We closed our spanish study books, and together with Dermot we left dry and dusty San Pedro La Laguna. We took a shuttlebus to Antigua and we slept there for a night before we went to Monterrico with a chickenbus.

In january we had been three days in Antigua to climb the Pacaya volcano and I wanted to take some more pictures from the nice colonial buildings which I could not visit before.

The next day to Monterrico we saw a completely different landscape; first we saw some active volcanos and later the land was as flat as my own country, The Netherlands. A lot of sugar cane is grown here, and we saw some pools which they use to produce shrimps.

Monterrico was almost a ghost town; only during the weekends it is busy as many people from the big cities visit the beach. For us this did not matter as we only wanted to be lazy, do some swimming and do some surfing. The volcanic sand is very dark and between 11:00 A.M and 15:00 P.M it was simply to hot to go to the beach. If you walk 5 metres into the see the water will be too deep to stand. The waves here are very powerfull and they will throw you back at the beach. Surfing was not an option for Eva. Every morning we had a nice breakfast at the beach with Mary Anne who we met a few months before in Coban. Benjamin and Nick, two travellers we knew from San Pedro, were also there. 

At the local turtle hatchery you can buy young leatherback turtles for 10 quetzales each. You can release the turtles in the ocean, and this way the turtle centre makes some extra money. We thought this was really a cool idea, and like our friend Benjamin said at the beach: “It was … AMAZING!”

After 5 days, and red as lobsters, we left Monterrico to do some travelling …

Paul de Boer