January 31st – February 7th

In an attempt to catch up on my blog, trip planning, work and other bits and pieces that require a laptop, internet connection and a quiet space, I’m presently taking some time out in Bogota, Colombia. Time is flying and the undocumented adventures continue to mount up. The odometer for the trip is sitting at around 24,000km right now with many kilometres undertaken since my time in Guatemala which is now more than two months in the past. I seem to enjoy each new country more than the last. I am happy, optimistic, in love with the adventures I’ve had to date and extremely excited for the remainder.

Jumping ahead in time somewhat, I’ve recently made the decision to try to stretch out this trip. So much effort went into embarking on it so now that I’m on it, it seems a waste to rush home. I will now tackle Patagonia on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere winter which gives me a lot more time and flexibility to complete the journey as it should be done, which is to say thoroughly experiencing the countries I pass through rather than just driving quickly through them. Now as I reflect on the short passage through Guatemala, I can’t believe how rushed it was and how much I missed out on. But it was thoroughly enjoyable all the same. It’s fair to say that Guatemala really took me by surprise and was a country I really did love.

Arriving in Flores:

Our cross into Guatemala started from San Ignacio in the West of Belize. The crew for this part of the journey included Hadyn (my long-time friend from Australia and business partner in our wine business Black & Ginger), Gabe from USA and Ingrid from the Netherlands. As has been nearly always the case, we acquired Gabe and Ingrid at a hostel in Belize on the back of a short conversation and figuring out we were traveling in the same direction. My choices to pull in other travellers to the car is usually determined by two things – do they seem like good people and is it time to mix up the composition of people in the car to alter the group dynamic. After 60 seconds of conversation with them, I made a snap call that the answer to both these questions was yes.

The drive from San Ignacio to the border was a short 20 minutes and there was nothing hard about this cross into Guatemala. There were no lines and the process of obtaining a permit for the car took only an hour. I had a little help from some locals at the border who weren’t pushy about a tip, we did the fumigation, paid a small entry fee and were through without much hassle. In retrospect, probably the easiest of all borders thus far.

Arriving in Flores was also simple – a short 90-minute drive - but the day was an odd one that required my attendance for a board meeting. While my adventure is my focus and my world right now, work hasn’t completely disappeared and my board positions require occasional attention. This day was a board meeting and necessitated a stay in a nicer hotel to prepare for and field the call. While occasionally an imposition, I don’t mind the odd interruption to deal with life at home. It provides a sense of purpose and serves as a reminder how lucky I am to be on this adventure and not in the daily grind that defined my previous eight years running our businesses.

Flores itself is a lovely little spot and most people stay on the island attached to the mainland by a small bridge. The streets have a colonial feel, there are many bars and restaurants on the water’s edge and plenty of places to try the local beers while watching the sunset over the lake. Otherwise, most travellers treat this place as a jumping off point to visit the ruins of Tikal which is exactly what we did.

Watching the sunset over Flores (left to right: Hadyn, Ingrid, Gabe and myself)

Board meeting prep in the hotel overlooking the lake

Skybar, sampling the various local beers to decide on our favourites

Tikal:

After visiting what seemed like dozens of archeological sites over the past month, it was hard to get excited about another one. However, Tikal proved to be the gem of them all and if I were to advocate any ruins, this is my pick. It didn’t disappoint.

We hired a guide and drove ourselves to the ruins. Ingrid turned out to be one of the most inquisitive people I’ve met and she peppered our guide with questions non-stop until he was exhausted and at times embarrassed and perplexed. Unfortunately, due to the significant amount of time that has passed and a generous diet of alcohol on this trip, I don’t appear to have retained anything worth mentioning. Hopefully the pictures below tell the story better than I can and inspire you to put this on your list of places to visit one day.

Everyone gathered around to check out this guy climbing on the thatched roof and then, embarrassingly for him, he managed to fall off the roof in an almighty thud surrounded by falling branches

Checking out the ancient food storage caves

Lanquin and Semuc Champey:

After Tikal, we left Ingrid behind and continued on the journey South through Guatemala. Driving as far as I have in so many exotic countries has given me a love/hate relationship with Google Maps. For the most part, it’s an extraordinary service and has been a constant companion since the day I departed, helped in large part to the offline maps function. But occasionally it leads you astray (or at least on an unexpected adventure). The drive to Lanquin in the middle of the country was one of those. The route was direct but the road was gnarly, slow, rocky, steep and single-laned (but with two way traffic). For probably 10 or 20km, the speedometer barely registered above zero as we crawled over rocks towards our mountainous destination. Thankfully the Land Rover was up for the challenge and handled it with grace but it left me wondering about most other vehicles that would have almost certainly have had to turn around.

Lanquin isn’t much of a town and most people’s stay is constrained to their hostel and a day trip tour to Semuc Champey. We stayed at Zephyr which is one of the biggest party hostels I’ve been to. A DJ played banging music until well into the night, well beyond my bed time. It was here that I met Dajana, a German solo traveler who would be my travel companion for a couple weeks from Antigua onwards.

Semuc Champey is a quiet series of waterfalls and lakes in the middle of nowhere in central Guatemala. The road in is treacherous and steep and usually tackled by the Unimogs which transport the tourists to and from. Again, the Land Rover was at home in the steep roads. Lacking a little for time, Hadyn and I opted to see this quickly on the way out to Antigua. We left a hungover Gabe at the hostel and traded him for an Australian couple, swung by Semuc and then headed straight out to Antigua. While our visit was short, Semuc Champey is an amazing spot. You can relax in the tranquil water while small fish nibble at your feet (the same ones that you find in Cambodian massage parlours to treat dead skin) while the jungle rises up above you on all sides.

Stopover in a town on the way to Lanquin

I quite enjoy finding car washes in the most remote and obscure pueblos I can find. Always a bit more interesting to explore a place that rarely gets any gringo tourists while we wait 30 minutes for the car wash

As cliche as these photos with town names are, they usually come out pretty well

Zephyr Hostel in Lanquin. Always a party here

I bloody love Unimogs. At times back in Melbourne I’ve participated in auctions for ex-army ones (always unsuccessfully). Not sure what I’d do with it but it’s about one of the coolest vehicles you could own

Antigua:

Antigua is a small colonial town on the outskirts of Guatemala City. It’s incredible as you pass through the outer suburbs of the dirty and dangerous capital, find yourself on a step road that descends into a magical old town – one which couldn’t be more different from the metropolis you pass through to get there. We arrived in the evening, despite best endeavours to avoid night driving, and instantly fell in love.

The town is filled with colonial architecture, cobbled streets, churches (both charming dilapidated ruins and well maintained ones still in use), markets, locals in colourful dress, micro-breweries, amazing restaurants, fun bars and party hostels. You could spend weeks here if you wanted. I think Antigua for me takes the prize for the town that most significantly exceeded my expectations on the trip to date.

Antigua is filled with colour, both the town and the people

I really liked the well maintained ruins of these churches

Many Central American countries including Guatemala have these awesome chrome and graffiti buses. They’re really well maintained, functional and look amazing

A woman cooking local food at the market

The crew at the Tropicana hostel. Brady, Dajana, Hadyn and Gabe

One of my favourite things to do on the road is visit the local micro-brewers and experience their take on small scale brewing. The brew pubs are always funky and fairly certain to serve you a tasty beer and a good meal

Acatenango Volanco:

Apart from being a beautiful town, Antigua sits in a valley surrounded by volcanoes encircling the city. And one of the sites that most people see when they visit is the Acatenango Volcano. To see it properly involves a day of hiking up with your own pack, camping overnight at the basecamp and then an early morning summit the following day before returning to Antigua.

The tour was offensively cheap at US$60 for the two-day hike, with food and equipment included. Gabe, Hadyn, Dajana and I were part of a group of perhaps 15 people for the excursion. The hike up was hard and Hadyn struggled with the exertion. We treated ourselves to rum at basecamp although it was a cheap local brand only made drinkable by the addition of Skittles to mask the flavour. We also had a dog friend follow us up the whole way and then down again the next day, craftily picking up our leftover food as we went.

The evening was spent watching the volcano spew lava from its peak around every 10 or 15 minutes. And in the morning, a couple hours hike up in the dark through dusty volcanic ash to see the sunrise from the peak. Personally, I had never seen an active volcano with lava flowing before so for me a truly unique experience. Thankfully Dajana, a photographer by trade, brought a proper camera and was able to capture many of these photos that wouldn’t have been possible with our phones’ cameras.

The descent was quick and we ran down for the most part, finishing up the hike in the middle of the day and getting back into Antigua early afternoon. The afternoon was dedicated to resting our tired bodies. Out for some drinks, said goodbye to our good friend Gabe and prepared to depart the next day where we would depart with two Germans (Dajana and Ruth) bound for the Honduran border.