Guatemala - Spanish school, adventures & hospital
Originally the plan was to return together to Perth from early February for a few months, maybe do a bit of contact work and Andrew could spend some time with his family as we all grow older. But at the last minute I decided that I fancied a few sole adventures before heading home and I waved off a sad departing Andrew whilst I planned some travels, intending to join Andrew a few weeks later. But little did I know….!!
After a relaxing week in Barcelona I was ready to do some travel. After learning of a lovely Spanish school in the mountains in Guatemala I decided that was where I needed to be. The ‘deal to self’ was 1 week Spanish school followed by 1 week travels and hiking or motorcycling. Cheap, homestay accommodation for week 1, learn Spanish, volcanoes to climb and loads of cultural things to see and do, sounded like the place for me.
First stop: Antigua, 1 night
As I was arriving quite late in Guatemala City - but didn’t want to stay in the big smoke - I had pre arranged a taxi pick up to take me about 50kms to Antigua. A popular tourist destination with a market and some gorgeous sites to visit as well as lost of coffee shops. This was just a hop stop over to get me out of the city and on the way to Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan, where my spanish school for the next week is located.
Next Stop: Panajachel, 7 nights
The school had arrange a bus pick up for me from the hostal I was staying at so after a 3 hours twisty, stunning ride the full bus of intrepid travellers arrived on the beautiful lakeshore Panajachel. I literally bumped into my ‘homestay’ host on a street corner, dropped my things at the humble abode and set off to explore the town.
I had a fabulous week at Jabel Tinamit school, with Donis my teacher (one on one lessons) for the week and the lovely team of teachers and students. The homestay was simple but such amazing value for the room with my own bathroom and 3 meals a day for a week (some I had to skip as it was too much) all for $125. Having finished the first week, received my Student Certificate, I had a second week full of planned adventures, starting with climbing San Pedro Volcano on the Sunday.
A new friend made at school, Alex is a parapente instructor but as the winds were right (indeed it was very/too windy to fly) he asked if I would like some company so we Saturday night we set off across Lake Atitlan to San Pedro village to explore, prior to starting the hike early Sunday morning. Lake Atitlan is stunning - surrounded by volcanoes the back drop of scenery is amazing and then you come across these little lakeside villages, now become quite touristy and popular with american expats too.
We had a great hike. 3300m and despite not being great weather, every now and then the clouds would break and caught a snippet of a view from the top. Heading back down we decided to head out on one of the small boats to go to another village for a late lunch, before Alex was heading back to school in Panajachel and I was heading off to bigger (literally 4,000m) volcanos and other adventures.
Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends…….. (there’s a song in there somewhere!!). My second week never happened - well not as I expected or planned anyway.
On the choppy lake, I was tossed around in the small boat and landed in a heap in the bottom of the boat with a broken arm (turned out to be humurus break). In agony I rode out the rest of the boat trip, a car trip back to San Pedro, about 3 kms of walking around trying to find a doctor in a remote location on a Sunday afternoon. I’m keeping this bit of the story quite short and I’m going to be selective with photos for your (or my?) sanity’s sake …but these few hours felt like a lifetime. By 9pm, we managed to find a doctor, get a x ray and finally get some food! before I spent all night on the phone to insurance back in Spain to determine next steps.
Having been assigned a local ‘insurance’ doctor whom I visited on the Monday, he signed me off for immediate surgery! Despite my wanting to get back to Spain for the operation, this was clearly not going to happen so he booked me into a private hospital, for later that day in Quelzaltenango, about a 3hr drive away. As the insurance paperwork didn’t come through in time, I had to suffer another night of pain in a local hotel before we set off the next morning for the hospital.
Much to my surprise the Doctor appeared at 0800 the next morning driving an ambulance. When I quizzed him stating that it may be a little over the top for my injury, he advised me that it wasn’t due to the nature of my injury but rather that we wouldn’t get through the ‘road blockades’ if weren’t travelling by ambulance?! huh? So not the adventure I had signed up for …but an adventure it was!! BTW road blockades there were indeed!! The ambulance indeed served its purpose! Politically motivated, demanding a political voice for the indigenous people of Guatemala….it seems to be a common theme in today’s world. Unfortunately the political powers and corruption that are rife in Guatemala make this process very challenging.
3 days in hospital in Quelzaltenango, Guatemala - we don’t know how lucky we are in ‘our’ respective countries. I was in a private hospital and it was ‘on the limit’ even for me and I can do basic! Having said that, the surgery seemed to go well and once my arm was at least immobilised I was a lot more comfortable, despite the huge cast. I managed the 3 hours taxi drive on difficult roads to get back to Guatemala City airport, to be as close as I could, ready for the next flight I could get. I checked into the only nice boutique hotel I could find, close to the airport and enjoyed it immensely after the chaos and sleepless nights at the hospital. Unfortunately I couldn’t get out of Guatemala for another 3 days as all the flights were totally full. In the end I left on my original flight (as my case was not repatriation) however this was also full, like every seat, on the 18 hours flight home with 3 stopovers was probably a bigger challenge than the surgery.
Guatemala is a simple, but beautiful country (albeit with many political issues) and I was sorry to leave it, the way that I did. I felt I still had more to see. Hopefully I’ll get chance to go back and finish the trip and all the things I had planned, as well as go back to the school, another time.
Finally home to Barcelona - not a lot easier in some ways as I was still alone and know no one there, but it was still great to be home. Phew!