Related Guatemala Favorites Tips

Favorite thing: Exploring rural dirt roads (wait for a pickup) that branch off from the highways and seeing where they go.

Fondest memory: Guatemala has a lot of newly settled territory where government services, schools, clinics and administrators barely keep up with the many small settlements, farms and ranches. Small gifts are helpful.

Favorite thing: Business travellers, policy wonks, and the more than merely curious will find the CIA Guatemala page succinct and informative.

COPY and PASTE THIS ADDRESS INTO YOUR BROWSER FOR THE CIA PAGE FOR GUATEMALA

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gt.html

CATEGORIES:
Maps and geography
People
Government
Economy
Communications
Transportation
Military
Transnational Issues

Fondest memory: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gt.html

Favorite thing: There's nowhere to file this fact so here it is:

The relationship between mental retardation and iodine has been known for decades. Nearly all countries legislate that salt be iodized. GUATEMALA is one country that DOES NOT IODIZE SALT. Nor does Guatemala import iodized salt.

Salt made from seawater is the only source of this important element available to Guatemalans.

The discerning tourist will notice -especially in the country's mountainous interior- widespread evidence of retardation.

Favorite thing: Before you clamber up a pyramid-

Before you get too far up-

Take a good look down and soberly consider your ability to get back down.

You can see here that the width of the step is maybe 10 cm (about 4 inches)

Your view looking up from the bottom is deceiving and you'll discover the view is dizz-ing-ly different when looking down from the top.

The Maya bound prisoners of war and tossed them from the summit of the pyramid to their deaths-

This photo is from IXIMCHE which is on the Pan American Highway about 20 kilometers east of Solola/Panajachel/Lago Atitlan. See the travelogue on my GUATEMALA home page.

Favorite thing: We quickly developed a taste for the local beers. One, Gallo, is a light easy-drinking lager that went down very well with spicy food and in the hotter weather. But we liked Moza, made by the same brewery, even more – a dark beer (“cerveza oscura”) with bags of flavour but not too intense for lunch-time drinking. It gets rave reviews on some websites too, so it seems we are not alone!

We sadly never got around however to trying the local “beer cocktail”, Michelada which is a mix of tomato juice, Worcester sauce, Tabasco, salt, pepper and lime juice with beer – a sort of beer-based Bloody Mary, it seems. I saw it on several menus in Antigua, planned to try it sooner or later, then suddenly found we’d moved on to the north of the country and it was no longer, it seemed on offer (or at least not in Tikal’s Jungle Lodge, where we stayed). Something to go back for ...

4 more images

Favorite thing: The colourful costumes and lively street scenes are not only a source of fascination but will also inspire you to want to take innumerable photos – or at least they did me. Bear in mind though that not everyone wants to be photographed just because of their interesting outfit – after all what fascinates us is just normal to them. Your options are:
1. ask nicely and if refused walk away
2. ask nicely and offer a small tip, or if your subject is selling handicrafts, make a small purchase in return for the photo
3. photograph from behind, as the costumes can look just as good that way (see the photo in my “Carrying the baby” Local Customs tip for an example)
4. use a good zoom and look for opportunities to take candid shots
I admit I did all three, and for option 4 I found the best chances came when people were absorbed in another activity, usually commercial – either selling their crafts to tourists, or haggling over prices in local markets.

The photos here reflect these different approaches. Photo one was taken in Santiago Atitlàn and is an “option 2” shot – the lady posed for us and we bought a key ring from her. Photo two is clearly an “option 3” shot, and photos three to five were all taken furtively with a zoom!

Fondest memory: As we only had two weeks available in which to see something of both Guatemala and Belize we decided to pre-book accommodation and transfers rather than spend valuable holiday time making arrangements on the ground. OK it can cost more that way, but at least we would know for sure what our costs were going to be (apart from the inevitable shopping and even more inevitable drinking!)

Through UK-based Journey Latin America we were able to access the services of tour agency STP in Guatemala, and we were so pleased with everything they did for us. If we return to the country we will certainly use them again, and will book directly with them.

In fact I would say that STP were probably the best local tour company we've dealt with during many years of travelling. All their representatives were polite, friendly, informative and couldn't do enough to help. They had helpfully changed our Lake Atitlàn hotel after some problems with the one we had booked (refurbishments after a hurricane had affected the service and other clients hadn't been happy) and we were very satisfied with the alternative they found us, the better-located Posada de Don Rodrigo in Panajachel. Transfers with Jorge, Xavier and Miguel were all efficient and enjoyable, and Xavier even took us on an unscheduled whistle-stop tour of Guatemala City en route to the airport for our Flores flight, while Miguel turned our half-day tour of Tikal into the best part of a day, taking us to several places where we were the only visitors.

Overall the STP reps definitely helped to make our visit to Guatemala even more of a pleasure than it might have been, and I can’t recommend them too highly. Please have a look at their website below if you are considering a trip to Guatemala.

http://www.stpguatemala.com/index.php?lang=en

2 more images

Favorite thing: Guatemala is a land of volcanoes, at least in the south, where the Guatemalan Highlands form part of the Ring of Fire along the Pacific Rim. Some are extinct, some dormant but some very definitely active. In May of this year Pacaya erupted, killing at least two people, injuring more than 50, and covering parts of Guatemala City in ash up to 7cm (2.7in) deep. Although we didn’t experience anything that dramatic (thankfully) we did see Fuego, near Antigua, puffing away quite vigorously at times – this photo was taken from the road to the north of the city.

Fondest memory: When not posing a threat, Guatemala’s volcanoes are beautiful additions to the landscape. You will see three of them encircling the old city of Antigua, offering tantalising glimpses from almost any street corner (see photo two), and another three standing guard over Lake Atitlàn (photo three). Antigua’s threesome are Acatenango, Agua (“water”) and Fuego (“fire”), while Atitlàn is home to the volcano of the same name as well as San Pedro and Toliman.

If you’re interested in reading more about Guatemala’s volcanoes check out the Goto-Guatemala website for much more information about them, or see the good map here.