Hi,
I don't think I've ever written a trip report before, but we just went on a 10-day road trip and did some OK stuff and although I know that not many people here drive, all of what follows you can do by public transport, so I hope it's of some interest. We weren't really traveling on a budget, but not splashing out either - most meals were around the Q30-50 mark (a couple of the nice ones were around Q100) and we mostly paid about Q80-100 per person for rooms with private bathrooms.
It started off badly of course, but that was my fault - I'm still laboring under the impression that coming off Roosevelt, you can go north on the ring road as you come into Guatemala City, basically avoiding the whole downtown snarlup, and end up on the start of the Atlantic Hwy out of town. But I must have missed the turnoff or whatever, so we ended up getting spat out in the middle of Zona 1, which made for half an hour or so of wrong turns and general confusion with the windows wound up (carjack paranoia) until we got out the other side and were on our way.
They've been working on the highway east out of Guate for a while now and have made some good progress - smooth concrete and four lanes for 50 or 60 km after Aguas Calientes and it looks like they'll keep going, so we didn't get stuck behind trucks for too long, which has always been the frustration for me on that stretch.
We were heading for Coban and pretty much as soon as we turned off to the north it clouded over and started really belting down rain and then it got dark and I was thinking, great, driving at night on a road I've driven once before in the pouring rain, this is pretty much exactly what I warn people against, but we made it into Coban OK and checked in to the Hotel Centro, which I think is the best deal downtown, even though they did do that sneaky thing of quoting the room price then at the end charging us that plus+ the 12% IVA +plus the 10% INGUAT tax.
Anyway. The restaurant at Casa D'Acuña is still an excellent deal - great food and service, excellent atmosphere. Looking around at the Movers and Shakers who were dining there it was funny to think that the room next to the patio where they were eating is a bunk dorm, but that's one of the things that make that place cool. It was hot the next day so we went out to the Balneario Las Islas just outside of Carcha, which is a nice little place even though all the rain had made the water a little muddy. Late afternoon we went walking in the Las Victorias National Park which is about 10 mins walk from the central park in Coban and I'm just blown away by that place every time - so huge and lush and yet really right practically in the middle of the city.
We left for Lanquin and stopped by to see the "hot" new place there, the Zephyr Lodge, which didn't really impress me that much - it's way up on a hillside (good views, annoying walk to the river) and kind of barren and dusty, which felt out of step with how that area should be, but it was obviously the party hostel du jour, and we weren't looking for that so we stayed at El Retiro which was quieter (although you could still hear the Zephyr's low-rent party music at night). There were still people around at El Retiro, though, and to be able to order a beer and walk 10 meters to dangle my toes in the water while sitting on the grass under a shady tree is really exactly what I was looking for. My one complaint there was that our room had no fan, which totally threw me and made for kind of sleepless nights.
We went to the Lanquin caves and wandered around inside and waited for the bats to come out at sundown, which I'd never done, and there really were thousands of them - quite a sight. Went out to Semuc the next day, which I really like and we just swum and hung out and looked at the idiots jumping off rocks and hoped that they had good travel insurance because boys will be boys and every time someone did something silly someone else had to do something sillier.
Next came the bit that I was worried about - we were heading for Rio Dulce and I wanted to take the back road down to El Estor, but I wasn't sure about the road - it used to be in terrible shape and had bandit problems, etc, so I asked the people at El Retiro about it and they gave me one of those "yeah, you'll be fine" type of answers that made me suspect that they may have never actually even been along that road so I called the ASISTUR representative for Alta Verapaz and he was great. I know I must seem like a tout for ASISTUR sometimes but I think, when you consider that it's a part of INGUAT and just how useless INGUAT is, that ASISTUR is an excellent service. Free travel advice from people who know what they're talking about is so hard to come by here. All of the departmental delegates' cell phone numbers are listed here:
http://www.visitguatemala.com/web/index.php?option=com_contact&catid=13&Itemid=1040
and I can't recommend them enough, for driving questions or just tourist info in general.
The ASISTUR guy (Charlie or something improbable like that) had just driven that road last week and told me that it was in the same condition as the road we had just driven, from El Pajal to Lanquin (which it was) and it should take about 3 hours to get to El Estor (it took 3:08) and that we should go left at the El Ecologico turnoff because the other route, though newer, was in worse shape.
So we did, and it was a fantastic drive - following the river out of Lanquin for half an hour or so, then climbing up on to the ridgeline before dropping down to the flatlands out the west end of the Lago de Izabal. We got into El Estor starving, ate lunch and had a swim in the lake, but the water was uncomfortably warm, so we headed for the El Boqueron canyon, just out of town, where an old guy rowed us in a boat up into the canyon and we swam there and it was cool and lovely.
We dumped the car in San Felipe and got a ride across the water to the Hotel Kangaroo, a beautiful little Australian/Mexican run place just up a creek that runs into the lake across the water from the Castillo. I can't recommend that place highly enough - Gary the Australian is a super-friendly guy and his partner Graciela cooks some of the best Mexican (not Tex Mex) food that I've had in Guatemala.
We stayed there a couple of days and caught the boat down to Livingston, hung out around town, caught a taxi (Q5 per person) to the Playa Quehueche, which is far enough out of town for it to be reasonably clean, but it was still a bit grimy. So the next day we paid the Q100 each and got a boat ride out to the 7 Altares waterfalls (beautiful, excellent swimming) and Playa Blanca.
As our boat pulled up to Playa Blanca, another three boats came in behind us and dumped a tour group of about 50 Mexicans on the beach and while we were scrambling to grab one of the two hammocks and some deckchairs a couple of the Mexican kids came running out of the water screaming that they'd been stung by jellyfish.
So the Mexicans all packed up and left and we were left on this beautiful beach dipping our toes in the water, but we could see the jellyfish out there - apparently it was some freak tidal thing that had washed them up there - and we never really went in for a swim but it was a very pretty place anyway, and I'd definitely go back.
We stayed at the Rios Tropicales in Livingston, which I remember from before being a good deal, but it's kind of overpriced now. There were 4 of us, though, so we took 3 rooms and haggled the price down to just mildly annoying.
I'm ashamed to say that we ate nearly all our meals at the same restaurant in Livingston - the Buga Mama. It's such good food in just the perfect location and we weren't really tempted to go elsewhere.
Coming back we tried to drop in at Quirigua, but they close at 4:30pm (and charge foreigners Q80 entry now) which of course makes perfect sense - why would you open a shadeless archaeological park in hours when the sun wasn't beating down? and it was about 4:32, so we got back on the road and by the time we were in Rio Hondo it was getting darkish so we stopped at the Hotel Pasabien which is like a big family resort but has these cheaper (Q100 per person), fan-cooled rooms off to the side and went across the road to the Hotel Longarone, which I know is Italian-owned, so I wanted to check out the restaurant and it was actually very good - fresh pasta, good bread, decent wine list, real espresso coffee. All of which was kind of unexpected out there in the middle of what is basically to me a desert. And that was about it for our little vacation.
Anyway. If you got this far, congratulations. Let me know if you have questions.
