My wife and I returned last week from out visit to Guatemala. I am writing to report to you that our trip went very well and that we enjoyed it greatly. Although -- as foreseen and intended -- we certainly did not stick to the "beaten path" of tourists ...
My wife and I returned last week from out visit to Guatemala. I am writing to report to you that our trip went very well and that we enjoyed it greatly. Although -- as foreseen and intended -- we certainly did not stick to the "beaten path" of tourists in Guatemala, we never encountered any significant difficulty. That is noteworthy because visiting some of the Mayan sites required considerable organization and support. Most extreme was Dos Pilos: on February 2nd we left the Posada Caribe at 7:30 am by boat (the only possibility!) accompanied by the two (friendly and helpful) policemen, our guide and Don Julian; at about 8:15 am we arrived at Giovanni’s coral where three horses were saddled and waiting for us; we then set off with Giovanni and Don Julian leading us through a maze of paths across fields, forests and swamps; taking turns on the horses, with only brief breaks, we reached the minor site of Arroyo de Piedra at roughly 11:00 am and Dos Pilos at 1:00 pm; after enjoying our "picnic" lunch and after examining the ruins, we set off on the return; we reached the river around 5:30 pm, the boat awaited us there and by 6:00 pm we were back at the Posada Caribe. As you will appreciate, visiting Dos Pilos has little in common with visiting a church in Antigua . . .
Most of the hotels at which we stayed were very nice and corresponded very well to our preferences. Aside from the rather dismal hotel in Nebaj, all the hotels were satisfactory, and even the hotel in Nebaj might have seemed more agreeable if our stay had not coincided with the presence there of a very large and badly behaved group of "Desert Queens". (They acted and looked more like "Dessert Queens".)
The driver that the local agency had selected for us was ideal: aside from driving well, he spoke English well enough to discuss all practical matters without any confusion, he helped us learn some Spanish, and he told us a lot about contemporary Guatemala. In addition, having been properly briefed by Ms Sagniewicz from the local agency and knowing that we were not inclined to stick to the "beaten path", whenever he did not where something was, he asked until he found it.
One of the reasons why my wife and I like to travel is that there are often positive surprises. In Guatemala we were positively surprised by many things -- from the beauty of the gardens to the excellence of many museums and from the creativity of the artisans to the apparent security and peacefulness of Zona 10 of Guatemala City.
Naturally we would like to express our thanks to avenTOURa for having dealt so patiently and so effectively with our numerous and very specific requests. We are very pleased with our visit to Guatemala and we thank you for helping to make our trip so enjoyable and rewarding.