Guatemala Transport

We are home--or at least, headed that way--sitting in the Atlanta airport after saying good-by to our new friends. The tour far exceeded our expectations, and we can heartily recommend Caravan and Guatemala. Some of our fellow travelers tell us that not all tour groups are as congenial as this one. Someone suggested that our tour guide Guillermo set a very positive tone. We rotated seating, so no one got stuck with the post in the middle of their view or sitting next to the bathroom the whole time. That also meant that we were constantly across the aisle from different people. Everyone seemed to view difficulties as part of the advanture, not something to complain about. When we got stranded for that extra morning in the northern province, Caravan picked up the cost of the bird walk for those who were interested. Table conversations were interesting, sharing stories of family and previous travel.

One of the things we all enjoyed was the variety of modes of travel. No seat belt laws here. We passed trucks jammed with extended family or with children sleeping on bundles.

These little taxis were common, a good way to get from Hotel Atitlan into town for shopping or from town to the nature reserve.

But what we were constantly trying to capture was the "chicken buses." That's the English descriptive name because of the cargo often carried in baskets on the roof. These privately owned means of mass transit started life as American school buses.

 Then they get transformed and take on unique personalities.

I did a lot of trying to snap from our moving tour bus, and ended up with blurrs or pictures of the empty road after a bus had just past. This one I got at a rest stop.

These were stopped by the police to allow us to pass up a narrow one-way street in Sololá so that we could have space to make the turn onto the highway toward Guatemala city.

Maybe next visit to Guatemala, I'll have to ride one. And I certainly hope there will be another trip to Guatemala.

Guatemala Day 11: Cruising Lake Atitlan

We gathered at 9 AM for a boat ride on the lake.

Not a big boat, but stable.

Steve and I sat outside in the front. Great for picture taking, but we missed Guillermo's commentary. I guess among other things he pointed out houses of the rich and famous in spectacular settings.

Have I mentioned the beautiful volcano views?

After the boat ride, it was onto the bus for the climb out of the caldera and the road back to Guatemala City.

Guatemala Day 11: Lake Atitlan Hotel

When we left Antigua, Steve commented to Guillermo that the Hotel Porta Antigua was probably the most beautiful hotel we had ever stayed in. His reply? "Just wait." Hotel Lake Atitlan is what we were waiting for. I'm not sure I could say it was MORE beautiful. Antigua is town; this is country. But WOW!

Here's the view from our balcony.



We arrived right at sunset, checked in and headed for the pool area for pictures. Atitlan is a crater lake formed by an ancient giant volcano and surrounded by younger volcanoes, all dormant.

When we woke, Steve pulled back the curtains, and I took this without ever leaving the bed.

Breakfast with a view.

The whole hotel is a work of art. Each chandelier in the outdoor eating area featured different birds.

The inside dinning room has an aviary for the wall not facing the lake.

The rooms and corridors are lined with art.

The grounds are a place to wander or sit and read a book.

And one last sunset in Guatemala.

Guatemala Day 10: Nature Reserve

We are staying at Hotel Atitlan on a beautiful crater lake. (Another post!) In the morning the tour officially went to a nearby town for shopping with the suggestion of the local nature reserve in the afternoon. Some of us didn't care about shopping and figured it would be cooler in the morning, so we took off up the road after breakfast.

The nature reserve was only a couple hundred yards up the road. It has a butterfly pavilion. Ana was our naturalist. She raises butterflies at home on the monarch migration, and gets really excited about 'the ba-a-abies!'

They fluttered all around us, and it was hard to get them to hold still for pictures.

Steve decided not to join us because of the bridges. Admittedly, there was almost as much space between as there was wood to walk on. They didn't swing too badly if we walked carefully.

The destination was this waterfall, the lower sectiion of one we had seen when we entered on the main road. (I started to say 'highway' but it could not be called that. At times the bus was inches from the concrete balconies of the buildings on either side.) It was Ana's idea to take the picture with the shadow below. That's me down there on the rocks! (Note the proportiion of wood and space in the bridge shadow.)

Thanks to our experience at the coffee museum, we recognized wild coffee along the way, well picked over by the birds.

We were watching a family of coati (related to raccoons) in the tree tops when I decided to see if I could get a better view from the other side of a viewing platform. I found this guy looking at me. A moment later, he leapt practically over my head to the nearby tree.

When we got back to the visitor center, some of us decided to take the trail to the lake shore. It went steeply up over a ridge, across a couple more swinging bridges, and plunged down to this beautiful beach.

Look at the roots of this tree! There was another further along where the roots cascaded over the cliff for maybe 25 feet, but the height made it harder to photograph.

Guatemala Day 9: Music Museum

At the cultural center there is also a music museum.

We watched a video without commentary, showing festivals in various states with brilliantly constumed dancers and traditional music. Guillermo said that most of the music has religious associations. It made me sad to think of Mayas hearing the preaching of early missionaries and accepting it as versions of their own gods, resulting in syncretism that continues today. This tableau represents the cult of the cigar-smoking, rum-drinking Maximon/San Simon. The cross is there, but completely misunderstood.

The best part of the day to my mind was the musical presentation of these four brothers, calling themselves AJ.

The musical instruments were designed to immitate nature, and they do that incredibly. 

You can find more on YouTube of the same group several years ago.

Video 1 

Video 2

Guatemala Day 9: Coffee Museum

We spent a beautiful morning at the Centro Cultural la Azotea, sandwiched between the city of Antigua and the base of the mountain.

First came the coffee museum, but our tour kind of went backwards in time, so I am going to reverse the order of some of the pictures to take you through the process more or less. Less because I don’t remember everything!!

Unfortunately, I failed to take a picture of the baby plants. They are about three years old before they blossom for the first time. This plantation plants the coffee trees under taller to trees to give shade and let the “cherries,” as the coffee fruit is called, develop more slowly. Banana plants are scattered throughout the plantation. They harvest the bananas as well, but the main reason is that banana plants store water during the rainy season and release it back into the soil in dry season. Very clever, to my thinking.

We are in the midst of harvest right now (December to March), but this is how the coffee looks as it ripens.

Harvest is still a labor-intensive, by-hand process. The harvested cherries are weighed and dumped through these bars into a bath. Cherries that aren't yet ripe float and are skimmed off for separate processing.

If you roll the cherry in your palm to soften it and then squeeze it lightly, you get first a sweet acidic juice and then the seeds. The plantation does this by machine in a wet process.

The beans are spread in the sun to dry for several days and turned regularly with the rake you see standing up here. The dark beans in the foreground are those that were under-ripe and need special treatment. Not sure if these are the ones that get made into instant coffee, but Guillermo definitely said it was the rejects that go into that. Steve would tell you that explains a lot.

Sacks of dried, unroasted, coffee can be stored for a couple years without losing quality.

The beans have to be sorted for size before they are roasted because otherwise they won't roast at the same rate. According to Guillermo, the darker the roast, the less caffeine. He calls it "burned coffee," but then he likes the instant he grew up on, so he lost credibility with most of us.

Besides the tour, a small museum explained the process and a little about the family that has owned this plantation for a hundred years. It is an interesting story of German immigrants and Mayas and a matriarchal lineage system. The present owner is the one who came up with the idea of brining in tourists to supplement the coffee income. 

Our tour ended with a demitasse of coffee and of course, a gift shop.

Then we crossed the courtyard to the music museum in the next post. [I'm tired, so I won't get that up until morning, but it included a fabulous performance by four brothers.