Photo. People enjoy themself in Xela, Guatemala. © Alex Welsh.
To start with, the Gutemaltekas speak slowly and clearly. Anyone who has been to Cuba will appreciate the importance of this – you aren’t going to learn Spanish if you don’t understand a single word muttered through lazy lips at machine-gun speed, half of the letters chewed into a uniform blob on their way out. Secondly, Guatemala is on the way: for anyone (and especially North Americans) going down the continent this is a good time to learn a few phrases – at the beginning of the trail. Third, the Guatemalan culture is heavily indigenous, so it makes it an interesting place to stop for a week and get to know it. And last, but not least, Guatemala is much cheaper than most of Latin America, making it a competitive proposition.
As a result, you get quite a motley crowd of students. Maybe not so much top-end travellers, but definitely a lot of backpackers eager to stock up on “Donde esta…?” and “Cuanto cuesta…?” for the long journey ahead, as well as a lot of the more adventurous North American High who might not be up for roaming around the continent, but at least they will get out of the US / Canada into a native culture to spend a month somewhere different while learning the language. You normally pay for a week’s course, quite a few hours a day one-to-one with a teacher, although that can modified to your needs.
Once in Guatemala, you will usually be directed to one of the two places.
Lake Atitlan is a very scenic mountainous landscape with volcanoes and postcard indigenous people. A string of villages along the bank of the lake lets you adjust the level of spirituality according to your habitual marijuana dosage. This place is the Guatemalan equivalent of a stereotypical backpacker beach village. Antigua, on the other hand, is somewhat of Guatemalan Cuzco (but, in my opinion, not as nice), an area with Irish bars and cosmopolitan restaurants cordoned off from the rest of Guatemala for the safety of the tourists and, in places, paved to accommodate travellers’ high heels.
Everyone says they visit Antigua because it has the volcanoes around it. I am sorry but I don’t buy it. People go to Antigua because everyone else goes there. Central America has volcanoes all over the place. By the way – very important – there is a village in Guatemala where turtles lay eggs, I read it in the Lonely Planet.
Most people are happy with those two in terms of Spanish classes. And then there are grumpy buggers like me who start kicking when they are herded to developed locations. But I didn’t know of any other options, and I didn’t want to end up in some total tomb somewhere. Luckily, I was given a tip, which I am now spreading with this article.
Personally, I decided to avoid Antigua in the very beginning, lest I bump into the Lord of the Underworld. But Lake Atitlan was highly recommended. It was pretty and all but after a couple of days up in smoke with Bob Marley (again…) me and Luke, the guy I met there, began planning our escape from the Lonely Planet trail. The furthest we could think of at the time was El Salvador but since it was a bit of a mystery Luke decided to brush up on his Spanish. His Atitlan allowance was now spent, though, so it would have to be Antigua.
No way in hell. I told Luke I’d see him there in a few days, in brief transit and he’d better be finished by then.
After a few-day trip through the mountains I caught the chicken bus to Guatemala City, which was going through Antigua. Chicken buses. Oh yeah. Don’t be fooled - the guy who is driving is not the one in control of the vehicle. It is the other guy - the primate who jumps around the roof at full speed, shouts "Guatemala, Guatemala ciudad, Guatemala, GuateGuateGuateee!!!!!!!!" like there’s an imminent danger of GuateGuate, hangs out of the door and tells the driver what to do (a bit like an F1 team). And everyone else on the road: all roads are one lane each way and the general road ethics is to speed overtake on the oncoming lane regardless of tight mountain turns, and when something is coming your way, the bus pushes other cars to the side to come back into the right lane, at full speed.
Whether it works out or not is largely a matter of chance. The guy is the original backseat driver, and he actually does backseat drive, only he doesn’t have a seat and instead macholy hangs out of the bus fully at 45 degrees. Which is why all vehicles in CA have "Jesus is my guide" on the windscreen (phew, I thought he had forsaken us...) apart from one truck I saw that simply had "I am different" all across the front. Packed is not the word. It’s just a sea of bodies. Yet someone always insists on getting from one end of the bus to another. A necessary criterium to exercise that right is an oversized basket, or at least a big stinking sack of potatoes.
This article continues in part 2: read more about learning Spanish in Xela, Guatemala. Click on the link: Learning Spanish in Xela, Guatemala.
Alex Welsh, 29 May 2007
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Alex is the webmaster of Valencia Travel Online - an independent resource on travelling in Valencia, Spain - www.valenciavalencia.com.
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