Day 36 – Antigua
Antigua was the historic capital of Central America under Spanish rule from 1543 to 1776. It is now a protected UNESCO world heritage sight because of a good deal of baroque architecture and preserved ruins.
Waking up in the tourist police car park, we set off for breakfast in the main market, only a five minute walk away. We found an open stall right where all the “chicken buses” depart and had breakfast for 15Q ($2) a person. We’re rather coming to like Guatemalan breakfast – typically beans (either refried or whole), scrambled eggs with tomato and onion (and sometimes sausage), a feta-like cheese, cream, and sweet fried plantains. Today it was served with a mountain of tortillas and coffee was included.
We started off by taking a walk through the central old town and paid a quick visit to a free museum on Spanish-Guatemala relations. It wasn’t terribly interesting, but was set in a cool historic building. Continuing on, we went to the central palace museum on the main plaza, which was, as Viki puts it, “the worst five dollars we ever spent”. There were some old guns, swords, and cannons along with the traditional outfits of the Spanish centuries ago.
Our next stop was much more exciting, the “Choco museum”, where we sampled many many chocolates. They had classes on how to make chocolate, a section on the history and process of chocolate making from bean to finished product, and many items for sale. We tasted coco teas, chocolate coffee, chocolate liquor, many of different flavours of chocolate nibs and many flavours of chocolate spreads. Lunch was sorted. We next went to the Jade museum where we were given a mini private tour and we learned how three colours of jade – black, lavender, and some shade of green are unique to Guatemala. Our final stop before coffee break was Nim Pot Centro de Textiles Tradicionales, where we looked at souvenirs, found ourselves a cool wooden mask to bring back home and some worry dolls for when Viki gets stressed.
For the remainder of the afternoon, we relaxed at a fantastic cafe, “Artista de cafe”, which had just opened for business two days prior. We spent a while chatting with the owner, who was Guatemalan but trained in Paris as a coffee connoisseur. We shared an Aeropress coffee along with carrot cake that had been baked at home that morning by the owner’s sister.
Dinner was in the street at the Iglesia de la Merced, where we had some fantastic local food sitting on the sidewalk. We had “enchiladas”, which were more like tostadas, grilled corn (the local kind is chewy, not so sweet, served with lime and salt, and is delicious and nothing like the corn we get at home), rellenitos (plantain balls stuffed with sweetened bean paste), and two kinds of the sweet beverage atol (rice-based and corn-based). We were happy.
Day 37 – Entering El Salvador
Typical Guatemalan breakfast provided another great start to the day. We rose early so that we would have a big buffer in case of issues at the border. Soon after departing Antigua we fueled up and after checking the rear left tire, noticed that it was down to 25psi, even though we had just topped it up to 35psi a couple days ago. The leak seems very slow, but, as there are “pinchazos”, or flat tire repair stores, every few miles, and it’s only $2 to get it fixed, we decided to pre-emptively have the tire checked. Lo and behold, after removing the wheel and submerging it in a tub of water, a hidden metal sharp object was found lodged in the tire. The whole repair took about 10 minutes and then we were off and away.
Getting about 5km from the border, there began a massive queue of lorries. Many drivers napped in hammocks that were suspended tautly below their trucks. We followed the course of another car that wove into the oncoming traffic lane and would dodge out of the way when another vehicle was oncoming. It was a rather chaotic mess to be an international border crossing. Exiting Guatemala we were somehow convinced by a man to give him a tip to help us get our paperwork in order to cross the border. We had to first get a Guatemala exit stamp in our passports from one office, then get a photocopy of the exit stamp in mine from a second building, then provide a whole host of paperwork to a third office in order to get a temporary exit permit for the vehicle. On to the El Salvador side, we provided our paperwork, somehow figured out how to fill in a form in Spanish about the vehicle asking specifics like the cylinder count and the fuel type, and passed it on to an inspector who, as Viki says, “was the slowest man in the world, he could have been a sloth.” He went back and forth between eating greasy french fries and pottering about the printer and finally came out and inspected our vehicle’s identification number. After a half hour or so we were in El Salvador.
The roads were sneaky today. They’d appear nice and pretty and smooth in the sunny sections, but then we’d enter sections covered by trees, where the road condition was impossible to make out until entering the shade, and then BOOM, there’d be a whole slew of potholes. Fortunately our brakes work and we didn’t hit anything too too hard. After a couple hours we arrived in El Zonte and are now paying $10 a night to “camp” (sleep in our vehicle) at D’Takito’s right by the beach. We get a safe place to park (even though El Zonte feels remarkably safe already), access to the swimming pools, showers, and hammocks, along with drinking water and a view that cannot be beat.
