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Wednesday 13 November 2013

Guatemala and Great Travel Tips

If anyone is heading south to Guatemala... here are some travel tips for you.

I am actually back in Canada right now (I seem to travel back and forth) but busy planning my next trip south to Guatemala. There always seems to be a next trip.

This time though instead of traveling through Mexico to my second home, Quetzaltenango, I am flying straight to Guatemala City.

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_City

Flights from Vancouver are very reasonable in December... And if you are prepared to fly directly around Xmas time even on Christmas day, well super cheap deals can be had as well. New Years Eve is another great time to travel... 

No one really wants to travel on those days.

One trick I found that works a lot of the time, is you choose a particular day of the week that you want to fly on, then you only do your searching (a few weeks before) on that same exact particular day. For some reason only the airline know... it is cheaper doing that. So if you want to travel on a Tuesday, then you only do your searching on a Tuesday.

Here is one of my tricks I use to find my super great travel deals. First, I hardly ever go to a travel agent anywhere ever. With the power that the internet provides any land based travel agency, is basically a thing of the past today, unless of course you trip is more complicated. Complicated in what airline you may want or if you want to avoid certain countries. Then it is far better to use a travel agent as they can search out a bigger variety of flights for you.


There are many such online travel agencies out there.
Travelocity http://www.travelocity.com or Expedia  http://expedia.com are two such companies, but there are many others equally as good such as http://www.skyscanner.com. The latter one you can search out a whole month at a  time. Here if your travel plans are not rigid well sometimes searching out a month at a time is far more practical.

I use such online travel agencies to locate airlines that are offering cheap flights on then dates and times that I want to travel on. Then when I get the information I need, I go directly to the airlines themselves and I then amazingly I sometimes can get a better deal myself. Sure it takes a little searching, but that is part of the adventure.

A little something about Guatemala... There are many people out there that have this totally wrong conception about Guatemala and that it is a dangerous place to visit. 

It survived a 36 civil war that ended in 1996. That war is over and gone with...

The entanglement of the CIA and certain US government levels and their involvements is well documented with its inaccurate misunderstanding and the fear of spreading communism in Guatemala and other central American countries. The coup in Guatemala that was transpired and was fueled by this same connection helped to fuel a war that lasted some 36 years with 200,000 people mostly the indigenous Maya people either being killed or totally disappearing. Whole villages disappeared. The memories have not ended and are not forgotten in this cruel segment of history.


Is Guatemala safe to travel to or live in? 

Yes and equivocally without question.

But there are those that wish to spread their versions of misguided truths. I have heard it time and time again. Sure yes, and if you read and believe what is written in the Tabloids (anywhere in the world) believing the journalistic filth, these bottom line publications pump out, you would never go anywhere. Then there are people that from somewhere in their imagination or from hearsay, they conjure up similar untruths without ever leaving their arm chair.

Okay so you have decided to travel (from your destination) to Guatemala, great... so here we go.... 

There are many routes to Guatemala and I usually travel from Mexico and that information for that is covered in other segments of this blog. This route is from wherever you live to Guatemala City on your preferred airline.

So you arrive and so where do you stay? Well most flights into Guatemala city will have you arriving late. It will be dark already. It gets dark at around 6:30 pm anyway, so yes it will be dark when you arrive.

There are countless hotels and hostels to stay at when you arrive in Guatemala. Most of these will have a free shuttle service right to their location. How do I find the right place to stay? 

I use basically the same method as probably you do when you search. This is just like searching for an airline.  I search out through online booking agencies such as  Hostel-world http://www.hostelworld.com or another such as Hostel Bookings http://www.hostelbookings.com and then I take the information they give me and go directly to the hotel or hostel I want to stay at and I make a direct booking myself.

Como esta tu espanol... or how is your Spanish...

You may know some Spanish or you may know very little or (horrors) none at all. Well the following two places I would recommend are Hostel los Volcanos... they speak English...  http://www.hostel_los_volcanos.com

Here you will stay in a gated community and very close to the airport. The people at Hostel los Volcanos will pick you up at the airport for free and the next day arrange for a trusted taxi to take you to the bus station.

Or if you want to be in the "live zone" then Quetzalroo would be more to your liking.
http://www.quetzalroo.com 

Hostel Quetzalroo set in the centre of the city is close to restaurants, bars and things to do. Hostel Quetzalroo is near the action. They actually pick you up at the airport for free and transport you to your bus of choice also for free.

Transportation.
Cars. There are a variety of ways of getting about (on land) in Guatemala. Renting a car is one..... But renting a car and driving a car in Guatemala is not something I would recommend anyone doing to anyone that has not driven in a Central American country before. 

Driving anything in Guatemala is far removed from driving anything you will ever experience anywhere else in the developed world. Guatemalan drivers are very aggressive and follow their own form of communication. They blow their horns a lot. Toots for warning people, toots for passing, toots for saying hello, toots for hurrying up and toots just because. It is a language all of its own. 

The rules of the road are very different as well. They do not stop at stop signs. They will pass a vehicle crossing a double line and do that driving straight at you. The rule is get out of the way.


Buses.
There are several bus companies in Guatemala. ADN, Fuento del Norte, Linea Dorada, Galgos, and Almo.

Galgos and Alamo are more like the Pullman style buses that Greyhound buses use in North America (Canada and the USA) and these come complete with non working washrooms. The washroom doors will have a padlock on them.

The buses that ADN, Fuento del Norte and Linea Dorada all have working washrooms and are styled much like the buses in Europe. The prices for travel are also higher.

Chicken Buses (camioneta) or second class buses.

Chicken Buses a term used by tourists are actually old school buses from the USA. Apparently in the states, these school buses can only be used doer a few short years as school buses in the USA so a lot end up in Guatemala.

Branded in garish loud colours with lots of bright chrome, loud Latino music blaring from them. They veer and sway and loudly careen up and over twisted mountain roads, each driver thinking he is up an coming gran prix driver.

Actually since most drivers do not own the bus there is a reason that they cram as many people in them as possible and drive so fast. The driver has to pay the owner of the bus a certain amount of cash each day the bus is driven. Above and beyond that amount, less gas and other expenses, well that is kept by the driver and his helper.




The average costs of a chicken bus ride is about one third of the cost of luxury style bus.

As I am tall I only really take chicken buses for short trips of no more than two hours. The valued and best seat on a chicken bus for me is directly behind the driver as there will be a little extra leg room there. Oh and it is expected that three people will sit on each seat in a chicken bus.  You can though for added comfort buy that extra seat in the middle.

But in saying all of this, you have never truly experienced Guatemala until you have taken at least one Chicken Bus somewhere.

Spanish Schools....
In Xela alone there are about 30 Spanish language schools. Too many to list here. 

English schools.
English is slowly becoming more common. Now it is taught in private schools to both children and also to adults in Guatemala. 

Trade schools.
There are around thirty trade schools in Xela.

Universities
In Xela alone there are ten universities.
There is this joke that the drug lords will send their kids to school in Xela because it is safer than in Guatemala city. That actually may be true.

Xela is also know as the cradle of culture because tf the many different schools there.

Drug lords
Well as the saying goes, the guns go south and the drugs go north. We cannot hide from the fact that a route exists up from Columbia and through to Mexico and then to the USA.
I have never ever personally met a drug lord, not actually want to.