I'm in Guatemala!!

As with my last travel day, I was lazing around until midday as both times the only transfers available have left at this time. This is because the transfer drivers will usually do the same route twice in one day - so for example our transfer driver today would have left Antigua early in the morning to get to Copan Honduras before driving us back to Antigua in the afternoon.

This time, the transfer was not 'effectively private' as I was joined by 3 Guatemalans, an American and a German couple. Pretty much 95% of the journey was in Guatemala - we were literally out of Honduras within the hour - and it was a fascinating drive across this awesome country.

Guatemala is a country I've been longing to come to pretty much since I ever started dreaming of travelling the world. Like Bolivia, its an indigenous dominated country with a heavily turbulent history. It suffered a 36 year long civil war starting in 1960, 6 years after an American backed coup ousted a slightly left-wing leader because he didn't like the idea of selling the country to American banana corporations. The civil war was one of the bloodiest in history as the white ruling minority tried to wipe out the Mayans in a genocide using paramilitary death squads.

Nowadays, its the drug cartels with Guatemala being slap bang on the main route for cocaine travelling to its biggest market - the US. But that's the bad.

The good is that Guatemala is easily ranked by many as the most impressive Central American country. It has phenomenally well preserved modern and ancient indigenous - and Hispanic culture - as well as gorgeous scenery to boot. I'm planning on absolutely exhausting myself as a week is a criminally small time to spend exploring this magnificent country - but it doesn't really matter, as am going home straight after this.

The drive was bizarre. The van was actually quite uncomfortable because the seats barely reached my shoulders. We stopped off at a service station where I could get some beautiful Guatemalan Quetzales (as in- Guatemalan money. Odd to describe it as beautiful I know but for money, it is quite good looking) as well as a Tamale. A tamale is the native Guatemalan cuisine. I've had one, and I'm still not sure what it is. It's like a rolled up pancake of meat and weird gooey doughy stuff - on a palm leaf.

Yeah it sounds delicious, right?

Most of the people in the transfer were getting off in Guatemala City, meaning I got to see the Guatemalan capital city how I would have liked to - in a van with tinted windows.

Hence the title - grizzly.

I decided to listen to Eminem rap music whilst we travelled through Guatemala City as it was the only music I have on my iPod that suited the general mood of the city. We drove through the north of Guatemala City which is a big, big red zone. It was literally mountain after mountain splattered with white brick shacks piled on top of each other. Plus the rain pelted down onto the traffic clogged streets lined with street kids, drunks and armed, tattoed young men. Plus there was an unusally high number of Dominoes.

Thankfully made it out of Guatemala City, alive - not in a coffin, and on to the old capital of Guatemala - Antigua. Guatemalan Gringoland.

Antigua was evacuated in the 1700s after a volcanic eruption, hence it's name as it is the 'old Guatemala'. Because of my transfer driver dropping off in the centre, telling me my hostel was two blocks away when actually it was 8 blocks away and a couple turns meaning I had ask several people and get slightly stressed about arriving in a town at night, walking around trying to find my hostel etc. with all my stuff - I've become even more acquainted with Antigua than I had expected by this point.

To top it all off, I then went and had an overpriced soggy pizza and a shocking Guatemalan beer (that, thanks to the fact everyone in Latin America is obsessed with Chicken - is literally called 'Chicken') at a bizarre, hi-tech 'set' of restaurants where you paid using a weird card system.

But. Antigua is awesome.

Seeing it at night, with all the colonial buildings lit up was phenomenal. Unlike Costa Rica, which was such a backwater it found out its independence by post, Guatemala was the epicentre of Spanish Central America and so the colonial architecture here is brilliant in quantity, and quality. I'm glad I'll be back here in a week...but for now it's a packed week ahead!

Vamos!