We knew that Semana Santa (week long Easter celebration) in Latin America would be a crazy, crowded week, full of parties late into the evening, closed businesses and intense traffic, some of it impaired by too many Easter cervezas. Everyone we consulted advised that we would be smart to find somewhere quiet to hang out for the week and to stay off of the roads. But we thought the week began on Good Friday. We found out at the last hostel that the week actually begins the weekend prior to Good Friday, leaving us only one week to make plans as to where to stay before Semana Santa celebrations started.
Category Archives: Guatemala
Semuc Champey
Lanquin is the town that many backpackers base themselves out of to visit caves, do hikes and see attractions in the area, Semuc Champey being the highlight. We had been warned that the road to Semuc Champey was rough, had a few precarious bridges that might not support our 5 tonne plus rig, and after the drive the day before, it wasn’t really appealing to us. We opted for a return trip on the hostel’s shuttle to Semuc Champey and back at a cost of about 10 CAD each.
Rough Roads, Machetes and Lanquin
We looked at the different routes we could drive to get from Rio Dulce to Lanquin. There were a few options given by Google Maps, but our iOverlander application warned that the roads of some of the routes were bad…really rough, unpassible bridges, rockslides, that kind of thing.
Rio Dulce
Many travellers have heard of Lago Atitlan in Guatemala, but the largest lake in Guatemala is the less visited Lago de Isabel, at the outlet of which lies the small harbour town of Rio Dulce. The Rio Dulce river then flows about 40 kilometres out to the town of Livingston and the Caribbean Sea.
Las Pozas
We wanted to head towards Rio Dulce, so to break up the trip we spent a night at Las Pozas. The family owns a large piece of land along a river, where the water gathers into pools for swimming. We arrived in the afternoon on the weekend and there were many local families in the park enjoying the water, the rope swings, the picnic shelters and the soccer field. The owner told us to wait until a little later in the day when the crowds thinned and then we could move our truck to the river and set up for the night.
El Remate and Tikal
We crossed into Guatemala, worried that we would struggle with our spanish after having been in english speaking Belize for two weeks, but the words came back to us and the border crossing went very smoothly.