There and Back Again

David: We’ve been there and now we’ve been back again. Guatemala. As students we spent two weeks in Guatemala almost exactly five years ago. In need to renew our Costa Rican visas and use some free time at a RCI resort gifted to us by Dad and Mom Gosselink, we found ourselves in Antigua, Guatemala for a week of relaxation and cultural exposure.

Antigua is a very well maintained colonial town that is now the home of a hot tourist spot. It maintains its integrity of a colonial town and makes for a great spot to people watch, eat good food, and enjoy the view of three beautiful volcanoes. We really enjoyed our time there.

One place in Guatemala that has intrigued Sarah and I is the Mayan ruins at Tikal in the northern most part of Guatemala. We thought we might try to work in a visit while in Guatemala. So…… the adventure commenced. We took a very long bus ride and spent all day Tuesday there exploring the ruins. It was worth it as we now can say we have seen the Mayan ruins hidden deep in the rainforests of Guatemala. The ruins were very interesting and impressive. The rainforest was full of life as well. One of the highlights had to have been seeing a troop of Spider Monkeys walk across a set of ruins on their their back feet. It felt like we were in a scene from the Jungle Book. In fact, I did have a giant boa constrictor try to hypnotize me.

Having plenty of time to relax in Antigua, we decided to take another trip to a far off destination. This time it was Honduras. Neither of us had been before and Copan was only a short 5 hours away. Actually, it really didn’t seem that short. The ride seemed long but it was really interesting to see so much of the country side of southern Guatemala. And what was really interesting was that as soon as we crossed the border into Honduras there was an evident difference in the people and the homes. All the men wear cowboy hats. We spent our time in the city of Copan just soaking up the Honduran lifestyle. It was a cool experience for a super long day of travel.

So, Guatemala is a beautiful country. The people are beautiful too. One interesting thing was that we saw many North American couples with their newly adopted Guatemalan babies. Anyway, we had a great time and our visas our now renewed.