Safe Arrival in Guatemala City – Staging Ground for the Future

We’ve arrived in Guatemala City safe and sound! Just wanted to get that out of the way.

I have the unexpected energy to post an update, so I figured I’d take advantage of the situation and let everyone know what is going on!

Without question, the most dangerous part of the day was driving our one-way car rental through New York City traffic to JFK airport! This was made all the worse by our desire to not pay for any road tolls, but we survived. And the fact that we made the drive deep in the evening on a Saturday probably helped too.

Our flight and JFK/La Aurora Airport experiences were fine. Meaning, that it was the usual travel hell as one might expect, but there were no surprises. But everyone was very nice along the way, and getting this flight for cheap really gave us no cause for complaint.

We landed in Guatemala City at 6 am, contacted our Airbnb host through the airport Wifi, and were promptly picked up within 10 minutes. Our host didn’t speak English, and our Spanish is barely beyond Duolingo level 1 at this point, but we were able to communicate everything important. Pantomime helped.

We set up in our Airbnb room ($19.40 USD/day room rate + 40 Quetzales/$5.16 USD taxi fare) and snoozed for an hour or two because we were running on fumes.

We are very pleased with our room!

Barely refreshed, we wanted to explore our local area of Guatemala City while we had the chance.

Our Airbnb has a couple of massive advantages. It is within walking distance of the zoo and a bunch of museums, and it is close to the La Aurora Airport (with an Airbnb host that will happily taxi you to and from wherever you want to go). Super convenient for us, as we only have a day to spend here and have to make the most of our time.

Predictable to a fault when it comes to viewing nature, we first walked to Zoologica La Aurora to observe animals in their not-so-native environment (2 adults = 80 Quetales/$10.32 USD).

The zoo was very good! We were impressed by the health of the animals, the obvious level of care that they were receiving from the zookeepers, and the overall quality of the grounds. We didn’t bring our good camera equipment as we were still gauging our level of safety in the area (it was completely safe, it turned out), but Google Camera still produced some decent shots.

After the zoo, we hung out in the Museum District to rest our feet. It turns out the museum we really wanted to see (the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology) was closed, so instead, we checked out the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno “Carlos Mérida” which was next door.

All the museums in this complex have Guatemalan citizen and non-Guatemalan citizen admission rates (5 Quetzales vs 50 Quetzales), so we paid the foreigner price for 2 tickets (100 Quetzales/$12.90 USD) and checked it out.

No one appeared to be taking pictures, so we followed suit. It was a nice way to kill an hour or so.

The fatigue of the day had built up, and our feet were getting sore, so we headed in the direction of our Airbnb and grab an inexpensive dinner along the way.

We stopped at a local food stand and picked up Guatemalan chorizo & salami hot dogs (very different from what you are probably thinking), a tortilla chorizo dish, and 2 liters of bottled water. The total cost was 50 Quetzales/$6.45 USD.

Afterward, we walked back to our room and slept for a couple more hours.

We were super impressed with how friendly the Guatemalan City locals were. Even those that weren’t gaining from us financially were super polite, tolerant of our poor language skills, gave advice when we looked like we needed it, and were quick to call out friendly greetings when we passed in the streets.

Very cool.

It was a great, but exhausting day in Guatemala City. We are looking forward to getting our first proper night’s sleep in several days.

And now we are preparing for tomorrow, when our chartered shuttle picks us up near our Airbnb at 6 am to take us to our next destination for one month, San Pedro La Laguna on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

We’ll be on the road for most of the day and will likely be without internet access for most of it, so we won’t have any updates for a while.

Stay well, everyone! More will be forthcoming.

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