The Plan That Wasn't
Listen, when I tell people I'm a travel writer, they imagine me plotting routes with military precision, booking things months ahead, wearing khaki that's somehow both pristine and world-weary. The truth is messier. I'd arrived in Guatemala City on a Tuesday with three phone numbers, two leads on decent coffee, and absolutely no plan beyond "don't die, find Tikal, write something true."
I had a flight out in eight days. Turns out that's either plenty of time or no time at all, depending on how badly you fuck things up.
My mate Ngaio, a food photographer from Melbourne who'd texted me three weeks prior with "mate, wanna go to Guatemala?", was already in Antigua when I landed. She'd spent her first afternoon getting aggressively lost in the colonial streets, which meant by the time I arrived she had opinions about everything: the coffee (exceptional), the prices (insulting), and the local bakeries (life-changing, no hyperbole).
"Right," she said, dragging me toward a café that smelled like cinnamon and gunpowder. "Tomorrow we're doing proper market stuff. I'm sick of eating in tourist traps."
The Market Wars
The Guatemalan Cooking Class & Market Tour Guatemalan Cooking Class & Market Tour started at six in the morning because apparently that's when the market is "alive." I showed up with what I thought was enthusiasm. I was wrong. I showed up barely awake, clutching a bottle of water and regretting the mezcal from the night before.
Our guide, a woman named Lucía who moved through the market like she owned it (which, spiritually, she might have), started by pointing at things and naming them in rapid Spanish. Chiles. Tomatoes. Coriander. Onions. Achiote. The basics, except not basic at all because each one had a story—where it was grown, which families had been farming them for generations, why this particular vendor's chillies were superior to that vendor's chillies across the aisle.
This last point became contentious.
Ngaio, who has the negotiating instincts of a shark and the stubbornness of a particularly stubborn rock, decided to quiz multiple vendors about their chillies. Where did they come from? Were they fresh? Were they really fresh, or just fresh-looking? The vendors found this hilarious and aggressive in equal measure. One woman—Doña María, dark eyes, laugh like a mule—started engaging Ngaio in what I can only describe as competitive chilli discourse.
By the end of it, we'd agreed to buy from three different stalls, and Ngaio had been invited to a birthday party next month.
The cooking class itself happened in a small kitchen above a colonial courtyard. We made five dishes: picadillo, pepián rojo, black beans cooked the proper way (with epazote, which smells like petrol and makes everything better), fresh tortillas, and a dessert called buñuelos that involved deep frying and barely contained chaos. Lucía was patient until Ngaio tried to photograph each step, at which point she became gently ruthless, moving us along with the efficiency of someone running a proper kitchen.
By noon I'd burned my left hand on hot oil, Ngaio had somehow got chilli paste in her hair, and we'd eaten better than we had in months. Worth it.
The Road North
Two days later, I was in a hotel room at dawn, throwing clothes into a bag, when my phone buzzed. A client had asked for a last-minute rewrite. My flight to Guatemala City was at noon. The internet at the hotel was running at approximately the speed of continental drift.
I could've panicked. Instead, I booked a Private Ground Transfer From Antigua To Guatemala City Airport Private Ground Transfer From Antigua To Guatemala City Airport. No minibus stampede at 5am, no hunting for a ride whilst pretending to understand Spanish slurred at triple-speed, just a driver named Carlos who arrived at the hotel at seven, helped me load my gear, and drove me down that solid highway like a person who'd done this a thousand times.
I rewrote the article in the back seat whilst Carlos navigated traffic with the calm of someone who'd made peace with chaos. I made my flight with twenty minutes to spare.
Into The Jungle
Flores was a different energy entirely. The town sits on an island in a lagoon, and everything feels slightly detached from reality—which is probably why so many people skip it entirely and dash straight to Tikal. Mistake.
I'd booked the Tikal Tour From Flores, airport and Tikal hotels in Guatemala Tikal Tour From Flores, airport and Tikal hotels in Guatemala for the following morning, which meant I had an afternoon to wander. I found a bar run by a German bloke named Klaus who'd apparently lived there since 1987 and had opinions about everything from the best time to visit (not now, too hot; also always, it's always perfect) to where the jaguars actually were ("closer than you'd want them to be").
The Tikal tour started early. Our guide, a Itza Maya man named Juan who'd grown up in the shadow of those temples, picked me up from my hotel in an air-conditioned van that felt obscene in the heat. We drove through jungle so thick it seemed unlikely anyone had ever found anything out there, let alone an entire civilisation.
Tikal Full Day with Dedicated Exploration of the Archaeological Monuments Tikal Full Day with Dedicated Exploration of the Archaeological Monuments. is the proper way to do it. Juan wasn't rushing. He knew which temples were worth climbing (most of them), which trails led somewhere interesting (all of them), and the history of each structure like he'd watched it being built. We spent six hours walking through jungle, clambering over ruins, sweating through three shirts.
The thing about Tikal is that no photo prepares you. The temples emerge from the jungle like the jungle permitted them to exist, which is probably more accurate than we deserve. Temple IV is 65 metres tall. From the top, you're above the canopy. You can see for miles. Below you, other temples poke through the green like they're trying to remind everyone they're there.
Juan told us about the water systems, the trade routes, the collapse that archaeologists are still arguing about. He told us about the forest itself—the jaguars and pumas that live there, the birds, the plants. By the end, my feet were destroyed and my mind was entirely elsewhere.
The Spiral Back
I had four days left. Back in Guatemala City, I wanted to actually see the place instead of just passing through it like a tourist with a stopwatch. I booked the 4-Hour Bike Tour Guatemala City 4-Hour Bike Tour Guatemala City because I apparently hadn't learned that I'm not a cyclist.
Delphine, a musician from Montreal who I'd met in Flores, decided to join. The tour used dedicated cycle paths for most of the route, which meant we weren't dodging suicidal taxis every thirty seconds. We rolled past green spaces, monuments, neighbourhoods that didn't make it into guidebooks. Our guide, a young woman named Sofia, pointed out graffiti art, explained the city's mad geography (it's built in a valley; the sprawl is insane), and stopped at a bakery that did the best pan de elote I've eaten.
My legs hated me. My soul loved it.
The Honest Bit
Guatemala isn't Instagram. It's not a postcard. It's hot, chaotic, sometimes sketchy, occasionally extraordinary, frequently both at once. The planning I did work was the stuff I actually did—booking the tours, checking in with locals, staying flexible enough to change course when something better appeared.
I left with singed eyebrows, a photo of Ngaio covered in chilli paste, about six thousand words of actual stories, and the kind of exhaustion that comes from really being somewhere instead of just visiting it.
That's the difference, I reckon. Being a dirtbag doesn't mean you're unprepared. It means you're prepared to be surprised.
