This is a complete review of our trip to Guatemala. Please click on any of the link contained for more information.

March 19th 2010 - We left home and drove 2 hours to city of Miami and used the park and ride services at the airport, parking was $8/day. Check in at American Airlines was way too easy, we swiped our passports tickets printed and we were on our way. Arrive Guatemala City 11am and our hotel shuttle is outside ready to take us to Crown Plaza Guatemala City 3 Km from the airport. FYI VERY FEW people here speak English. Check in was at 3:00 pm so we were a little early. The hotel manager, Gabriel, translated for us and offered to hold our bags and exchanged some US dollars to the local currency Quetzal (Q for short) 1us=8.15 Q. So now that we had some Q we had a taxi drive us into town to a "local" restaurant Arriba Zapata. We ordered 5 Dorada Ice bottles for 65Q and typicol plato. One of the cooks actually started cooking the food over an open grill in front of the restaurant and what we received was an amazing meal for 35Q ea. After our lunch we decided to walk back to our hotel and check in. The City is very fast paced with only a few stop lights in the whole town. Crossing the street to get to our hotel was kind of like playing frogger. We were handed key cards for room 420 and headed on up. The room had 2 double beds, a mini fridge, 27' TV and a wonderful view of the city. After dropping off our luggage we decided to check out the hotel. On floor 12 was GYM and I do not mean your typical hotel gym this one had everything including massage parlor and hair salon. After a "quick" workout we went down to the pool area. The pool was very clean and had a hot tub in the middle of it. After visiting the souvenir shop next to the pool we decided we wanted to get our rental car from Payless car rentals. Here's where my first word of warning comes in. We thought we got a good deal on the car rental but when we went o get the car they told us we HAD TO pay for liability insurance and it would be another $15/day. I tried to argue that we were covered and they said check the fine print on payless website about Guatemala POLICIES. After paying double what I was quoted for a car we decided it was time for dinner and from the rumors we heard we decided to not go out for dinner and returned to the hotel where we had free parking and a nice meal.

March 20th 2010 - Crowne Plaza offered a FREE buffet breakfast so we decided to give it a try. All I have to say is WOW!! the breakfast buffet was amazing. After breakfast we headed out to Antigua for the day. About a 45 min drive through what I will call bumper/indy race we arrived to a beautiful older city with cobblestone roads and narrow one way streets.     On our way into the city there were people trying to sell a window hanger, we had no idea what it was for but turns out is was a parking sticker and lucky for us we used a parking garage. We walked the streets of Antigua checking out the little store and vendors until we came across a market. This market was enormous with anything and everything for sale. the Antigua market is a must see for anyone traveling to Guatemala. We had snacks while walking around the market and found some bike riding jerseys for our ride then headed back to Guatemala City for the night. As we entered the city traffic was horrible as usual and we witnesses a red city bus blow a front tire and plow into another city bus and almost tip over, Luckily it appeared no one seriously hurt. We decided we did not want to pay the hotel the high prices from their meals and ventured out to find some food. Well actually we crossed the street to this little hole in the wall where no one again spoke English. The menus were all in Spanish so we closed our eyes and pointed to the menu. I ended up with verde enchiladas made with freshly made corn tortillas and a hot sauce that tingled your nose. We hung out and drank cervesas for a couple hours until we went back to our room.

March 21st 2010 - We once again had an amazing breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to chichicastenango to go market. After a three hour drive we ended up in a small dusty town with very little parking. We ended up finding a tourist information person who guided us to a parking spot and charged us $10.00 to park there. We entered the market which is basically everyone and their brother selling junk from around the home. If you are looking for used, broken, obsolete things then this is the place to be. After 1 hour of walking around like a sardine we decided to leave and head to our next destination Panajachel. This was the highlight of our trip. Panajachel is located on Lake Atitlan with an amazing view of 3 volcanoes. The town is very small and once again no one speaks English. We shopped around for a hotel stopping at some of the ones I highlighted from our Lonely Planet book until we found posada de don rodrigo. This hotel is located directly on the lake and offers room with a view, a water slide, internet cafe, gardens, restaurant, bar, heated pool, and free parking. The hotel wanted to charge $137/night until we started to walk out and then they offered a special 2 for 1 because it was a week day, so we booked it for two nights. Once in our room our jaws hit the floor because of the view, see photos. We decided to walk the strip and find dinner on our own and found a little propiertship on the second floor over Rogers tours called restaurant los cayucos. The owner actually was waiter and cook, dinner was 20Q each and beer was 65Q for 2 liters of cervesa, needless to say we ate every meal here. After dinner we headed back to our room before it got too late.

March 22nd 2010 - We were supposed to ride down one of the volcanoes on mountain bikes but there was a protest which closed all the main roads and our tour was cancelled. Now that we do not have anything planned we decided to find something else to do and started shopping the different tour companies until we found adrenaline tours. They arranged for us to have a private tour with English speaking guide to mountain bike around the lake. At 2:00 PM we loaded out TREK bikes onto a private boat to head to other side of the lake. I about died trying to get up the first hill on our ride around. After a few minutes pause to regain balance and breathe we continued on. The ride was only 25Km but it took me 3 hours to get to out final destination San Pedro. In San Pedro we stopped at a local cafe for some local coffee and relax. Then load our bikes back onto our private boat to head back to Panajachel. Once again we went out for dinner to our new found friend on the second floor for an amazing meal for an unbelievable price, I actually ordered three meal at 20Q ea.

March 23rd 2010 - We hired a local who spoke good English to take us around the lake to and see the sights. Before we headed out local took us to where he goes for deysayuno - breakfast. After a wonderful meal for 50Q for 3 people we head out on a personal tour of the lake. Our first stop was to check out a hot water spring where to temp had to be 140+ and the locals had used rocks to make like a small wading pool for bathes. We stopped to see how they were making their clothing and another small market where the locals were selling their harvest. On way to Santiago we pasted the volcanoes and got some pretty cool photos. After Santiago we headed directly through middle of lake  back to the hotel and then proceeded to Guatemala City for out last night in Guatemala.

March 24th 2010 - Enjoyed a bountiful breakfast in the hotel and took courtesy hotel shuttle to the airport. Checking in on this side was not nearly as easy. There were NO self check in kiosks and only 2 people doing check ins. People could not read and follow instructions so it made it that much longer. After what seemed like an hour wait we were able to check in without issue and got emergency row seating. In the airport you can buy just about anything, BUT magazines were $11 each and 2L of rum was $10, guess which one I purchased. We got a pizza and proceeded to the gate where they patted you down again and searched your luggage again before boarding. The plane had maybe 10 open seats and we were lucky enough to sit with a person would had traveled a lot and had a lot of good traveling tips for us. The plane ride home seemed like it only took 30 minutes. Immigration and Custom took maybe 10 minutes combined to get through. We walked outside and the parking shuttle was there waiting. We picked up our vehicle and proceeded to kiosk to check out where we were reminded that some people are stupid, not to ticket agent but the idiot customer driving a BMW and complaining he had to pay an extra day because he went over 2 hours into next day. Getting out a Miami and their traffic was bad but we made it home safe and sound.

Summary - 2 people 6 days 5 nights hotel 4 days rental car and airfare grand total without tours and meals = $1058.00

Before our trip we heard a lot of bad things about Guatemala. After visiting I will say it is like any other place you visit, except every store owner has an armed guard. Pay attention to your surroundings do not go down dark alley ways and you will be fine. I would love to visit Lake Atitlan again and this time stay in Panajachel  or San Pedro for a couple months. The people of Guatemala are actually very friendly and as helpful as they can be with the language barrier and the food is incredible.