One week Guatemala
Antigua
Antigua is famous for their colonial architecture and even a World Heritage Site, you can easily get around by foot or TukTuk and explore the beauty of Antigua.
Especially Convento Santa Clara was one of my highlights, the entrance fee is around 5 USD, open daily from 9am to 5pm and it´s a place full of history.
Apart from walking through the city, one of the most popular things you can do, is climbing a volcano either Acatenango/Fuego or Pacaya.
If you want to travel to some other places, you can easily take Shuttles to El Paredon, Guatemala City/Airport, Panajachel at Lake Atitlan...
Volcano Acatenango
The hike up to the summit of Acatenango was honestly the most exhausting hike I have done so far, but definetly worth the view. We booked our trip over SoyTours (around 60USD), but almost every hostel in Antigua offers some tours.
After SoyTours picked us up at our hostel, we drove to their base, where we got an extra jacket, pants, scarf, hat, gloves and a head lamp. Do not forget to bring Cash, since you can not pay in advance. After a short instruction about the hike, we started climbing up. The hike itself takes around 5-7 hours depending on how fast you are going up, including lots of water and food breaks. They provided us lunch, dinner and breakfast, we only had to bring water for ourselfs. It was super exhausting but you get motivated by all the others and the view that is waiting for you. Arrived at the basecamp we got our tents with sleeping bag and matrace, which are located inside a small hut. If you are motivated you can do the Fuego hike as well which is another 4-5 hours. Acatenango has an eruption every 15-20 min, so we could see it through the whole night. Since we wanted to do the sunrise hike as well, we hiked up another 1.5hours to the summit at 4am, but it was so worth it. Walking down was way easier and we arrived at the first base camp after 4hours.
It was definetly a experience I will never forget and would always recommend it. If you are not in a good physical shape you can also get a horse to get up or one of the guides can carry your backpack.
Lake Atitlan
We took a Shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel to get to our hostel located in Santa Cruz, from Panajachel you have to take a boat which takes you to the other small villages (around 3 USD).
San Juan is the most artsy town with lots of streetart, but most towns are only reachable by boat, except of San Juan to San Pedro. So we took a TukTuk to get to San Pedro. They recommened it for some shopping, especially thrifting and for jewelery. My personal favourite was San Marcos it is a hippy village with a lot of vegan restaurants and a good vibe. We tried out the Restaurant "Samara" and they got so delicious food.
We stayed at La Iguana, which has a family dinner every night and a super relaxed vibe. Also Mr. Mullet and Free Cerverzas are really good and fun hostels, especially if you want to party.
El Paredon
For our last night we went to El Paredon, located at the Pacific Ocean. If you want to try out surfing, it´s the perfect place to rent a surfboard or even take a lesson.
We stayed at the " Mellow House", which is such a cute hostel with a swimming pool and fun acitivities, like a family dinner.
Good to know
You can easily book shuttles over your hostel, it is not expensive but it takes a lot of time to get around. If you have more time definetly visit Tikal and Flores in the North and Semuc Champey in the middle of Guatemala.
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