Guatemala
Hiii Ladies 💕 ! Welcome back to My Travel Blog! I felt like I hadn’t blogged in so long, and honestly, I felt worn out by life, politics, and figuring out my new full-time job. But of course, I am back, and I am back with a new updated country that I visited 🇬🇹
Guatemala has been on my bucket list for quite some time now. Central America is my favorite area to visit, so my interest sparked when I saw many reels about the country's beauty and also about a part of Guatemala that looks like The Shire! When I saw an amazing travel deal for $162 non-stop roundtrip with Avianca Airlines, I knew I had to book! First, it would be a solo trip, but I decided to let my dad know about it and he was all in! So, we booked our flight and headed out to Guatemala less than 2 months later.
Our flight was extremely early like 3 am early 😫. But, we arrived at JFK Airport, ready to go on our adventure! Both exhausted, we slept the majority of the flight there. My dad always lets me do the majority of the planning and he just goes along with it. He didn’t know how much moving we were doing during this trip, but I knew he would have been a good sport! We booked for only 6 days and for those 6 days, I booked 3 different rooms!! We packed light and we both were excited about our adventure to a new country together!
We arrived in Guatemala City and took our shuttle to Antigua, Guatemala. Our first room was in the heart of the city and right next to The Santa Catalina Arch. Since we arrived earlier than check-in time, we dropped off our luggage. Changed into new clothes and started exploring the area, including the famous Cerro de la Cruz cross. While we were walking around, I realized that the high latitude was kicking my ass! My huffing and puffing were no joke and honestly, I was worse here than in South Korea lol!! By the time we were done exploring, we went back to our hotel and our beautiful room was ready! Remember when I mentioned the 3 different hotels at the beginning of this blog? Well, this room, we only booked for one night because the next location was part of our journey that I was most excited to visit! So, we took showers and relaxed for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we ate our breakfast (that was included in the price of the room). Got ready and packed up so we could walk to our meeting spot to be picked up by the bus to our next location. So, I have mentioned The Shire and my love for Bilbo Biggins. Well, Guatemala has a hotel that references and feels like you are stepping into Middle-Earth! This hotel's name is called Hobbitenango and I was so excited that I was shaking. This place has been a dream of mine to visit and we planned on staying here for 2 nights! So, once our bus finally came, we jumped right on and made it about a 20-25-minute drive up the mountains! While driving up there, I started to get emotional and honestly thank God that I was even able to experience this moment.
Once we arrived, we were greeted by the friendliest faces and the best views I have ever seen in my life. Now, it was extremely cloudy, once we arrived because not only were we in the mountains, but we did come to Guatemala during the rainy season. So, the clouds were basically.. clouding lol! Following our arrival, we were shown to our hobbit-hole. I was fortunate to have booked it in advance because it was known for selling out. Also, Hobbitenango does offer day passes to explore, have fun, and enjoy games! But, I knew I wanted to stay at the location. Our room was AMAZING, clean and I cried with joy. I felt like I stepped right into Hobbiton. Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit music was playing in the background at every part of this location. I Facetimed my mom, who is just as big as a J.R.R. Tolkien as I was and the way she expressed how amazed but how jealous she was of me was something that I will remember for the rest of my life. Walking around there are tons of games, 2 restaurants, vendors, and of course the famous stone hand of a troll.
I could continue to talk about my time there, but it would have my blog over 10 minutes long lol! So, if you want please watch my YouTube video to see how it looked and how I felt there. But, also seeing an active volcano in the distance was nuts!! Gave me some PTSD when I was stuck in St. Lucia for an extra 4 nights because Saint Vincent of La Soufrière was erupting and we had to stay back. But, anyway, two days passed, and a huge rainstorm later, we were on to our next destination.
Lake Atitlan was our last and final destination was about a 3-hour ride because our bus decided to break down. But, we arrived! Not going to lie, I was honestly exhausted between my cycle arriving, to the humidity to all the moving we were doing. I honestly, just wanted to relax but we got up and took a tut-tut and did some shopping. The beautiful culture of Guatemala was truly seen and noticeable here compared to Antigua. The bright beautiful colors of the fabrics and bags being sold by locals was such a sight to see. The cutest kids smiling and being around their mothers, made me feel like this place was home. I felt comfortable and knew I should come back and take time to visit this part of Guatemala. We did all our shopping locally and wanted to support locally on this trip rather than a big tourism store. Embarrassing moment: I split my shorts getting out of the tut-tut because I was attached to something. Like, completely saw parts of my underwear and my dad just made sure no one was looking. But, I LOVED those shorts and had to throw them right away as soon as we got back into our room 😫😔.
Well, the journey back to Guatemala City was certainly a long one. We took a shared bus back to the airport to take our flight back home. Our travel day was extremely long and we didn’t arrive back to JFK until 2 am the next day. But, the positive side was that our flight was later that night, so we knew we could leave the lake the same day we planned on leaving the country. I mean honestly, what was I thinking of doing this beautiful country justice in just 6 full days? Am I crazy? Honestly, no. I just like to call myself experienced because I know how to use my time wisely and I found out that I would like to visit certain countries again and Guatemala is at the top of my list! So, please don’t skip Guatemala when traveling around the world. Plus, it's extremely affordable for female solo travelers!
Thank you Guatemala, you owe me nothing ❤️ 🇬🇹.
