Guatemala Day 4 August 13, 2018

Yesterday we arose with the sun to go shopping. Today we arose like a million hours before the sun to catch a 6:30am flight to Tikal because the tour company believes you need to be at the airport 2 hours before flights and 3 hours before international flights even though this is Guatemala, not New York. There are only 2 gates in the regional departure lounge and the only people in line in front of us at security were our group. So it only took us less than 30 minutes to drive to the airport, check in, and go through security with our shoes on and multiple bottles of water. Which meant we had a lot of time to sit in the most uncomfortable, hard plastic airport chairs ever created while trying quite unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position for an hour and a half nap. I don’t even remember the safety instruction, take off, drinks, or landing because the second I got on that airplane I was out! Of course it was only a 33 minute flight, but I needed that sleep.

After that we had about an hour and a half drive to get to Tikal (yes, another nap). Our guide told us about the wildlife we might see while trekking through the jungle to the ruins: Spider Monkey, Howler Monkey, Toucan, Coatimundi, and Jaguar. I asked to please see a Jaguar, but he said he had only seen a jaguar 7 times in 9 years. I thought the chances were pretty good, but alas it was not meant to be. We did however see a couple of Spider Monkeys, hear Howler Monkeys, and supposedly saw a toucan way high up behind the leaves which flew away before I could find it. We also saw a whole tribe of Coatimundi! A new sighting for us! I saw them scampering along in the distance while our guide was telling us about the temple we were standing in front of, so I had to interrupt him. At first I thought they were monkeys because of the way they scamper along in a pack with their long tails high in the air. Needless to say, thetwinsontour led the picture taking charge (That’s the only time we were fast enough to lead the group, but when pictures of Coatimundi are at stake we mean BUSINESS!)There were about 30-40 of them all running along together looking for a tasty snack. Our guide said that they are usually in a pack of 80-100 though so they must have broken up. With their pointed snouts and striped tails, they look like a cross between an anteater and a racoon, and are thoroughly adorable! They are omnivorous, so they eat plants, bugs, and animals. My only regret is that the critters are too dang fast so the only picture I could get of them with a 2,000 year old Mayan temple in the background was blurry. But don’t you worry! I still got plenty of pictures which should go without saying to our longtime and faithful readers. While everyone else was taking pictures of the ruins, thetwinsontour were chasing Coatimundi around the rainforest in pouring rain trying to get the perfect shot. I was able to post a few pictures of an adorable coatimundi on our Facebook page (thetwinsontour), but he didn’t get the love and respect that he deserves. I just don’t know what’s wrong with you people sometimes! It was a Coatimundi for crying out loud!

Tikal was built by the Mayans long ago, like 900 B.C. to 900 A.D. so it was abandoned and taken over by the jungle and Coatimundi long before the Conquistadors conquered Guatemala. It’s a huge area and quite amazing that so many of the limestone structures are still intact. Even more amazing is that you can climb nearly all of them except the main temple. Several of them have wooden stairs in the back because a few tourists have fallen off and died–our guide didn’t say, but I assume it was French tourists because it’s always the French tourists that go off and die at these places, followed by Germans. But all I can say is bless those poor French tourists because without the stairs it would have been really tough going. The steps were all about a foot and a half high and quite narrow. Let’s be honest. I would have made it up about 6-7 steps and said, yes that’s a great view, and then just admired the rest of the temples from the ground. I asked our guide if the Mayans had smaller wooden stairs over these giant stone steps because the Mayan people that we had encountered in Guatemala were so short. He said no because the Mayan kings were quite tall. Based on skeletal evidence they were 6 feet or 6.5 feet tall, but their servants were much shorter. The size discrepancy is due partly to genetics but mostly to nutrition. The kings ate a lot better than everyone else.

It was super hot and humid there in Tikal yesterday. It was about 95 degrees with 70% humidity, so just like Kansas. Luckily we were walking through the jungle and had some shade, so we didn’t melt completely, but I must have sweated a whole gallon of sweat in just an hour. My fast drying travel clothes were soaked. And then when we had seen about half the temples, the rain started! We had asked our bus driver before we left the hotel in Guatemala City if we needed a raincoat or anything and he said no. Luckily we had our trusty disposable plastic rain ponchos that have accompanied us unused to many exotic locations (one of them we even picked up at the bus station in Iceland due to cloudy skies). Now I need to buy another pocket sized rain poncho, so let me know if you see any on sale. I fear the price has gone up a bit from the green Wal-Mart price tag that said a dollar on the other rain poncho. Luckily, we were able to take shelter for a while in a picnic area so our trusty disposable ponchos were sufficient to keep us from getting too wet. Please note, thetwinsontour do not encourage the use of disposable plastic rain ponchos as disposable plastic is a blight on the environment, but we do recognize the occasional emergency need for a disposable plastic rain poncho, for instance when one is trekking through the jungle of Guatemala without a raincoat because your bus driver said you didn’t need it. Remember our favorite and most important alliteration: REDUCE, RECYCLE, REUSE! And while I’m at it stop using plastic straws! Sea turtles are more important than your lips touching a restaurant glass.

Where was I? Ah yes, Tikal which had a starring role in the original Star Wars movie. There is a scene where you can see the Milenium Falcon flying over the jungle of Guatemala and the tops of the ruins. As we always say, if it’s good enough for George Lucas and Star Wars, it’s good enough for thetwinsontour.

Tikal is an amazing and breathtaking place (especially after climbing a bunch of steps). We love all types of ancient ruins!

I think our flight was delayed coming back, so we didn’t get to the hotel until 8pm. We had already devoured a multitude of snacks but were still ravenous and completely exhausted, not to mention really smelly when we got back. I have a confession, and I am not ashamed to admit it! We walked next door to McDonald’s for a McChicken deluxe and cheddar bacon fries. There is a time and place for McDonald’s, and if the end of an 18 hour day of airport sitting, ruins climbing, jungle trekking, and wildlife photographing isn’t one of those times and places, well then I don’t know when is! The McChicken wasn’t nearly as good as I remember, so it will probably be quite a while before we have one of those times and places again.

Love,

thetwinsontour

Guatemala Day 5 August 14, 2018

Today we bid farewell to Guatemala. We didn’t have to leave the hotel until noon, so we were able to sleep in a bit later than our other days here.

Our plans were simple, go eat breakfast, walk to the grocery store for Guatemalan candy and snacks, and get a coffee at McCafe (I know I just said there is a time and place, but coffee is different especially when it’s an Instagramable moment), and pack our bags. Guess what? We did all of that and even bought a few last minute, over priced souvenirs at the hotel gift shop.

As mentioned previously, the tour company likes you get you to the airport 3 hours early for international flights, so we had plenty of time on our hands and a lot of leftover quetzales to spend. Much to our surprise, the souvenir prices at the airport were great! Some of the prices were lower than what we paid in Chichicastanenga. Our money went much farther than anticipated. All the shops had stuff for a dollar! That is unheard of at an airport. Needless to say, we bought several dollars worth. We were limited only by the remaining space in our carry on. I am pretty sure we were able to spend all of our quetzales except some coins and small bills which we were planning to keep for souvenirs.

In an interesting side note, we had planned to spend some of our remaining quetzales on postage stamps for our very short postcard list. Don’t feel bad if you aren’t on the postcard list, we don’t even send one to our mother. Anyways, we were super excited to buy these postcards at the hotel gift shop. The gift shop had told us we could buy stamps at the front desk, so we envisioned writing and sending postcards on day one before we even did anything. It was such a great plan! Except they don’t sell stamps at the front desk. They told us to buy them at the airport which we thought was odd, but we had no other choice than to go along with that. So this morning we asked the driver, and he had never heard of buying stamps at the airport. We asked the United Airlines employees at the check in counter, but they said you can only get stamps at a post office and were trying to tell us where to by postcards. However, I am not sure what post office they were referring to because the lady at the airport information booth told us that Guatemala doesn’t have a postal system. She said that a Canadian company used to run the mail, but they had an argument or something and pulled out. So, I don’t know how Guatemalans get their Kohl’s coupons if they don’t have a postal service? Anyways, sure enough, downstairs next to the gift shops was an empty and abandoned store front that was once a post office. So our perfect plan of punctual postcards was positively ruined by the Canadians.

And on that note, our brief vacation to Guatemala comes to an end. Thank you to our faithful readers for accompanying us on our exciting journey to our 61st country! We have discovered that we quite enjoy trips within an hour of our time zone. It sure does help with jetlag, so I see more Central and South American countries in our future. We bid you farewell until we begin our Antarctica Adventure in November. We love you all!

Love,

thetwinsontour

The closed post office at the airport

Guatemala Day 3 August 12, 2018

Today we rose with the sun in order to enjoy the bounty that was laid before us–the glorious Sunday market of Chichicastanenga! Our guide told us that we could start shopping as early as 6am! So that is what we did! We had to leave at 9:45am and wanted to make sure we had enough time, but really can you ever have enough time?

 

We had visited the fruit market the night before because they start setting up Saturday afternoons. We got some red bananas! You should know by now that thetwinsontour love exotic bananas and of our disdain for the Cavendish bananas from Sam’s Club that go straight from green to brown to the trash. Anyways they were delicious. We got 6 mini red bananas for 5 quetzal which is about 66 cents. That’s 11 cents of tasty goodness there! And they were perfect for a quick and delicious breakfast before our shopping endeavors.

We were determined to not waste a minute of shopping time. We managed to depart our hotel room at 6:22 am, which is right on schedule for thetwinsontour! thetwinsontour love to shop, but thetwinsontour are also big fans of the snooze button. Luckily, all we had to do was set foot in the street and there was the market–right outside the hotel! It’s like this hotel was made for thetwinsontour!

So, we were ready to spend some serious quetzales. Except at 6:00 am a lot of the vendors were still setting up. We found ourselves dodging men carrying bamboo poles and others wearing milkcrates full of fruit strapped to their foreheads. Others were carrying 100 packages of toilet paper strapped to their heads (the 4 packs of small tiny rolls, not the 12 packs of charmin mega rolls). thetwinsontour have no idea how these short, tiny Mayans carried all of this strapped to their foreheads, but one thing is for certain–they must all have bad backs. We were also smart enough to get out of the way when they were charging down the aisles as we had no desire to be plowed into and trip over one of the little Mayan women selling baskets of apples who had set up shop in front of every booth. And, I really do mean little. Some of the little old ladies couldn’t have been more than 4 feet tall.

After an hour, we had dodged, twisted and swerved, zigged and zagged enough to work up an appetite. We had managed to purchase a few treasures and were ready for breakfast. This was a smaller hotel, so there was no buffet. We had the choice of scrambled or fried eggs to go with our 2 pieces of toast and cooked plantains. Time was of the essence because we had more shopping to do. Miraculously, after breakfast everything seemed set up and ready–no more dodging milkcrate wearing Mayans. We did skip parts of the market–like the meat market–where evidently there were people lined up holding live chickens out for your perusal. thetwinsontour are not sad to have missed this as there is no way to get a chicken in our suitcase, and there was not enough time to get one certified as a therapy chicken. And really, would Artichoke appreciate a chicken? No, she would probably just try to eat it. Anyways, that was a long and unimportant tangent. We had just enough time to buy a lot of stuff we didn’t need–like somehow I wound up with a wooden flute, but when this little face with big, sad eyes looks up at you and says “What about me? I need to buy food” there is no way to walk away flute-less. I am just lucky I left with just one flute. Now, there were other children following us trying to sell magnets, pens, and bookmarks–because they need money for school–but their prices fluctuated drastically. They would throw out a price–10 quetzales–then when I wanted to pay in dollars, it was $10, which is 70 quetzales. Then they would offer items for $1 or 2 for $5–because they need money for school. I quickly informed them that they needed to pay more attention in math class.

Our guide had warned us about pickpockets and bag slashing thiefs who would fade away into the jostling crowds without us ever noticing our lost belongings. They even had warning signs in the hotel room to not take your passport or extra money. However, we did not experience any of this, nor did anyone in our group. It felt extremely safe with the exception of being run into by a 4 foot tall man carrying 3 milk crates full of onions by his forehead. Obviously, those warnings are just for tourists.

Anyways the market is a delightful place with everything you could imagine. Most of the local handicrafts can be found in the main plaza, but if you venture down the 4 streets of market, the paths are narrower and you can find anything including but not limited to live turkeys, odorifuous onions, bananas, watermelon, shoes, brightly colored skeins of yarn, used clothing, brooms, miracle eye drops, and a man walking around with a bucket full of forks–he seemed to have all manner of cutlery, but preferred to yell out “tenedores” instead of the appearantly less melifulous “cucharas.” Who knows what treasures and curiosities we could have discovered given more time.

After so much excitement, we quickly fell asleep on the bus ride to our next point of interest–a scenic overlook of the second largest lake in Guatemala. It costs 3 quetzales (40 cents) to use the bathroom there which we gladly paid because that is the most important rule of smart travelling, never pass up the chance to pee because you never know when you will get another opportunity. In this case it was 6 minutes later when we went a hotel for the people that were too cheap to pay 40 cents to pee! Good grief people! What is 40 cents to you anyways? Toilet paper, water, soap, and cleaning supplies aren’t free, especially the quantities that we use. Support the local economy and pay 40 cents to pee! Next time there may not be a hotel 6 minutes away, and you could be quite uncomfortable for the rest of the journey.

Enough of that. Our guide had promised us plenty of time to shop after lunch at 1 of his 2 recommended restaurants. This time we fell for the recommendation because he had mentioned recent water and cleanliness issues. (Hey, just because we have travellers diahrea medicine doesn’t mean we want to use it.) We did what any reasonable person would do and chose the restaurant that he said would be the fastest so that we could have more shopping time. Of course our guide was wrong! An hour and 40 minutes later we finished our Pollo de Pepian (not quite as good as the one from the night before) which meant we only had about 20 minutes to visit the shopping street. Not enough time to do anything! We just bought a pair of earrings. Most disappointing! (The quantity of shopping, not the earrings. We paid $3 for 2 pair.)

All too soon, we were back on the bus to resume our napping and return to Guatemala City.

Love,

thetwinsontour

Guatemala Day 2 August 11, 2018

Today was the first day of our group tour. I am a little disappointed that the tour company doesn’t use a brightly colored, chrome encrusted, Guatemalan Chicken Bus for transportation. We have a plain white minibus, but I am pleased to tell you that our luggage is tied to the chickenless roof.

After observing the mountains and volcano in the distance from our hotel balcony, we knew without a doubt it was definately going to be a double Dramamine day. (thetwinsontour love alliteration!). After a lot of twisting, turning, winding, up and down roads we arrived at our first stop of the day–Antigua, a cute little colonial town. We went to an old monastary that has been turned into a hotel and mini museum (I think we mostly went there to pee. We stopped at a lot of hotels for potty breaks. I guess that’s what happens when McDonald’s are mostly in the big cities.) Antigua was beautiful, but I don’t think I have any interesting facts to share with you. I’m pretty sure our guide didn’t tell us much about it. Or maybe I just tuned him out after the 20 minute explanation of the scientific name of the national tree of Guatemala. I mean, a person can only take so much!

We walked around town for a little while, went to a cathedral (much like Sri Lanka where you can’t take pictures of Buddha, you can’t take pictures of the insides of churches in Guatemala. It’s most distressing.), watched the little old men play marimba for the tourists while all of the locals sat around and ate economical ice cream cones (truly, the cart called it “helados economicos”). Alas, our guide didn’t recommend that we try that local delicacy which is more the pity because everyone knows the twinsontour love an economical deal almost as much as they love ice cream.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur. Literally because we slept most of the rest of the journey on the bus, lulled to sleep by the bus twisting and turning through the verdant mountains of Guatemala.

I do want to mention that once again our guide recommended we eat dinner at the hotel. They always do that, but that is for boring people with delicate constitutions and no sense of adventure! Not for thetwinsontour who travel with Pepto and prescriptions for travellers diahrea (which we have never had to use, but we are always prepared)! We braved the streets along with a fellow traveller and ate at the first restaurant we found less than 2 blocks from the hotel. We had a delicious typical Guatemalan dish called Pepian chicken. It was chicken on the bone–maybe someday I will figure out how to eat this. It was smothered in Pepian sauce which isn’t spicy and is quite tasty.

Then we were back to the hotel because we had a big day ahead of us: market day at Chichicastanenga! We love shopping!

Love,

thetwinsontour

Economical Ice Cream!

We were trying to get a picture of the volcano in the background

These are the carts that are used for the processionals during Semana Santa

Guatemala Day 1 August 10, 2018

Today we came to Guatemala, or as we like to refer to it, country number 61. Yes, 61 countries and 4 airports that we could count if we wanted to.

It’s pretty easy to get to Guatemala too. It’s a less than 2 hour flight to Houston and then a 2.5 hour flight to Guatemala. Way easier and shorter than what we are used to. Our flight left Kansas City at 6:20am (Yikes!) and we were in Guatemala City at 11:35am (12:35pm our time). Why have we waited so long to come? We have had longer layovers in the Philadelphia airport than the whole combined travel time to get here.

We didn’t have any activities preplanned for this afternoon, and by the time we ate lunch and our room was ready we didn’t have enough time to do anything other than walk around to a couple of convenience stores, the supermarket (thetwinsontour love local snacks and candies) and a mall. I believe the following Facebook posts summarize our day quite well.

Goal #1: Typical lunch

In our effort to avoid McDonald’s, Panda Express, Carl’s Jr, Denny’s, Burger King, Papa John’s, and the sports bar at the hotel, we set off to find a restaurant 2 blocks from the hotel. We thought we found it, until we opened the menu and it said Typical Argentinian food. Oh well, we still consider this a win #thetwinsontour #everydayisanewadventure #SeeTheWorld

Here we are with our Milanesa a la Napolitano (breaded chicken tenderloin with tomato sauce and mozarrella)

A McCono Oreo is irresistible in any language. #weloveicecream #eaticecreameveryday #thetwinsontour #guatemalacity

love,

thetwinsontour

P.S. Here’s a few more pictures of the day.

Lunch!

Lunch came with cooked plantains for dessert. I’m still not sure if I liked them.

Sunset photo of the volcano from our hotel balcony.

Found this cool owl while walking around Guatemala City.

Watching a Spanish version of The Wheel in the hotel room.