Todo es mas bueno!

[fivemack]

I am in Guatemala, on the shores of Lago de Atitlán: dawn broke about an hour ago. Peace is disrupted only by the shrill whistles of the grackles, the clacking of amorous(?) coots, and the occasional motorboat-taxi across the lake. To the left Mount Atitlán is poking out behind Mount Tolimán; to the right, San Pedro.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I'm on an organised trip doing the Ruta Maya, rather quickly to get the whole circuit from Antigua to the Atlantic Coast and back done in a fortnight: fourteen of us (including both my parents) in a reasonably air-conditioned minibus. Today we're wiggling around the lake and I think Maximo. is on the schedule. I can see myself coming back here: I imagine it takes a long time for 'oh look, Fuego is erupting again' to get old. Might need to be a bit fitter than I am now to be confident that climbing Agua is practical.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Fake traveller! What you are missing is

"We set off with only small backs on a triple chicken bus ride through the mountains to Chichicastenango, seated 6 abreast (middle 2 with half a buttock on the seat). The conductor climbed up the back of the moving bus to deposit a bag, and rather than fight through the bus as a moving block puzzle game, must have run along the roof, as he swung into the front door Indiana Jones style a few minutes later. Our driver spurned a delay because of roadworks in favour of a dirt track winding through the hills, and our faithful ex-ex-school bus, doubly loaded, roared round hairpin bends and 1 in 8 hills that I'd only have down with a 4WD. Urgle!!"

So we upgraded

"Many of you post about upgrades on flights costing hundreds of pounds or thousands of air miles. Well we were offered us the deal of the century, 4 more chicken buses back to Antigua, or our personal minibus for 3 Q extra (the princely sum of 20p)"