Guatemala Favorite Adventures
OUR FAVORITE ADVENTURES
Guatemala
Our Guatemala Favorite Adventures
Our Guatemala Favorite Adventures
We were lucky enough to spend just over 2 months in this amazing country and there was still so much more to explore. Here are a few of our favorites.
# 1. Exploring Antigua
Antigua is one of our favorite cities in the world. Surrounded by active volcanoes, it’s a great base camp for mountain biking and hiking adventures, including hikes up the Acatenango volcano and mountain biking. Antigua also has awesome markets and restaurants. It’s a beautiful city at any time of day, but especially during the “golden hour” before sunset when its colorful buildings and churches glow in the beautiful light of the Guatemalan highlands.
# 2. Exploring Tikal
Even if you have seen plenty of Maya ruins in Belize or Mexico (like we had), Tikal is still worth it. It’s a huge ruin in the jungle and there’s a lot to see, including wildlife. It’s also sparsely populated compared to other more popular ruins like Palenque or the larger ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
# 3. Exploring the Ixil Triangle
everal hours to the north of Chichicastenango is a fascinating and off the beaten path indigenous region of Guatemala. It’s a great place for hikes through the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes mountains. Nebaj is the heart of the Ixil Region. We’d recommend going to Nebaj to stock up on food and supplies and to arrange tours at the El Descanso restaurant (which is also the location of an agency that runs tours). A better place to stay is Hacienda San Antonio on the outskirts of Acul which you can get to from Nebaj in a colectivo.
# 4. Hiking in the Highlands
There are several good regions to hike in in Guatemala. We did a 3 day, 2 night hike in the Ixil Region. We’d also recommend doing a hike in the Todos Santos region (in fact it might be even better than hiking in the Ixil region).
# 5. Learning Spanish
Guatemala is a great place to learn Spanish. It’s cheap and there are numerous places to study it, including in Antigua. We took informal lessons from a woman in the Ixil Triangle but would have preferred to take classes in Antigua if we had been able to find a good campground there.
# 6. Mountain Biking
Good mountain biking is hard to come by in Central America. So I was psyched to get some great rides in Guatemala. We’d recommend using Antigua as a base for any mountain biking in Guatemala, and hiring one of the guides that work at Mountain Bike Guatemala. In addition to day tours, Brendan, the owner of Mountain Bike Guatemala, also organizes epic multi day mountain bike trips like the trip from Lago de Atitlán that I completed with him.
# 7. Scaling Volcanoes
Guatemala is a great place to hike up volcanoes, including active ones. We completed the relatively easy hike up the Volcán Pacaya, an active volcano close to Antigua. However, an even better trip is to hike up Volcán Acatenango to get a view of the Volcán de Fuego, a stratovolcano that is famous for being almost constantly active.
# 8. Shopping in Indigenous Markets
The markets of Guatemala are fascinating, regardless of whether you are visiting them to buy gifts for your family and friends, to shop for indigenous weavings or to stock up on food and supplies for your overland adventure (or in our case all of the above). Chichicastenango (“Chichi”) is a great market but it’s a pain to get to. You can find most of the same stuff in the Antigua market at a slightly higher price. Guatemala is also a great place to buy weavings. My favorites include the weavings found in Quiche (in particular the Ixil Triangle). The best place to go to find a good selection of weavings is Nim-pot in Antigua. But it’s even better to get weavings in the regions where they are made.
# 9. Visiting Indigenous Communities on Lago De Atitlán
Lago De Atitlán is surrounded by numerous Maya indigenous communities including Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil communities. One of the best things about staying on the lake is that you can use the Lanchas or motorized boats which connect the lake’s numerous towns to explore these many communities.
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