Guatemala

Volcano St. Maria

Ken getting ready to cross the Guatemalan border

Marketplace in Antigua

The time has come to say goodbye to our friends and fellow adventure riders Della and Kelly, as they continue on to the Yucatan and family, and we step out of our comfort zone in Mexico and into a new frontier, Guatemala.

The weather continues to dictate our direction as we don't particularly like riding in the rain. We bypassed Belize because of the rain and the gravel roads, a lousy combination for us at this time. Guatemala is beautiful, we rode mountain tops to an elevation of over 9900 ft. Sights from our seat include small farms, cornfields to numerous to count, and indigenous people dressed in bright colored clothes wandering the roadcarring heavy loads of wood and goods for sale. Trucks and buses are so full arms and legs are often sticking out windows and over the truckbox. We often wonder if they will make it up the next hill or around the next blind corner that they insist on passing on.

There are many volcanoes here in Guatemala and we have had a chance to see one coughing smoke and ash, too close for us but an everyday occurrence for the people here. The best time to see the volcanoes are in the morning, the clouds start to form around the cone early in the day and by afternoon the rains come (it is still the rainy season for a couple of more weeks). The up side to the rain is that everything is green and lush and all the wild flowers are out.

The town we are in now is Antigua, it sits in a valley surrounded by 3 volcanoes, it was partially destroyed by a volcano in the 1700's and rebuilt. Today it is a sweet little pueblo with a colonial flare, cobblestone streets and old churches and monasteries built by the Spaniards. It reminds me a lot of our trip to Europe last year. We have stayed here a day longer than we had planned, there goes our schedule....what schedule? Oh well, manaña El Salvador...maybe!