November 29 – December 4, 2023
December 11-13, 2023
The trip started off with a positive bang. We had a layover in Houston, TX. United Air announced that they were looking for volunteers to take a flight 3 hours later into Guatemala City. They were offering $500 USD plus a $30 meal voucher. WooHoo! We jumped on it.
We arrived in Guatemala City a bit later than originally planned. We were heading toward the exit when we were stopped by security asking if we had a QR code. Huh? We had to back track and scan a QR code and fill in all the entry questions regarding bringing in fruit, weapons and excess cash.
We flashed the “confirmed” bar and were permitted to exit. It is weird that this was right at the exit, as there were lots of people backtracking, like us, and clogging the entire area.
Catching an Uber turned out to be a bit tricky. The confirmation gave the license plate number as J002892. We were looking for that plate number HOWEVER the plate was actually J2892, the zeros were silent, I guess. The Uber cost under $6.00.
The apartment was on the 8th floor of a modern condo building. It was a beautiful and spacious location. We had a nice view of a busy street corner and the Ministry of Defense. It was very noisy with trucks using jake brakes, motorcycles revving, and horns continuously honking. There was fireworks every night, too. Once I put in my earplugs I slept like a baby. There was always the distinct smell of exhaust in the living room, even on the 8th floor! Gag…
The Torre del Reformador on the end of the block that looks like a tiny Eiffel Tower. It is 71.85 metres (235.8 ft) high. And was built in 1935 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Justo Rufino Barrios. He instituted a lot of positive reforms for Guatemala. It hovers over the street, with one pedestal resting on each of the four street corners. It lit up at night.
We went out for groceries – enough for breakfasts and a few light dinners. The exchange rate is 5.77 GTQ = $1.00 CDN. The price of petrol is 28.49 GTQ per US gallon. ($1.30 CDN / litre) Closer to the El Salvador border it was 32.19 GTQ / gallon.
The next day, Dec. 1, we went for a walking adventure. The first adventure was the Coffee Place downstairs that did not serve coffee. OK, then…. But I did find 40 GTQ on the sidewalk so we treated ourselves at the coffee shop across the street.
We were initially headed to the Train Museum for no other reason other than it looked interesting. That turned out to be an understatement. We got a young guide who was super informative. He pointed out a steam engine that used to burn wood but was converted to run on crude oil.
He took us to the 120 year old presidential train. It had a mahogany interior and armoured outside. It had two beds, two bathrooms (one with a shower), ventilation, a telephone, thermometer, astronomical clocks, five closets, kitchen, office, heating, and a small veranda on the back of the car with two arm chairs to enjoy the passing scenery. It would have made a great Aribnb!
The old steam engine had a bathroom for the engineer. It was a tiny space under the engine where the temperature reached 50 degrees Celsius and was surrounded by 600 volts of electrical circuits. Yikes!
He showed us the small explosives that were placed on the track to warn an oncoming train that there was danger ahead and to begin slowing down. As the train ran over the blasts, they exploded and warned the engineer.
He pointed out the exquisite handwriting in the ledgers.
He explained the ticketing system. There were different coloured tickets for first and second class, as well as east and west coast. The ticket was a large piece of stiff paper. The agent had a special cutter that chopped a notch into it as it cut it into two pieces. One piece stayed with the traveller the other with the agent. Tickets cost 10 cents per mile. Freight was 1 cent per pound.
He pointed out thick leather money and mail pouches that had loops for many padlocks to prevent breaking into them. The leather was about 5 mm thick (3/16”)
From the Train Museum we came upon a Christmas Festival.
North Americans could learn a thing or two about how to celebrate Christmas from these people. They go all out! Lights over the streets, lights on the buildings, lit up buses to take kids around. Canada used to have things like this, but sadly, no more.
Pierre bought a huge corn on the cob that they smeared in mayo. First of all the mayo was not as tasty as butter, and secondly the corn was rather tough. We threw it away.
The Cultural Museum only gave guided tours in Spanish, so we opted out.
We popped into a couple of churches. The best one was Iglesia San Francisco. It was the most beautiful church interior I had ever seen. There were cascades of white and blue silk hanging from the ceiling. It was breathtaking! The next day we walked past it and meant to pop in again, but there was a huge Christmas procession, complete with marching band, coming out of the church. I have no idea what it was all about, but a TV camera was perched on top of a van to capture the event. There was a full marching band behind the procession of young children carrying a platform loaded with flowers around the Virgin Mary. Fireworks were going off, sounding like gunfire, the band was playing, and we were right beside the van with the TV camera. How lucky we were to be in the midst of it!
We stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. It was the BEST burrito I had ever eaten. We returned almost everyday because of it.
On the walk back to the guesthouse we came upon an AIDS awareness rally. We were given several condoms and enjoyed seeing a drag queen posing for photos. (We left the condoms in the Airbnb)
There was an entire block of street hairdressers doing hair extensions and mini braids. Two days later, I could not resist and got my hair done in little braids. It only cost $34 – with a generous tip included.
6th Avenida is definitely the shopping district with lots of eateries and shops. It was completely blocked off to motor vehicles for the Christmas season. Interestingly, every 2nd or 3rd shop was selling shoes. When we were killing time waiting to catch our bus to Flores a few days later, I counted 25 on one side of the street and 30 on the other – in a 10 block span. It also had 4 mattress stores. Weird. One, not very big, mall had 13 hair salons and 7 tattoo parlours on one level.
I went into a shop to look at some clothes. Pierre thought I was going to be at least 15-20 minutes, so he snuck across the street to buy an ice cream that he would not have to share. BUT I came out of the shop 2 minutes later and caught him red-handed just as he was about to take his first lick. This picture is posed, but the original look on his face was priceless! He turned 5 shades of red with his tongue about to touch the top of the cone. Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar! LOL
We walked over 9 kilometres, just killing time. Kids are kids everywhere. Along the street were evenly spaced trees. We saw one little boy, who obviously had to GO. He just whipped it out and peed on a tree. Problem solved.
On Saturday went into Iglesia Yurrita, a beautiful little church that we had passed before. Don Felipe promised to build a church while praying to the Virgin of Sorrows if she kept his family safe during the earthquake of 1902. In 1927 he began to put together plans for the construction and building supplies to be used. It was inaugurated in 1941. Don Felipe died 5 years later.
The church looked really old on the outside. Inside had some modern details, like the glittery stucco on the walls and columns.
There were mysterious bronze inlays embedded into the cement at the entrance.
We passed a few buildings with Mayan cement murals up the entire side of the building and along the fence.
We headed to the Military Museum, which we discovered was closed for the weekend. The area of the Museum was very artsy and a delight to simply walk around. The architecture was very modern and airy.
When we returned to Guatemala City a few days later, we returned and did make a tour of the Museum. It had the history of generals and battles, but unfortunately it was all in Spanish so we could not appreciate it to the fullest.
Since it was closed we decided to head back to the Christmas Festival, just for something to do. We went through a HUGE market (Mercado Sur Dos).
It sold everything one could imagine. An entire section was dedicated to veggies, another to meat, another to household goods.
In the meat section a butcher was so proud of his workmanship he insisted I take a video of him.
If you think plastic is going to disappear anytime soon, you need to see the Plastic Superstores in Central America.
There were lots of eating places. Each “restaurant” had its own cubby hole divided by partitions that you would see in an old fashioned office building with cubicles. One thing always on every menu is chicken. We quickly grew to like the chicken dinners. They were large portions, cheap and tasty.
We came upon an outdoor nativity scene. The sheep were made of corn husks and were really cute.
Apparently, Rudolf was a llama.
We walked past the municipal building. There were men on the street with typewriters. I can only imagine it was to submit formal documents to the court. Can the people not read and write or was this simply to decern bad handwriting? There were also vendors selling satchels and shiny men’s shoes. Gotta look good in front of the judge.
Overall impressions of Guatemala City: There are lots of babies and toddlers.
The kids don’t cry. They always seem to be happy and amusing themselves.
The older women dress in a traditional wrap-around skirts and colourful blouses with beads. All of the women have long hair.
There are street cleaners all over the place, and therefore not much garbage laying around.
Very few people wear glasses or smoke. The people are very short; we towered above them. Traffic is horrendous. Many shops had bars and purchases had to be made through the bars.
Everything in the stores were tied down. Even the soap and toilet paper dispensers were padlocked.
There are shoe shine men and boys all over the place.
The older women have elaborate aprons, covered by normal aprons.
The prams are what North American kids push their dolls in.
We had to return to Guatemala City from Antigua for Pierre to get his yellow fever vaccine updated. The clinic was a little hole in the wall, no bigger than a bedroom. The nurse stood in the doorway as if waiting for customers. The place was empty. However, she was still indignant that we did not go through the proper protocols of making an appointment (we did, from Antigua) and not paying in advance. She somehow managed to slip us in.
We had a 10:00 pm bus to Flores, near Tikal ruins. We killed the day wandering along 6th Avenida, as mentioned earlier. Finally, we headed to the bus terminal nearby. We had first class reclining seats for the 10 hour ride.
We were told there would be a half hour stop halfway into the journey. When the bus stopped, we got out to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom ($0.50). When we got out of the bathroom the bus was GONE! Thankfully, I had my purse with phone, money, and passport. Pierre had left everything on the bus. We rushed over to the ticket counter, which was thankfully still open at 2:00am. He called the bus and it returned for us. It had not gone far and seemed to make up the lost time as our arrival in Flores was right on time. Our hearts were pounding and we didn’t get any sleep on the final leg of the trip.
An Old Lady with a Backpack 
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