Guatemala

With this list of tips for traveling to Guatemala we want to help you make preparations for this trip much easier and especially clear, so you only have to worry about the really important ones: enjoy. And it is that Guatemala awaits you with a unique culture, incredible landscapes, unforgettable people and exquisite cuisine that, together with the rest of its attractions, we are sure, will end up becoming one of your favorite countries in the world.

The first of the suggestions we will give you for Guatemala is about transportation between airports in New York, in case you have to do it, as it happened to us that we had to go from JFK to Newark, to catch the flight to Guatemala City . One of the options to change the airport is the bus, it cost us $ 27 per person, but to go from the JFK to Newark we had to make a bus change in Manhattan, so 5 hours (which in the end are less since you have to count baggage claim, pass customs, controls….

Hotels in Guatemala and Honduras Hotel Mesón del Valle The first of the hotels in Guatemala and Honduras in which we stayed was in the city of Antigua, a small city, but with many possibilities. Mesón del Valle is located on 5th Avenue South, right on the same street as the famous Santa Catalina Arch, very central and two steps from the Central Plaza of Antigua.

Day 11: Río Dulce - Quiriguá - Border crossing Guatemala-Honduras - Copán - Copán ruins The alarm sounds at 4:30 in the morning and is that today at 6 we have stayed with Otilio, the owner of the boat with which yesterday We went from Rio Dulce to Livingston, the Caribbean of Guatemala to take us to Copán, the Mayan ruins of Honduras, stopping before in Quiriguá, a site famous for the incredible stelae that we can find there.

Day 10: Río Dulce - Livingston, the Caribbean of Guatemala - Río Dulce We start the day in Río Dulce at 6 in the morning by looking out the window and confirming that it has stopped raining after the sky is crying all night, although it continues being quite cloudy and it is that yesterday when we arrived in Rio Dulce from Semuc Champey, they told us that it had been raining for days until just that afternoon.

Day 9: Semuc Champey - Lanquín - Río Dulce (How to get from Semuc Champey to Río Dulce) Today's alarm clock has been the sound of the awakening of nature and the first lights of the day, making its way through the curtains of our window cabin, warning us that the time has come to get going and start picking up the backpacks to start with the transfer of Semuc Champey to Rio Dulce, which will be our last destination of the trip to Guatemala before leaving for Honduras.

Day 8: Semuc Champey It rains. It has been raining all night. It was two o'clock in the morning when we heard voices and firecrackers. Firecrackers in the middle of nature? It takes us a few minutes to remember that it is New Year's Eve and there are guests who are celebrating it in the main hall, while we rest to be fresh the first day of the year and visit Semuc Champey, the most beautiful place in Guatemala, according to many.

Day 6: Tikal Inn - Visit Tikal - Flores Before starting the story of all the experiences we have had when visiting Tikal, we will make a brief summary, explaining the reason for the last minute changes we decided to make yesterday after visiting Yaxhá and enjoy of a sunset in Tikal. Sunrise in Tikal Our initial idea, since we started preparing this trip to Guatemala and Honduras for free, was to be able to do the famous Sunrise Tour in Tikal, an even main reason why we chose to stay at the Tikal Inn.

Day 5: Night bus from Guatemala City to Flores - Yaxhá - Sunset in Tikal It is 5:30 in the morning when we arrive in Santa Elena, where the Maya de Oro terminal is located, from Guatemala City from where We left last night after visiting the villages of Lake Atitlan and seeing that the driver we have today has not yet arrived through Guatemala Destinations, which will take us to Yaxhá, the least known Mayan ruins of Guatemala, we pass to the interior area of ​​the station , where there is a small coffee that we take to take a couple of cups of that good black gold that begins to charge us with energy to face today.

Day 7: Flores - Lanquín - Semuc Champey (How to get from Flores to Semuc Champey) The alarm sounds at 4:30 in the morning. Today is the last day of the year and the first thing we think is that we will be part of the day on the way from Flores to Semuc Champey, in Cobán, which will be our next stop on the trip to Guatemala and Honduras for free.

Day 4: Lake Atitlan: Panajachel, San Marcos la Laguna, Santiago de Atitlán- Antigua - Guatemala City - Night bus to Flores We continue with a kind of jetlag that seems not to want to leave us since we arrived in Antigua a couple of days ago. We woke up at 5 in the morning, taking the opportunity to leave everything fixed before going to visit the villages of Lake Atitlan.

Day 1: Lloret de Mar - Barcelona Airport - Frankfurt Airport - New York (Go from JFK Airport to Newark in New York) - Guatemala City - Antigua Today is or has been a special day, considering that half the world has celebrated this On Christmas Eve dinner, we have to say that we have celebrated a Christmas Eve snack that would allow us to return home at a reasonable time, not to sleep, but to rest a few hours before we set off, at 3 in the morning, to Prat airport.

Day 2: Antigua: Central Square - Cathedral of Santiago - Convent of Santa Clara - Convent of Santo Domingo - Church of Carmen - Convent of the Capuchins - Church and Convent of La Merced - Arco de Catalina It's 7:00 in the morning when Our alarm sounds and marks the beginning of this trip to Guatemala and Honduras that we will start enjoying the city of Antigua in one day, where we met after spending more than 24 hours of travel yesterday, in which we passed through Frankfurt, we made a Change of airport in New York, from JFK to Newark and finally we arrive in Guatemala City at midnight, then move to Antigua, where we finally rest until this morning.

Day 3: Antigua - Chichicastenango Market - Lake Atitlan (Panajachel) It's 4:30 in the morning and we're already with our eyes wide. It is clear that the jetlag is beginning to take effect and we have not yet gotten used to the schedule on this trip to Guatemala and Honduras for free. Seeing what time it is, we take advantage of working for a while, before starting the day we will go to the Chichicastenango Market, before going to Lake Atitlan, where we will stay in Panajachel.

TRAVEL PREPARATIONS This year, after placing on the calendar what would be the long trip of the year in which we met China and adjust the escapes we had based on holidays and bridges we still had 18 days in which we were clear that We wanted to find a different destination, that fit in the days we had to know the most important and that had little to do with the dates we were going to travel, Christmas.