Antigua is gorgeous. The old capital of Guatemala, it's a UNESCO heritage site so the architecture is protected and preserved, and any new buildings must be in-keeping with the traditional style. The result is a beautiful grid of cobbled streets lined by colonial buildings which rarely rise higher than two stories. The central square is a hub of activity with people from all over the world, lined with quaint coffee shops and locals selling their traditional Mayan wares. It's very easy to see why this is a place where so many travelers get 'stuck'. Tom's aunty had told us off a distant family relative in Antigua, called Siggy so we gave her a call when we arrived. Her shop happened to be just around the corner to our hostel, so we popped around to say hello. We went for lunch and learnt about her fascinating story; how she ended up in Antigua after growing up in Bolivia, then living in Italy and Florida, before moving to Guatemala and starting her business selling traditional Guatemalan handicrafts. We also figured out the tenuous family link - Siggy is Tom's half-aunt's second cousin! She offered for us to come and stay in her home just 2km out of town. A Peace Core volunteer, she told us that her house was always full of people passing through and that her dining table must have heard more amazing tales than you could ever believe. So of course we took her up on her offer and wow, the house was stunning. It is named 'Les Tres Gracias' (the three graces) after Siggy and the two other ladies that she built the house with! These three women now live together and are a wealth of knowledge and experience, so generous with their home and their time. We had dinner together swapping stories (we could have just sat and listened all night), and later Siggy pulled out the family tree, dating right back to 1559 when the first Baraona was recorded in Chile. We had great fun finding Tom and his family, and then figuring out how they linked to Siggy and her family.
The next day we headed out to Lake Atitlan. Thanks to some nifty shortcuts courtesy of Siggy, we were making excellent time, until we got signalled over by a couple of policemen on the side of the road. We knew we had everything in order so weren't worried, until we realised that all our documents were in our panniers, which we had left at Siggy's while we went away for a couple of days. Uh oh. They asked for the title document for the bike. We explained that it was in Antigua with Tom's family as we didn't want to lose it. We showed them the digital copy on Tom's phone, but despite everything being very clear it was not good enough. In all honesty this was fair enough as it is indeed Guatemalan law to have your vehicle papers on you at all times when driving. So they broke the news that we have to pay a 500Q fine (about $80). Luckily, we only had about 55Q/$8 in our wallet (the rest was stashed in our money belt, hidden beneath all my motorbike gear!). So we reached a stalemate. We offered to go to an Internet cafe to print the documents to show them, but they said no they must be the originals. But we didn't have the money they wanted for the fine. So what was going to happen?
They ummed and arred for a long while, muttering between themselves when finally just asked us to handover our 55Q and sent us on our way. We couldn't quite believe it. Overall a bizarre and worrying experience that taught us two things - 1, always have all our paperwork on us and 2, only ever keep a very small amount of money in the wallet! It also wouldn't be a bad thing to keep a spare driver's license on hand for fellow bikers (Tom has his English and Australian ones with us) as the policeman was grasping onto it fairly tightly and at one point we were worried we weren't going to get it back without handing over the full fine. Back on the road we sped off as quickly as we dared, to Panajachel on the edge of Lake Atitlan. Riding the top of the mountains at 2600m before winding down to the lake it got very chilly! And for the first time I felt completely validated in bringing all of our cold weather gear on this trip with us. If it was this cold in low mountains of a tropical country, how cold is it going to get in mid winter in the Andes?! We snaked down the side of the hills through the Mayan town of Solola (one of the last places you can see Mayan men in traditional dress), before arriving in Panajachel, the lake's gateway to the many other towns on its shores. We found a great hostel off the main drag that was perfect for keeping the bike safe, and spent the afternoon pottering about. We managed to eat both lunch and dinner for a total of about $12 for both of us, by making use of the fabulous street vendors.
Sadly due to the time of year there was a lot of cloud and as a result we never saw more than one volcano peak at a time. But nevertheless it was a beautiful spot, and we enjoyed taking a boat out on the lake to visit San Pedro on the opposite side. Now it's back to Antigua for a quick Spanish course! Let's hope we don't have to pay off anymore policemen...
Adiós y hablar pronto!