Trip Report and Blog

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brennaabroad
brennaabroad

I got back from a fantastic 11 day trip to Guatemala last night. I kept a daily blog while I was there that can be found at http://brennaabroad.com/

As of right now, it is all of the recent posts; Otherwise, you can select "Guatemala"under the Destinations drop-down.

I also wrote a quick trip report today summarizing it, which can be found under "Trip Reports".

We used Alfredo Garcia for driving transportation between the airport and Antigua, and the Lake and Antigua, and we used Avianca for flights to and from Flores. Alfredo was great, Avianca not so much.

We spent 2 nights in Flores and Tikal, 3 nights in Antigua (though split up so that we only had one full day there), and 5 nights at Lake Atitlan.

We never felt in danger, and everyone we met was friendly and helpful.

Logistics- ATM and phone counter are both at the airport before immigration, so we were able to get everything sorted right off the bat. We primarily relied on ATMs throughout the trip, using our credit card every now and then.

Let me know if you have any questions!

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hopefulist
hopefulist

Great blog - thanks for sharing!

My photos w/ blog & travelogue links on the main page of each collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/collections
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cahbot
cahbot
In response to #0

Thank you - your blog was wonderfully helpful. ABout Lake Atitlan . . . . . Traveling with a 7 year old who is only learning to swim, and your experience with rough waters, makes me feel cautious about the boats around the lake. If it were your neice, do you have any input such as : does the water tend tend to be calmer in the morning? . . . and . . . would it be an over-reaction to buy a life jacket in town (or do they have them on all the boats?).
Any fedback about this would be appreciated.
Thank you!

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hopefulist
hopefulist

In my experience, the lake tends to be calmer in the mornings but when the wind picks up it can be rough then, too; might be good to leave enough flexibility in your schedule to delay crossing if it's rough. In recent years it has appeared to me that the boats have more of those little orange life vests, tucked in under strings on the ceilings, though maybe not always as many as passengers. You could put one of those on your 7 year old or you could bring a good quality PFD with a face-up collar - they weigh next to nothing and you could leave it behind for a local if you didn't want to pack it home.

My photos w/ blog & travelogue links on the main page of each collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/collections
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brennaabroad
brennaabroad

Hi cahbot,

We had several choppy boat rides, but it was really only the one day that I was actually worried about tipping over. Mornings were always calmer while I was there. Most of the boats I was on had several life vests strapped to the ceiling, though like hopefulist said, probably not enough for how many people they pack on those boats. That's what happened with our last boat-ride that one day when all the locals were wearing the life vests, and there were none left for us when we hopped on :).

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aslukas
aslukas

I agree with Hopefulist that you could bring (or buy) your own PFD pretty easily if you're really worried.

The lake is calmer in the morning and the boats run all day connecting the various towns around the lake to Pana and to one another, so as long as you leave yourself a little flexibility you can just watch for a still morning and then snag the next boat.

And of course if you're really worried about the boats you could always just stick around Pana itself.

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