Hiking in Guatemala

Yesterday was a wet and windy day, and it got even more wet and windy through last night. It was definitely an indoor kind of a day and I spent a few hours of it researching travel in Guatemala.

We've mentioned Guatemala several times over the past few years. The first time we thought about it was in January of 2010 when we were actually considering taking Sherman all the way to Panama. Lots of people have done this, but at the time we hadn't even explored Mexico to the extent we wanted to. Plus we had Whiskey with us and it is more difficult to cross borders with a dog.

Last year, we again thought about taking Sherman, but only to Guatemala and Belize. But by the time we got to Puerto Escondido, we had already been thinking about bringing the little blue car down here this winter and so decided to put it off once again.

Now, we have it figured out that taking the motorhome is not the best way to see these Central American countries. Gasoline is more expensive, insurance is an issue, and hotel accommodation can be as cheap as what you would pay to camp. So, we'll take the little blue car!

We will probably stick to the area in the circle.

We have read that if you like the state of Chiapas in Mexico, that you will love Guatemala. And Chiapas was certainly an interesting state to visit, and we did like it a lot. In doing the research yesterday, I came across a website for a charitable company that does hiking and trekking in the Guatemala highlands. 

This company arranges guided treks that range from one to six days. We want to do the six day hike!

http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/guatenebaj.html

It's actually only a four day hike because there are two travel days involved. Read through the tabs numbered one through six to see what each day involves. This sounds like a GREAT experience to us! And look at the cost...only around $140 each and it includes all meals. Sure, it's pretty basic stuff, but we don't want to go to a country like Guatemala and stay in a five star hotel. We want to experience the country and it's people, not just be tourists.

So now we're pretty excited about this. There is a ton of other stuff to do in the area, so we would have no trouble staying busy for two or three weeks in that area alone.

Even so, we're going to hold off making a firm decision until we've made it to Puerto Escondido later this month. You do have to book these hiking tours a little bit in advance, and we see by their schedule that the six day hikes leave twice a month so we're looking at February 19-24. 

Anyhow, lots to look forward to before then. But we've put off our departure by a day because of the miserable weather yesterday. So far, it's pretty cloudy still, but we have seen the sun peek through a few times so hopefully it's going to clear up and we can get everything accomplished that we want to today. Either way, we're heading out of here tomorrow morning!