The night of October 31^st is in Canada and the USA Halloween.  Of course, the hostel in Lanquin was also celebrating and all the staff were dressed up, so Jono and I dug into our van to see what we can find.  We had bike helmets and rashguards from surfing which made us look like hard core cyclists (if no one recognized the surf brands and how old the helmets were).  To make sure, we also put on some dark athletic sunglasses, and I took the bell from my bike to make some noise at the party.

Although Europeans are familiar with Halloween, at least three different people during dinner and the drinks that followed inquired about our bike trip across Guatemala.  When we stepped out to the tienda just outside to buy some water, we overheard a local lady explain to her kid that we are cyclists.  Now, if we were cyclists, why would we have worn our helmets to dinner after biking all day?  Lol!

The next morning we left Lanquin, finally hitting the paved highway, and made our way towards Antigua, the ancient colonial town on the outskirts of Guatemala City.  Since it was Sunday, markets were set up in some of the towns along the road, effectively making the road one lane and requiring one direction to back out when cars came the other way.  Remember that this is a main highway….

In Antigua we spent two nights and a day exploring the colonial town that is a major weekend getaway for better off Guatemalans.  It is packed with high end restaurants, spas, and expensive hotels, but there are also a good number of backpacker hostels.  Other than walk around town, eat, and party there is not too much to do there for more than a day or two.

The next day we drove over to Guatemala City, about a half hour away.  The city has a very bad reputation due to the large amount of violent crime and is mostly skipped over by travelers.  In fact, we had met dozens of backpackers in Guatemala but none had visited the city.  We were pleasantly surprised by the roads and highways, which were generally well paved, and signage was above average so we didn’t get too lost either.

We checked out the main pedestrian street, Sexta Avenida…

Explored colonial buildings…

And took a walk through the main square…

We stopped by into a restaurant serving licuados (fruit smoothies – very popular here) just off the main square at the centre of town, and our waitress was extremely surprised that our Spanish was less than fluent.  When she found out we spoke English she again was surprised and managed to pull together a few words.  Just tells you about the number of tourists who visit the city.

To remind us that we were still in Guatemala, a flock of goats was being led through the very middle of the city…

In the afternoon we drove over closer to the airport where Ewa was going to fly in and meet us, and stopped by an ultra-luxury shopping mall for a movie…

This mall was probably about the same or slightly higher level of quality as Toronto’s Eaton Centre, with the main difference being the dozens of armed guards with big guns.