Need advice...small hotel or lodge suggestions

Barry,

It would help you to try to learn a bit of Spanish before your trip - instead of relying on hotel staff to know English. After all, it is a Spanish-speaking country and you are a guest!

Even just picking up a phrasebook (like Lonely Planet's Spanish phrasebook - small and pocket-sized) will help you in your searches, and will also be more respectful to the locals if you make an attempt to understand their language.

Cheers,
Kay

We just got back from Guatemala on Tuesday evening (6/12). we also stayed at Posada la Merced and Casa del Mundo. Loved them both. You can't go wrong with either of them. By the way, Posada la Merced charges and extra 4% if you use a credit card and casa del Mundo does not take credit cards....FYI in case that is useful for you.

ATM's in Antigua were woking fine two weeks ago when I was there.

Honestly, if you don't speak any Spanish it's going to be a bit of a struggle or at least inconvenient most places you go in Guatemala from what I saw. Can't help you with the other two hotels you mentioned, but I do know Jorge at Posada La Merced speaks fluent English and helped us out with info about many places to go while we were there.

Again thanks for all the quick response as we will probably book air today and yes we will fly in and out of Fort Luaderdale which is certainly easier than MIA...We do speak some Spanish and we have been on "buying " trips to Coata Rica ,Panama, Ecuador and Argentina over the past 5 years but it is nice to have a bi lingual contact who is locally based to help with planning day trips and connections....

Any thoughts about the money situation?..Are the ATMs working and will most artisans and steet wendors take US dollars ?..That seemed to be preferred in other recent trips we have made in Central and South America....

Street vendors take your dollars but for less than the prevailing rate of exchange. AtM's are working fine, just beware that most of them take Visa rather than MC. So you may want to carry both of them. As you deplane and before you go through immigration there'll be a money exchange window. But I'm not sure how late that stays open. Like I've mentioned to you before the central market in GC is my favorite place because it is indoors, and not crowded at all and you can find a much better selection of export quality stuff,better than anywhere else. I've never had any reason to worry about pickpockets in there as you can pretty much tell who is and who is not. But of course you don't want to drop your guard. That makes it an ideal place for shopping or doing business. And even though you're not buying directly from the artisans themselves, you can always negotiate a good price as you can see that they are felexible and want to do business. I'm an artist myself and I saw on my recent trip some excellent paintings at very reasonable prices. GC is a very polluted city but you can always take a trip from antigua without having to spend the night in GC. Good luck.

Cash travelers checks at a bank so you have lots of local money to make your purchases.