Guatemala

Guatemala is a whirlwind of vibrantly colored blue bird buses, highly armed officials,  helpful locals and deliciously cheap eats!
We crossed into La Mesilla where we had our first experience of the well-known 'chicken bus', which isn't used to transport chickens at all anymore, or any other livestock for that matter. Only as many people as you could possibly cram into a school bus plus approx. 14 more..
Our first desination was Quetzaltenango (more commonly referred to as Xela), a mecca of foreign spanish language students and a thriving tourism industry catering to adventure seekers like ourselves. These locals took full advantage of their surroundings, with some of the most popular hiking in Central America. We took to some horse back riding then a bit of premature relaxation in the Fuentes Georginas Hot Springs before we indulged ourselves in a two day trek amongst the active volcano, Santiaguito. This beauty was in a state of erupting 3 to 50 times every day! An early start got us up to a viewpoint at around 9:00am (before the predictable cloud coverage) where we could look across and get our first experience of the eruptions. We continued through thick brush and narrow paths until we came to steep, slippery volcanic rock. We clambered down only to be faced with an equally steep climb back up to where we would camp and have easy access to another clear and much closer view of the volcano's crater. The six hour trek was well worth the reward. We found ourselves in surrounds we had never experienced before. No traces of human life, not even wild animals appeared to have made this their home.. we were alone. Once darkness had fallen and the rain clouds cleared, we all climbed about 10 minutes to where we watched in awe this natural phenomenon take its course. Each eruption as exciting as the last, we even got to see lava tumbling down the mountain!
The morning after we returned, we headed to the bus station. Now, when I say bus station in Guatemala I am referring to the mad cluster of chicken buses with destinations being yelled at every turn. I'll just call it a station because it seems as though there is an abundance departing from here. We were destined for the country's largest lake and holiday destination for tourists and Guatemalans alike, Lago de Atitlan. The lakeside town of San Pedro Las Laguna was beyond slow paced, and where we stayed, the Happy Hippy Hostel, took it even further. We gorged on "holy moly nachos" and soaked our tired trekking muscles in the solar hot pools, then took part in the Sunday poolside bbq that served even more ridiculous portions than Cafe Atitlan did with the "holy moly nachos"! We reluctantly carried on from the laid back San Pedro Las Laguna and travelled by water taxi across the lake to Panajachel where the streets are flooded with arts, handicraft and any kind of souvenir you could imagine!
Four chicken buses later (each with equally frantic change-overs) we were in Antigua where Dan and I spent our Christmas, able to skype both our families and enjoy the beautiful city. We splashed out on a minivan/1st class bus for the longer haul between Antigua and Rio Dulce which wasnt exactly the elegant city I was expecting by it's name.. we did however have a whole dorm to ourselves in the upstairs of a meat shop! And the hot waterfalls was well worth the trip. We took a cruise up the river to Livingston, unique in Guatemala as it is home to the rich Garifuna culture not found in the rest of the country.
Off to the beaches of Belize next!