PD, Monterrico, Guatemala
It’s been a month since we last blogged. We’re still in Guatemala, and mum and dad left last week after spending three weeks here with us. It was wonderful to see them. But one week into their visit we received some very bad family news, which knocked us for six. The trip took on a totally different hue, as our thoughts and worries were constantly turning to home.
We decided then not to write anything for a while, and so, to catch up a bit, this next post will be in two parts within a few days. Mum and dad on a trip to the supermarket, Lago de Atitlan
Once it was clear we were going to continue with the holiday as planned, we did everything we could to make the most of our time together, and of mum and dad’s first visit to Guatemala. We’re pretty sure they liked it! Although we stayed in hotels and rented houses while they were here, they got a bit of a taste of our life on the road as we drove around the country from place to place. 
One thing’s for sure – it was sometimes a bit weird to see our daily life through their eyes. Now, we are well aware that the roads are fraught with hazards like dogs in the road, kamikaze bus and truck drivers, interesting over-taking manoeuvres, and car-wrecking elements like unfeasibly large potholes and vicious speedbumps. But somehow it looks even worse when you’ve got your mum and dad bouncing around in the back, occasionally covering their eyes and not infrequently mouthing exclamations.
I think I mentioned that my dad is a bit fastidious about cars – he likes them to be looked after. With that in mind, he actually showed remarkable restraint by not swearing at every speed bump we encountered. Likewise, it took him a whole week to finally crack and wash the windows. He’s so zen these days.
We demonstrated that the van can cope with tight spots, by inching through packed marketplaces in Coban, Santa Elena and Rio Dulce. And we showed our navigational skills to the full by, er, deliberately getting lost in Guatemala City – twice – and then rescuing the situation just when things looked hopeless. Well done us.
We were extremely keen to make sure the trip passed off without incident. There’s no denying that Guatemala has its share of road accidents and crime. And most visitors come a cropper at some stage with the food or water. Knowing they would be returning to a stressful situation at home seemed to make this all the more important.
But we didn’t want it to be safe in a dull way. So we got on the ancient-looking canoe and let the 14-year-old ‘captain’ row us down a canyon. We walked round the un-visited part of Livingstone with a bloke we’d just met on the street. We spent an afternoon on a yacht in the nautical hands of an American bloke who’d clearly had more beers than was healthy. Worse still, we sank a few cervezas ourselves and then he let us steer.
The sublime view from our balcony, Lago de Atitlan
And we took the long way round to the far north of Guatemala so we could see a different part of life from the touristy spots, at one point driving the van onto a rusty car ‘ferry’ to cross a river en route to Coban.
And after that two-day journey we made it to the Mayan ruins at Tikal in the northern Peten jungle. Wandering the ruins and the area around our hotel we saw spider monkeys, coatis, toucans, oscellated turkeys, and many other birds I cannot name but which were captured on film by dad, a keen photographer, particularly of wildlife. The howler monkeys were more elusive but made enough noise to confirm they were there.
Because we like to make life challenging, both houses we rented, at Rio Dulce and at Lake Atitlan, were only accessible by boat. So we dumped the van on dry land and hauled our stuff – including most of the contents of our little kitchen – onto little lanchas to get there. Every time we had to go shopping it meant a river or lake trip to town. But for any hassle involved we were rewarded with yet more abundant wildlife and great scenery. And some bloody enormous insects. There was one flying beetle so terrifying large, it made the same lumbering movement and sound as a Chinook helicopter on take-off.
In hot and steamy Rio Dulce we had a rustic wooden house on stilts, with a boardwalk leading to a little bar and restaurant. The ‘hotel’ was really near the town, but a boat was still needed to get there. After our shopping we had to wave or shout in order to get a lift back. Our reserved calling wasn’t enough though, so we employed the talents of a local boatmen who hollered like Tarzan to get the attention of our place’s boat driver and fixer-of-everything, Luis.
Luis was just one of many great people we met. We were glad mum and dad found the Guatemalan people to be among the most friendly they’d encountered. It was nice they could see for themselves that we’re in a great part of the world.
In Atitlan, for our final week, we found absolute tranquillity. Even the scorpion on the ceiling wasn’t enough to put us off the place, an amazing villa high above the lake near Santa Cruz La Laguna. Our balcony looked directly onto two perfect cone-shaped volcanos on the other side of Atitlan, set against a blue sky with the occasional cotton-wool puff of cloud clinging to the tops. Mum on one of the decks at our Rio Dulce river house
In both places mum revelled in the plants and flowers, while dad – for the most part – resembled a jack-in-the-box. He’d try to sit and relax, and then a hummingbird or bright blue butterfly would flutter by and off he’d trot with the camera.
While there they, and we, also got the chance to meet some other Latin America road-trippers. Via the website Drive the Americas we’d discovered others who were doing a similar trip to us were all studying Spanish at a school in another village in Atitlan. We met for beers and swapped a few stories, and hope to meet again along the road.
Saying goodbye to mum and dad at the airport was even more difficult than it would have been under normal circumstances. But we’ll be home in September for my 40th birthday. A good friend, Sally, whose sister lives in Australia, once told me that because it’s really hard being apart from your loved ones, what’s really important is that every time you say goodbye you should already have plans for the next time you’ll see each other. It was great advice.
More pics soon, but in case you missed this batch from Chiapas, here they are again – Flickr set: Chiapas (Mexico)
Days: 155
Miles: 7148.2
Things we now know to be true: Everything can change.
SEVENTEEN by SIX 