Home to Guatemala
- Jimmy Lee
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
We finish our time in the States and make our way back to Utopia with a little detour put in the mix.
Saturday, August 15 – Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Travel to Guatemala from San Franciso
Saturday & Sunday
We had a slow roll on Saturday morning since our flight did not depart from San Francisco until after 5 pm. The day started with a nice walk around San Francisco, and we saw some local sights before we returned to the room to pack up.
Saturday morning walk around San Francisco
After our 11 a.m. check out, we were picked up by family and went on little trip to the Presidio for a walk around Tunnel Top Park near the Golden Gate Bridge. Lunch was from an Indian street-food truck. It was a beautiful, if not windy and slightly chilly day. Next was on a car tour of Sea Cliffs along the Pacific and then slowly made our way to the airport.
Final few hours in San Francisco
Both flights to Guatemala City (5:30 pm SFO>LAX and 1100 pm LAX>GUA) were on United Airlines and were uneventful. We noticed a remarkable, and pleasant difference from our previous flights on Frontier and Arajet Airlines. The flight arrived in Guatemala City at 5 a.m. and we immediately got a taxi at the airport to be transported to our hotel in Antigua at around 6 am.
Antigua Guatemala
Sunday
Since we arrived in Antigua so early, our room at La Carmen Hotel and Restaurant was not ready. They let us drop our bags and then we went on an exploration of the city in a slightly dazed state since we did not really sleep much on the plane. One of our first stops was to find breakfast and coffee, which we found at a French style bakery called El Viejo Café.
Antigua is arguably the largest colonial town still intact on the planet and it has a distinct European feel. Its average elevation is about 5,000 feet, so even though we are well in the tropics the weather is quite pleasant (low 60s high 50s at night to mid to upper 70s in the day). Around the perimeter of the city are three volcanoes: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. Volcan de Fuego is still a continually active volcano its eruptions can be seen from town several times a day.
Sunday morning walk while waiting for hotel room
We walked the streets for some time just taking in the colonial buildings and then walked a short hike up a hill to the Cerro De La Cruz where we saw some awesome views of Volcan de Agua. It was Sunday funday so there was an equal measure of locals with their families and tourists taking in the sites. One thing of note is that you can pick out the tourist since they tend to wear shorts, where the local Guatemalans modestly wear long pants. During our walk-through town, we saw Fuego erupt several times.
Around lunchtime we were starting to crash due to lack of sleep, so we wandered back to the hotel to see if the room was ready. They said it would be ready around 1 pm, so we had lunch on the rooftop at the hotel. Once we were checked into the room we had a nice nap.
Antigua is known for its numerous rooftop bars and restaurants which we took advantage of during our short stay here. We ended up having dinner on the rooftop at Antigua Brewing Company to watch the sunset and the volcano eruptions as it got dark.
Dinner and walk back to our hotel
Monday
We woke up refreshed and ready to tackle the day, especially after eating a typical Guatemalan breakfast of eggs, beans, and toast at Doña Luisa Xicotencatl. Sondra had made reservation with a guide for 9:30 am to do a walking tour of Antigua. The guide she found does not give group tours as she prefers doing tours only for singles and couples.
Our Antigua Tour with Klaudia
Our guide was named Klaudia and she provided a cultural overview of Guatemala and the town of Antigua Guatemala, often just called Antigua. She discussed the diverse ways Guatemalans identify themselves (i.e., Mayan, Spanish, or Guatemalan) as we walked past many churches and other points of interest in town. The 2.5-hour tour was well worth it.
We then had lunch at comida Rinconcito Antigueno, which was pointed out to us during our tour. A comida is a restaurant with small set menu that prides itself on reasonably priced, good, and quick food. It is typically where the locals would eat during lunch. A large lunch for Sondra and me, with a fruit drink ran about 85Q ($12). Sondra had the Pepian sopa (soup) with rice and I had wood-roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and a salad. The lunches also came with a basket of hot fresh tortillas. Awesome!!!
Awsome Lunch at Rinconcito Antigueno
After lunch we wandered the town some more and ended up having a Guatemalan beer at a rooftop Irish Pub (Snug). Dinner was at Café Sky, another rooftop restaurant with an awesome sunset view of the volcanoes.
Tuesday
The day started out going on a hunt for coffee, found at Café Barista, and pastries at El Viaje Café and finding only bread loaves at two or three other bakeries in town, we were ready to tackle the day. We decided to do another hike up Cerro De La Cruz and expand our reach down a dirt trail. We were rewarded with views of the adjacent town, Jocotenango. Since we have gotten back to Guatemala, we have been successful in getting a lot of steps in to hopefully work off all the travel/family food we have been partaking in.
After that we couldn’t help but go back to Rinconcito Antigueno for lunch and then another visit to the Antigua Brewing Company for dinner.
Last day in Antigua
Before we retired for the evening, we spoke with the hotel since we would be checking out at 3 am for our shuttle. They offered a packed meal for the shuttle and that was then we found out that breakfast was included every day on our stay (Doh!). Oh well, and a reminder that we really need to improve our Spanish.
Rio Dulce
Wednesday
The shuttle company I booked indicated we needed to be waiting outside of our hotel when the shuttle came by somewhere between 3:15 am and 3:50 am and they were clear that if we were not outside waiting, they very well could take off without us. Therefore, we were at the curb at 3:10 am and still standing there at 3:30. I started texting to make sure they were coming but got no response. Finaly around 4:10 when we were getting worried about being forgotten, we saw a van moving slowly on the crossroad, so I ran down to it to see if that was the right van (it was). He verified that I was his customer and yelled “vamonos!” (let’s go!) and we quickly scooped up our belongings and walked briskly down the block to get into the van with five other sleepy tourists.
We then started the long 7.5-hour trek back to Rio Dulce, which requires going through Guatemala City. Even at 5-5:30 am, the city’s traffic is no joke and was bumper to bumper; I can’t imagine what it would be like at 8 am. It was apparent that the shuttle picked us up so early in the morning to get through the city before rush hour.
Epic Bus Ride back to Rio Dulce
After a gas stop, we pulled into Rio Dulce a little before noon. The temperature and humidity was much higher than Antigua and the water level in the Rio was much higher than when we left it, by 2 feet or so. After a quick duck into the grocery store, we called for a launcha back to Tijax and were on the boat by 12:30.
It was so nice getting back to Utopia. Our dockmaster, Oscar took such diligent care of the boat while we were away. We have some recommissioning items to do to get Utopia back up to living conditions and we started them today, but we will go more into that next week.
Post 26-34
Comments