Where Will I Wander

Lake Yojoa

July 28, 2018August 7, 2018 bengerdahl

I looked into things to do in Honduras, and the internet and other travelers have very little to say about the country, except that it is dangerous. Originally, I was going to do the awful journey from Utila down to Leon, Nicaragua, but thankfully I ran into these 3 English girls who just came from Lake Yojoa. After a quick google search I knew I wanted to go there, not only to break up the awful 16 hour bus ride to Leon, but because it looked so beautiful.

D&D Brewery has so much to offer, including really good craft beer! They have an entire wall on their brewery of the activities close by and how to do them, also perfect descriptions of how to get to your next destination. With it being the only hostel in the area everyone will know where you are heading, even the bus station in San Pedro Sula has a window that says D&D right on it. It is one guy who is making Honduras more accessible to travel, since it’s very hard to find information on where to go.

From the Brewery I went to Palhapanzak Falls by bus, which is super easy to do and fairly cheap for a day activity. It also includes no hiking what so ever so it’s fun for the whole family. They do offer a zip-line with I believe 8 lines, it didn’t look too exciting but for someone who is scared of heights or someone younger this would be perfect. The Falls didn’t take long to do so you could pick another activity to do that day as well. Which we did, and we went to the coffee plantation. It is a 5 minute walk away from the Brewery, the opposite direction than the bus so you can stop at the hostel for a refresher.

The Finca Paradise Coffee Plantation took me by surprise, it exceeded my expectation hugely. Even though we didn’t try the coffee, the walk around the property is so beautiful. With many waterfalls and bridges to zig zag across the river, through fields of palm trees and coffee plants, there is so much to look at. I’ve been to a couple other coffee plantations but this one was the best I’ve seen ten fold. I almost didn’t want to see ‘just another coffee plantation’ but I am so happy I went.

There is also kayak rentals from the Brewery, or do like I did, you can walk for maybe 5 minutes and pick up a kayak for half the price at a shop right on the river and spend a couple hours kayaking to the lake. It was a pretty windy day so it took some time to get out there but it was such a good way to spend an afternoon, especially when you wake up late morning after a night drinking D&D pitchers with new friends.

View from the Kayak — While kayaking on Lake Yojoa, Honduras we caught this view

We also did the Cerro Azul National Park, or as the locals call it ‘Panacam’. It is a super pretty hike through a cloud forest, and it is a great spot to go birding. There are quite a view lookouts that you can stop and rest at, and also quite a few waterfalls! It is a pain in the butt to get there, with 2 busses and a tuk-tuk but a wonderful way to spend a day exploring. They have had puma spottings there, which I thought was super cool, but not in the weeks leading up to our visit.

If heading to Nicaragua from Utila I would highly recommend making a stop to Lake Yojoa! It is super easy to do by chicken bus with one going straight to SPS then straight to D&D. Onwards we went to Somoto Canyon, in Somoto, Nicaragua, which the English girls also told us about! I would recommend that as well. Leaving D&D there will be a chicken bus straight to Tegus, then one straight to the border of Nicaragua. I will say we ended up getting stuck at the border for almost 3 hours because of a shift change of border patrol, so they took their sweet sweet time, we ended up staying one night in Ocotal. There is nothing to do there, but all the parks in Nicaragua have Wi-Fi so finding a hostel wasn’t too hard!

I loved Lake Yojoa and I hope you do to! Let me know what you think of it when you get there.

Antigua and Volcan Acatenango

July 24, 2018July 24, 2018 bengerdahl

Antigua was our first stop on our Central American trip, and still to this day, one of my favorite cities of all time! And we missed the Fuego eruption by about 2 months.

We flew into Guatemala City, and there were 30 shuttles at the airport making their way to Antigua. That’s a good tell-tale sign it is a tourist trap. I’m not usually one to like overly touristic places but Antigua is absolutely amazing. Tons to do in the near by area and the colonial architecture and history there is beyond beautiful.

I will say that Antigua is the priciest city in Guatemala, but everything about it is, for me anyways, mind-blowingly awesome! Most of the sights and attractions in Antigua are free also, so it helps with the bank account. We were originally planning on 3 days there and ended up staying a week, and I easily could have stayed another week! We had a one night break of Antigua when we did the Acatenango Volcano overnight hike.

Free things to do in Antigua:

–The Cerro de la Cruz, which translates to the cross on the hill. You can tuk-tuk if you want but the walk is easy to do and not too far out of the centre. There are quite a bit of stairs to get to the top but it is so worth it! The view of Antigua and the surrounding volcanoes is spectacular and you will soon be forgetting about the climb to the top. If you get there early enough it won’t be filled with other people, when we first got there it was decently empty, maybe like 20 people, but after staying up there for over an hour, it was soon swamped with other people trying to catch a glimpse.

–Santo Domingo del Cerro is an art park with both wonderful masterpieces and awesome vistas. NOTE: The shuttle to the top is free! There is a certain spot in town to wait for the shuttle (the spot is on Maps.Me, definitely an app you should have when travelling) or you can walk to the bottom of the hill and wait at the security booth for the shuttle to pass. We hadn’t learned any Spanish at this point and told the security guard we were walking (by hand gestures with your two fingers of course). “It’s only 1.6 km” we said to ourselves and he gave us the weirdest look, I’m sure tried to tell us it was free was we couldn’t understand. IT IS 1.6 KM STRAIGHT UP HILL! Don’t walk, whatever you do!! We made it about a fifth of the way before the shuttle drove by and they thankfully picked us up. After asking others how much the shuttle was and them telling us free we felt really silly trying to walk, and now understand this guards confusion haha. View from the park is below:

Volcan Acatenango and Fuego, view from Santo Domingo

–Arch de Santa Catalina, which if you have ever researched Guatemala you have seen this arch! It is just an beautiful as the pictures, but you will need to get there early as it is always crawling with people. It is right in the centre of town and easy to find. Try to go for a sunset as I have heard it is beautiful, even though we were there for a week we ended up missing it every night.

And finally, the Volcan Acatenango hike.

I just want to say how heart broken I was to hear that Fuego erupted. The surrounding Guatemalan community are the most generous and giving people even though they have so little themselves, and they rely so heavily on this volcano to drive tourism and it won’t be the same for a while. It was one of the many highlights of my trip and you should go, help the community get past this hump and help them fix their economy that is so hurt.

I’m not even going to lie to you, the hike is HARD. Like, super hard. And cold, super cold. But it is such an accomplishment to say that you did it, and I didn’t hate it enough to not hike up 4 more volcanoes.

We did the hike with the hostel Wicho and Charlie’s and I would recommend that place to any one, ever, always!! It is a more expensive tour and we normally wouldn’t spend that much but I am so happy we did it. It is 400Q plus the 50Q entrance when you get to the volcano, approximately $75CAD or $60USD (as a Canadian that conversion makes me sad). You can find the tours offered as low as 250Q plus the 50 but the experience you have 100% reflects that price.

Volcan Fuego — One of Fuego’s eruptions, it put on this show every 15 or so minutes

I can only say what I have heard about the cheaper experiences, but make sure you will be warm enough at the top of the volcano. It does get to 0 Celsius/32 F sometimes! Like I said, really cold. The nice thing about Wicho and Charlie’s is they supply warm clothes for you to borrow at no extra charge (unless you lose them), so even if you have warmer clothes they aren’t going to get dirty. I would say bring all the warm clothes you have plus the ones you borrowed, it is damn cold. The extra cost of the tour is worth it right there, you will need extra gloves and toques to survive up there, I also had a retro bright yellow puffy coat I borrowed.

Another benefit of W&C’s is the tent and sleeping bags are already at the top, you don’t have to carry them up. It is 4.5-6 hours of hiking, so the less you have to carry the better. Your backpack is already filled with water, warm clothes, and your bag of food, which are all pretty heavy. I have a rockstar boyfriend who carried my bag of food up for me, but if I had to carry anymore I don’t think I would have made it.

Sunrise on Acatenango — This was our sunrise view from our base camp

Collectively, as a group, you decide if you want to hike to the summit that night for sunset or in the morning for sunrise. We did it for sunset, which I’m happy we did it that way. Even though the sunset was kind of a bust, with the wind blowing super hard and creating a pretty thick cloud coverage, it would have been better than trying to wake up at 3AM and getting your sore muscles to move your butt to the top of a volcano. The sunrise from the W&C’s base camp is still one of the best sunrises I have seen, I’m not sure how much better it would have been at the top.

We are those travelers who pinch every penny we can, but I can say that the extra money spent was worth it. If you have done it recently let me know how the tour is now that Fuego erupted.

Semuc Champey

July 22, 2018 bengerdahl

I don’t have enough awesome things to say about Semuc Champey! If you only have a couple days in Guatemala this HAS to be on your list! Also Antigua, add that to your list as well.

Semuc Champey is a group of tiered mini waterfalls that you can swim in, with a beautiful hike up to a mirador (or viewpoint) to see the whole collection of falls. You can get there easily from Lanquin, which we did, or from Coban.

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We love to DIY when it comes to attractions like this, but after a lot of research we found it was much more worth it to just book through the hostel we were staying at. El Retiro hostel is a super neat little jungle hostel right outside of Lanquin, it’s a 15-ish minute walk to town down a mostly gravel road but super worth it. When we were looking into hostels we came across it on Booking.com and it was 40Q with a second night free. It was under 8CAD with a second night free!! Even without the Booking deal it was 55Q a night (9.75CAD/7.40USD) which is still a killer deal for what you got out of the place.

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El Retiro (above) has everything you would need. All your meals, your tour, and your ongoing transportation were offered to their guests for a pretty decent price. They had an all you can eat buffet style dinner for 8US, and it changed every night. ALL YOU CAN EAT! Most people would stay the two nights and move on, but with a killer deal like that we stayed an extra 2. They offered a river float for $5 US including a beer, so we did that on one of our other days there.

When it came to do Semuc Champey, they came around with a truck, and you all piled into the back of it! We had about 10 people in the back of this pickup driving for almost an hour, but so worth it. The views from the truck were so awesome, and its a unique way to meet the people you will be spending the rest of the day with.

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About a week before we arrived at Semuc Champey I had to say goodbye to my GoPro (RIP) as it drowned in the hot springs in Xela, so the pictures I have of it are very limited, unfortunately. But, Semuc was still one of the highlights of the whole trip, and the cave tour is absolutely amazing and that alone I found to be worth the tour fee.

Make sure you bring your GoPro and have it fully charged, wear sneakers or sandals with a back, and bring lots of water.

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Every tour is different as it depends on what other guides are doing, as they all work around each other so there isn’t an area that is too crowded. We did the cave tour first, which is pretty spooky but so exhilarating. You swim through this dark cave with nothing but a candle, and mine blew out/went for a swim about 7 times. There are ropes to guide you through the cave or hold onto if you aren’t a strong swimmer. I got lost twice, once by following a different group and once by going way to far ahead and heading in the wrong direction. Don’t do what I did haha, my guide was yelling in Spanish and I couldn’t follow what he was saying.

After we went to the mirador, which is a pretty extensive hike. It only took about half an hour but it is SO humid and the stairs go almost straight up, still so worth it. There are people selling water bottles and cold coconuts half way to cool you down. You can see the whole valley from up top, with an amazing breeze after a pretty hard hike up. Just being able to see the pools makes you want to run down the stairs and hop in, and it’s exactly what we got to do next!

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The guide took us to each of the different sections, and you can cliff jump and swim or just hang out in the refreshing water. He started us off on a 5 metre cliff, eventually you end up at a 12 metre one (depending on the season)! He even led us to a secret underwater cave that only the guides know about. It’s not an actual cave as it’s not fully enclosed, but still cool to experience.

But seriously, my trip consisted of 5 countries, this is one of my all time favorite things we did! You should do it too! Let me know if you have wandered over to Semuc and what you thought of it

Tikal National Park

July 21, 2018July 22, 2018 bengerdahl

When it came to Tikal we were honestly so torn if we should do it or not, it is really out of the way and we both have seen ruins before. It is also more to do Tikal than we were spending on entire days! It is roughly $60CAD a person, and we have been trying to spend under $30 per day. After researching and finding out they were the best in Central America, we decided to do it, but it was only after a horror story from a travelers diary.

First you decide if you want sunrise, sunset, or neither.

Here is where our horror story starts…. We heard by so many people that no matter what, don’t book the tour with Gran Jaguar! All for a good reason. In Lanquin, our shuttle driver recommended to book through Semuc Champey Tours in Flores. After going to a couple other tour agencies, and finding no bad reviews online, we went and booked through them, and because their buddy sent us they gave us a discount! BONUS! He writes us up for the sunset tour the following day, 12pm pickup at our hostel. We pay, get our ticket, we’re all happy… UNTIL we see the receipt says Gran Jaguar.

The tour agent then tells us the tickets are non-refundable, but assures us they aren’t affiliated with Gran Jaguar at all, he was just out of receipt paper. “Tomorrow at 12 o’clock there will be no issues”. We thankfully switched the pickup to the agency office, so if they don’t show up there would be no way they could blame it on us for not being there on time. ANYWAYS, it’s now 11:30AM the next day, and we make our way to the agency office, only for him to ask why we were so early for the 12:30 pickup. It was at that point we knew something was up, we stuck around, and the shuttle never came!! We saw him panicking and making phone call after phone call, and after about an hour of waiting he refunded our money, but only after he asked if we wanted to do the sunrise tour with his company. NO THANK YOU.

Now we had to decide if we were doing sunrise or the 6AM tour.

The thing you have to know about the sunrise tour: your chances of a good sunrise are well under 50%! And with us pinching all of our pennies, we weren’t convinced if we should do the sunrise. The sunset and sunrise are an additional 100Q (17CAD/13USD) on top of the entrance fee of 150Q for being in the park outside of official park hours. When booking this guy staying at the hostel said he didn’t see the colours of the sunrise but the sound of the jungle waking up was the most magical thing, so we splurged and spent the extra $17CAD in hopes of a good sunrise. Here is a photo of our sunrise view:

Another thing you have to know about the sunrise tour: the jungle ‘waking up’ is a myth. There were about 100 people sitting on top of a temple looking into the mist, waiting for both colours and animal sounds to start showing up. Neither of them did. We were stuck in a huge cloud and all we could hear were people coughing, opening backpacks, talking, and people shushing each other. I was super pumped to do the sunset, but with the situation the day before I just wanted to do something with the day, but I would say: if you are on a budget like we were, save the extra money, because the 6AM tour got there with enough time. The early-bird tour got there when it was still dark, only to enjoy the cloud with us.

Once it was light enough to start the tour we followed our guide around the park, and it is ginormous! I wish we had enough time to see more but we were scheduled for a bus to leave Santa Elena at 3pm, so we only had until 12:30 in the park.

After the super disappointing sunrise the day did pick up. It’s crazy to see how much of the park is still undiscovered and hearing about the civilization that used to be there. The temples were amazing to see and the park itself has been so well kept!

You can learn from our mistakes! Always book with a reputable company (even if it’s more expensive), I would really recommend Los Amigos hostel to book your Tikal tour! If you have the money try the sunrise, if not, the early bird would probably be just as good! I think the sunset is the best bet, as when we were in Guatemala the sunsets there were always so pretty! Your chances of seeing one have better odds to.

If you have any other tips let me know! I’d love to hear about your experience with Tikal.