It's pretty expensive though, and also pretty full of tourists who apparently by about nine pm start vomiting drunkenly on nearby culture. It's a strange atmosphere in places which obviously don't appreciate this kind of behviour, but also continue to encourage people to visit as that is where all the money comes from, and a lot of the history is frozen in time for visitors.
This also makes it expensive, so we escaped and got a delicious lunch elsewhere and then went looking for some ruins, but they turned out to be closed. How rude.
Monday we went into the city centre. A lot of people, Guatemalans and travelers, have implied there's nothing there worth seeing. It's a big modern city but not completely empty or dangerous. There's a giant relief map of Guatemala that you have to view from a viewing platform (this made C very happy). The map was made in 1904, prior to use of areoplanes for topography, making it an impressive achievment. The whole thing was so clearly an expression of ´modern´ Industrial Era Guatemala, with its little model oil rigs and railroads (the latter of which no longer exist). There is also an ice cream shop which claims to have 1000 flavours and certainly had some weird ones, including beans, gum and beer.
We got a tour around the palace. Arriving at about one o'clock we were told we would have to wait a little while for the guides to be ready. We settled down in the sun to watch the world go by, and it was at this point some walking stereotypes appeared. They were white (turned out to be from LA), middle aged and a couple, and seemed deeply offended that the guards at the palace did not speak english. Our host, who is Guatemalan, helpfully stepped in to help clarify the situation. On hearing that we would have to wait for the guides to be ready to work the woman delcared (not for the last time but we'll spare you the repitions) "I´ve never HEARD of such a thing!"
They went on the emit such gems as,
"Gonna have a fiesta and a siesta, huh? This IS Guatemala."
and
"What if they don't want to work at all?! What are we supposed to do?" J could not resist suggesting at this point that we sit in the sun and eat ice cream. It seemed necessary to difuse the atmosphere of having been kidnapped or something equally terrifying. Not familiar with sarcasm the woman registered the comment as a suggestion but did not seem comforted.
"We are at their mercy!" she said.
Given the time of day and the fact that when our guide did appear he was very friendly, patient and helpful indeed, we suspected he was actually grabbing a coffee and a sandwich rather than trying to emotionally humiliate us. His spanish was very slow and clear and both of us managed to understand the whole tour and help with translation for the Californians. They had attached themselves to our host announcing that they would 'stick with her' despite her not actually having offered to translate everything into what is her second (if completely fluent) language. We saw the official 'point zero' of all Guatemala's major highways, beautiful architecture and stained glass
and the murals of the country's history. Our guide compared them to Rivera's work in Mexico City, and they are indeed big stylised historical murals, but there the resemblance ends. The context in which they were painted, the governments in charge, and the different artistic styles give them quite another bent. Rivera's images of rape, in-fighting and political unrest are in Guate replaced with conquistadors shaking hands with Mayan women, big white chargers and bolts of lightning, and an indigenous population made up of 6'4'' broad shouldered men and slim waisted, tall women, half dressed and being mystical. It was interesting to see the contrast.
As we left, the couple did better than ever. They asked our host the way to McDonalds as it was "the safest place for them to eat". Thankfully it was in the opposite direction so they couldn´t see us laughing.
The next morning we hitched off towards El Salvador. Guatemala continued to be the best place we've ever hitched and though none of our lifts were going very far at a time we made it to the border easily and then on to Santa Ana. We were planning to get across to Suchitoto where our next Couchsurf was waiting, but the roads between the two were dead quiet and buses stop surprisingly early. We ended up staying in Santa Ana, munching pupusas which are a big traditional food here and REALLY GOOD. The next morning was C's birthday so we had a decent breakfast before bussing to Suchitoto. We had to go to San Salvador (the capital). All bus routes go there and people aren't even sure other roads exist. We shouldn't have to go back with the route we have planned but may get sucked in again...
Here our host runs a hostel and lets Couchsurfs have a couple of free nights. There's also a restaurant so we had some dinner there after a walk to the nearby lake, and then relaxed in the hammocks. Today we explored the town and market in the morning (more pupusas for breakfast and the necessary papaya which is still plentiful) and then took a hike up the river to a set of two magical little pools where we went swimming.
We couldn't find the bottom, and we'd only recently seen an advert for a hotel with an 'infinity pool' and been wondering what it was, so concluded they must mean this. It's warm enough that we just dried in the sun while we picnicked.
We move on tomorrow, hopefully not back to San Salvador, but will have to let you know...
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