When most people think of Guatemala, they think hot, tropical weather.  This is actually not the case, because much of the country is covered by mountains.  The city sits at over 5,000 feet.  So Guatemala is known as the “land of the eternal spring.”  Given the proximity to the equator and the high elevation, the weather is typically very pleasant and mild, and sometimes quite cool.  That is, except for the coast.  One of the closest, most popular beaches is in Monterrico - about 2 hours south of the city on the Pacific coast.  At first we set up a shuttle service for last Saturday with the same company that took us to Antigua the weekend before.  My roommate Scott was in, and we also invited the family that lives in our building.  Steven and Kristen are both new teachers at our school and they moved her with their 7 year-old boy and 4 year-old girl from Minnesota.  It turned out that we were able to all pile into their station wagon that they just bought last week.

I was pretty apprehensive about driving ourselves, but Steven was confident.  The hardest part was finding our way out of the city.  There isn’t exactly a direct highway to Monterrico.  In fact at one point, we had to take a so-called “ferry” in order to cross the river. 

It’s amazing how much the landscape of the country changes as you drive out of the mountains to the coast.  And the weather becomes how you imagine it – HOT.  Upper 90s to 100s - all the time.  We saw a lot of sugar cane fields and the area is also known for growing loofah.  That’s right, the same loofah used as an exfoliating bathroom sponge.  See pic for harvested loofah.

It’s hard to figure out why this small beach village hasn’t seen more development with the increase in Guatemalan tourism in the last 10 years.  The village is dirty with no paved roads.  Countless chickens, dogs, and pigs wander the streets as well.  However, the beach is lined with several nice, affordable hotels.  We stayed at Hotel Café del Sol, which is the same place I stayed 2 years ago.  The room was big enough for all of us, clean, and also very nice – complete with a thatched roof, mosquito nets (check your sheets for scorpions!), and a curtain for a bathroom door.  The black volcanic sand beach is beautiful and relaxing, and the waves are dangerously powerful but mesmerizing to watch.  I did some body surfing, which isn’t exactly surfing but more just getting beat up and tossed around like a rag doll.  A few too many somersaults and sidespins at the hands of the waves and salt water up my nose left me sore and with an earache.  Fun stuff!

Monterrico is also known as a popular spot for sea turtles to lay their eggs.  The villagers have supported themselves by selling the eggs for years.  A conservation project has come to the rescue to prevent extinction, but a good number are still stolen.  The volunteers move the eggs (1 female lays up to 25 at a time) to a guarded nesting spot and the baby turtles must dig their way out of the pit and make a mad dash across the sand to the water.  Our host family described watching a mother lay eggs while a big tear rolled down her face.  We were hoping to catch a glimpse of this action, but no such luck.

Finding a place to eat on Saturday night was quite an adventure.  Sarah remembered reading about a place called “El Divino Maestro” in a guide book.  “The Divine Teacher”  …we had to check it out.  We wondered into town, found it, and promptly made the mistake of walking inside.  This place didn’t look like it had exactly passed a health inspection recently.  Nobody else inside, no menus, and the owner rattled off some options while smoking his cigarette.  We quickly realized that this guidebook Sarah spoke of was Scott’s “Central America on a Shoestring” for small budgets.  Since everything is so cheap to begin with, a “small budget” in Central America is pretty scary/risky.  I had no problem walking out, but the kind-hearted Steven felt bad, so he and Scott took one for the team and ordered food.  The rest of us ordered a bottle of water.  Steven got his shrimp with the heads still intact and Scott’s fish soup, well, I’ll let the picture do the talking…

  (sorry, seeing is believing!)

We learned our lesson about wandering off the beach and headed back.  We ran into the librarian from our school who informed us that her hotel had a great Italian restaurant inside.  You can’t go wrong with spaghetti anywhere.  We found another restaurant on Sunday that was also excellent. 

Sunday involved more relaxing/reading by the pool/beach and a few more battles with the waves.  We ran a tab all weekend for 4 adults and 2 kids.  Two full meals, several appetizers, a few beach drinks and beers, and countless “limonadas” and bottles of water: upon checkout our total bill (including the room) came to a grand total of 1,100 Quetzales (conversion = 146 bucks!).  So does anybody want to come visit us?

Are you sure?

We made great time coming home and didn’t get lost until we got into the city.  The VCR I borrowed worked like a champ and it was game day!  We sat down to once again watch the Irish beat Purdue like the world’s largest drum (that they proudly claim to have).  It was strange to watch the game on a 28-hour delay, not quite as nerve-racking for some reason (despite having no idea about the outcome).  Also, fast-forwarding the commercials saved 90 minutes!

We are taking this weekend off, no travels.  I have a mountain of papers to climb, then grade.  Stay tuned however, our goal is to never stay in the city for 2 weekends in a row.  Let us know who’s ready to join us.  We promise... no fish soup!