A week in Guatemala – from sprawling city to heavenly lake and cultural Antigua – our favourite country so far??! 🇬🇹

We sandwiched a trip to Lake Atitlan and a visit to Antigua (Tony loved their grid system😆) – between 2 different areas of Guatemala City. We spent our first day in the city’s Zone 1 in the hospitable company of Christian – a tour guide who spent the whole afternoon proudly showing off his city from lunchtime marimba dancing with strangers in a local cafe whilst drinking michelada- beer mixed with tomato juice, lime, chilli, salt.. (it’s no wonder they dance Marimba) – to getting a local bus to the 100 year old relief map of Guatemala 1:10,000 scale – ridiculously accurate! We went to a market – finding a stall just selling huge truckles of cheese and tubs of homemade butter. On our return trip to the city we stayed in the chic Zone 10 with the effusive and very welcoming DeeAnn who rents out rooms in her beautiful house, full of gorgeous local art, textiles and stylish interior. She recommended a visit to the Museo Ixchel – full of incredible vibrant textiles and invited us to see the Nutcracker ballet with her but we opted for an early night listening to great music in the Esperanto Bar! Guatemala suffered during the civil war from 1960-1996 with many indigenous people being killed, the country is slowly recovering but the memory of such atrocities live on. More on the rest of Guatemala later…