Exploring Again: Day Traveling to Antigua Guatemala, Borders and Washed away Bridges
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Sat 14 Aug 2010 02:41
Back on the exploring trail after 3 weeks of rest, this will be 8 to 10 days
exploring the mountains and towns Antugua and Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala.
We left at 9.30 in the morning with Jorge our driver and his family from
Bahi de Sol, and headed for San Salvador to drop his family off, they have 8
year old son who had a lot fun with Sean yesterday.
Then with just and Jorge we headed west going for the top border along the
coast the trip was meant to be 4 hours, and we settled in seeing a different
part of the country and coast from land we had sailed down this coast when
we came here back in April. We were in a Jorge's mini van and we bounced
along the road, which are needing a lot of work, it appears the new
government here (been in for a year) has different ideas on where to spend
the money. But we arrived at the border to find trucks lined up, and then as
we went up the side of the road to get around trucks, we then found the
immigration procedure changed, so we had to back peddle a little. The
Guatemala side we got stuck behind a jam of trucks, who seem to park all
over the road, blocking it as they get their papers done, again we went up
on the side walk, through the trees to get through. Like all borders it is
nice to get to other side, after all these years of going through border
crossings, I still find borders a nervous time nice to get through.
As we tried to catch up the 45 minutes we lost at the border, we went
through very lush, valleys, with blue lakes, and volcanic hills, and great
stone cliffs. Then we found ourselves at another jam, this time a road
detour, waiting another 1/2 hour we then were put on a dirt road with all
these trucks to go through a sugar cane filed to a narrow temporary bridge
over a rover (the main road bridge had been washed away in the tropical
storm Agatha a couple of months ago) and then back onto the road. A local
shower, opened up, and it was heavy rain, windscreen wipers could not keep
up, and then as we started climbing the mountains (Antigua is at 1500m) we
again found ourselves going around washed out roads the road had just
collapsed. We could see on the boarder houses and guard houses hanging just
off the banks of the river with not foundations any more, the road we are on
has just been opened with the border closed due to bridge been damaged at
the border, and then two other road sections washed away.
Remember this year with Agatha and a number of other storms Guatemala has
had over double it's expect rain, and worst rain in 40 years, but it makes
for very green country side. Antigua is an old Spanish colonial town in the
coffee growing area, just under the active Volcano Pacaya (it was the one
that erupted in May covering this area and Guatemala City in ash. The
streets of the town are river pebble cobbled, with markets everywhere for
handcrafts, and then restaurants, which send a superb smell. We tried a
Tapas bar tonight found a superb ice cream store, (boys very happy), and
enjoyed true brewed local coffee.
Tomorrow we explore now it's sleep after our trip took 6 hours instead of 4
from San Salvador, stay tuned.