preserve also had some displays of caimans (above) and different kinds of iguanas.



We also got to see some beach front property that was available. You can own property there. A small property, big enough for a small vacation home just a block or so off the main drag, was $60k. A property big enough for a small hotel or restaurant was $100k. If I had it, I would have bought the small property. It would cost about $20k to build a really nice house on it. After all, Guatemala will soon be discovered by other Americans and then it will escalate crazily just like Costa Rica did.

If you visit Monterrico and wish to engage Sender as a guide, he can be found at Johnny's Place or at sensrico76@yahoo.com.