How to…get in to, around and out of Guatemala

Getting in
Guatemalan immigration is so relaxed that we had to ask for an entry stamp at the Cuauhtemoc/La Mesilla border crossing from Mexico. There was no fee and we just strolled right through. Most tourists don’t need a visa to enter Guatemala and will be given a ninety day tourist stamp on arrival.

We were on a shuttle bus from San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, that dropped us off at the border and transferred us to another bus on the other side where we continued to Panajachel, Lake Atitlan.

Getting around
Shuttle buses are the tourist speciality in Guatemala. The travel agencies know the places that tourists want to go and provide direct buses between them. All the towns we went to (Panajachel, San Pedro del Atitlan, Antigua, Coban, El Remate) had plenty of tourist agencies where you hand over your quetzals and get collected and delivered door to door. The service isn’t quite as efficient as the price would suggest; we found that adding two extra hours onto the quoted journey time was nearer the truth - mañana is a popular word and attitude in Guatemala. The tourist shuttles are easy, but are nowhere near as cheap nor as atmospheric as Guatemala’s famous chicken buses.

Chicken buses are brightly repainted American school buses - old, rickety and polluting - but cheap as chips. Good for short distances, but notoriously painful over long distances - bucket seats, no suspension and black fumes belching in through the windows. They are also considered unsafe by some (including the British Foreign Office who don’t allow their staff to travel on them) as robberies and murders are a possibility. Indeed, the tabloid papers are full of daily reports of bus drivers shot dead in Guatemala City - often because they drove through the wrong zone or didn’t pay their dues to the gang lords. You can take your chances and many people we met had travelled across the whole country on chicken buses without incidence. Anyway, isn’t a tourist bus richer pickings?

Chicken buses are being phased out and already in some parts of the country the only option is between a public minibus or a tourist minibus. Most travel agencies will fix you up with a shuttle bus (minibus) or you can go to the local bus terminal and talk to the drivers until you find the right minibus to your destination - the timetables seem to change regularly.

Large first class coaches plough selected routes. We travelled with Monja Blanca from Guatemala City to Coban on a bus resembling Dukes Travel in the eighties. Not the swish first class bus of Mexican standards but fit for travel. We were joined by a colourful bunch of Guatemalans, some in indigenous huipiles and stripy skirts, many in cowboy hats and one lady with some chickens and vegetables wrapped up in a bundle. Do chickens on a bus make it a chicken bus?

We were fortunate and travelled across Guatemala safely, as did all the other travellers we met.

Getting out
We took a shuttle bus from El Remate to Belize City passing through the Melchor de Menchos border crossing - the only land crossing between Guatemala and Belize. We were stamped out of Guatemala and asked to pay a twenty quetzals fee (£1.80). This is, apparently, a municipal fee to fix the muddy, potholed road that, apparently, “the tourist chew up”. When I challenged the charge, having been told that there should be no fee entering or leaving Guatemala, we were told that it was “nothing illegal” although, conveniently, the chap in charge of producing receipts was having a day off. The road really did need fixing though.

The entry to Belize was easy and efficient. British citizens get a one-month tourist stamp on arrival. We were then questioned by customs in indecipherable pidgin English as to whether we were carrying any fruit, vegetables or alcohol - negative - and suddenly queen Elizabeth II was looking up at us from the banknotes. Adios Guatemala!

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Out of the clouds

Guatemala offers an astonishing diversity of spectacular landscapes. In two weeks we‘d visited high mountains and colonial cities, lush cloud forest and active volcanoes, deep lakes and limestone valleys.

Packed into a relatively small country the views change all the time, giving the impression that you are a member of a theatre audience enraptured by a fantastical play in which the range of possible scenery hanging in the wings is limited only the by creative power of the human imagination.

Now, amongst the coffee plantations of Coban, it was time to change the scenery again.

We headed north, down out of the cool mountain air of the Alta Verapaces onto the sticky plains of the Peten.

We left the highland Maya for their cousins in these lowlands, a vast area of thick tropical forests, stretching down from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula into the most northerly department of Guatemala.

Our bus followed a lonely road, winding through wild lands where the scenery changed by the hour, from high mist-clad cloud forests into gently undulating hills before flattening out inside a landscape of swamp, savannah and, of course, jungle.

The change of climate was reflected in the local produce on display and growing all around us. Gone was the green palette of the coffee plant and avocado tree; usurped by tropical tones of yellow, the coconut palm and the banana plant.

The fresh air and clear skies of Coban gave way to brooding clouds followed by heavy rain; the air grew thick and humid, an uncomfortable gloop into which the gringos swam, visibly perspiring.

Even the locals have had to adapt, the local Maya woman here eschewing the heavy, intricately embroidered blouses and shawls of the highlands for lighter blouses in shades of yellow, blue and pink.

They worked under the blazing sun in scruffy little villages comprised of modest dwellings, many with roofs thatched with palms, all with rough wooden planks for walls.

Their kids ran around barefoot in the dirt, wrestling with each other in the road, apparently unconcerned about the odd vehicle which plied its way in their direction.

We crossed the a large river at Sayaxche, wobbling across on a rickety little pontoon as minibus drivers watched us from the shore, washing their charges in the muddy waters. Roads felt less permanent here, their existence dependent on the whims of nature.

Flores greeted us like a gated community for tourists, the small island on which it stands linked to the more raffish town of Santa Elena, where locals preyed on new arrivals with promises of jaguar safaris and sunrises over Maya temples.

A newer temple stood guard at the entrance to the Western enclave: Burger King, bright, plastic and shiny. RIP tortillas and salsa.

We left and fled to the village of El Remate, some thirty clicks out on the road to Tikal. A string of flimsy buildings lined the road, chickens pecked in the dirt, goats played chicken with the traffic.

No aggressive touts here - only gentle locals who merrily greeted us as they rode slowly past on old bicycles. They were all Mayan except for one storekeeper - the first Creole we’d met, a reminder that Belize was only a couple of hours further down the road.

We holed up at a rundown old guesthouse, its hippyfied glory days long past, garish murals fading, fantastical plasterwork cracking, boho furniture broken.

Geckos clucked away from the walls of our room as rats fought in the ceiling above.

We retreated to the old sun terrace and perched on a couple of cracked plastic chairs as the sun bid us a spectacular goodnight over the still waters of Lago de Peten Itza.

Geese called up to us from the shoreline, frogs sang out and somewhere - perhaps - the fabled crocodiles of the lake gulped down another unfortunate fish.

Bats swept down amongst us, silhouetted in the orange glow, and all around the forests hummed with insects and echoed to the calls of a thousand exotic birds.

The jungle.

On with the next Act…

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