A weekend at The Pacific

(Sunrise at Monterrico, The Pacific Ocean)

This weekend we went for a trip to The Pacific Ocean. After a week of English classes we wanted to get a bit out.

Saturday morning we got up at 7am at got on the bus to Antigua. Parramos, where we live, is only a stop on the bus route towards Antigua, so we had to go to Antigua. In Antigua we were just in time for the 8am connection to Escuintla, but desides to wait for the next one a hour later, or else we wouldn't have to stand up all the way in a totally crowded bus.

So we went for a cup of coffee and got some money out of the ATM. And then we met Oscar, a dog we named so after the Guatemalaen president. See, the funny thing about Oscar was that he follow us all the way from the bus station until the Parque Central, always staying just 2-3 meters behind us. At the Park we desided that if he would follow us all the way back, we would buy him something to eat. He did, so we bought him a hot dog. We met him a couple of days later, but he seemed to have forgotten us. A short, but good, friendship!

Our first destination at The Pacific was Monterrico. We had to go from Antigua to Escuintla, change bus there and go to Porto San Jose and then to Monterrico. Or so we thought...
In Escuintla we got of the bus and change to another one, which would take us on our way to Monterrico. Next time we got of there didn't seem to be any buses, so we ended up taking a "taxi", which was actually just a pickup truck were we had to sit on the back. It was great until it started to rain :-). Later when we checked the map it turns out we went a completely different route than we thought... But the trip had been beautiful. You drive down from the highlands where Antigua is and you enter a part of Guatemala were the natur seems so rich and fertile. And it is! Big trees and huge grass areas on both sides of the road..

The last part of the trip to Monterrico you have to take by boat. Monterrico is in the middle of a swamp area. It's seperated from the mainland by a km or so of water. When you sail into Monterrico you feel like some of the first people on the continent sailing to unknown destinations. When you get into Monterrico it looks completely different than the rest of Guatemala. Palms everywhere and all the houses seems to be build for a place where it will never be cold, which is properly the case here. And it's wet! There seem to be water everywhere. Maybe we thought so because we arrived in the raining season - something we hadn't thought about before we left to Monterrico - and it was raining a lot when we got there.

We walked up through the main street in Monterrico - the only real street there - and eventually got to the water. The Pacific Ocean! We were not really that amazed thougt because we were hungry, wet and just wanted a dry place. So we found a hotel - they all seem to be a bit pricy - and we had some food at the hotel. We then stayed in door the next hour and a half. It had started to rain A LOT! Around five it finally seem to stop, at least for a while, and we went out for a walk.

We found one of the things we wanted to see in Monterrico: the seaturtle nursery. It's a place where they take care of the turtleeggs until the small turtles come out and then they help them into the sea safely. Most small turtles don't make it out of the eggs at all, because they are eaten by other animals. At five every Saturday the nursery sets out around 10 small turtles, thereby giving them a better chance of making it all the way to adult life.

We ate dinner later on at Johnny's, a foreigner place. Not only foreigners, actually. There is at least as many Guatemalean turists at Monterrico as foreigners.

Sunday morning we got up at five. We had booked a boat trip of the rivers, channels and small lagunes that make Monterrico so famous. It's a special kind of natur here, which is not found anywhere else in Guatemala. They have a tree here called a Mangrove. It's really special. The tree is living in water. From the branch of the tree many smaller branches shoots out and goes back into the water, thereby giving the tree multiple roots. We took a picture of it. Maybe that can give you a better idea. Apart from this mangrove tree, it was an experience to sail around here that early in the morning. We got the sunrise, we could see vulcanoes in the horizone, a lot of birds and a really, really big spider!

After our boat trip we went for a quick swimp in the Pacific. Then we packed up, ate breakfast and got on the boat back to the mainland.

From here we acted upon a tip from a friend and went to Las Lisas. We got there after 2 hours busride. Its basically the same as Monterrico, just without all the people. There are many locals, but only in the weekend. We arrived on Sunday. It was raining a lot, which was a bit annoying, so we stayed at the hotel most of the evening. I'm pretty sure we paid overprice for the place, but it was within our budget. Still annoys you though. The good thing about the place was that they had a huge balcony and since there was no other guest at the hotel, we had the place for ourselves. Great! We had dinner there, watching the Pacific.

Next morning we had breakfast, I had a quick swim in the Pacific and we saw some huge turtles at Las Lisas' seaturtle nursery.

We then packed up our stuff and with first boat and then bus we went all the way back to Parramos, which by the time we arrived seemed more than home than we could ever have thought.

No we have a week more of English and then we travel on to new adventures.

Pictures from the trip to The Pacific are here!

All for now.