Crazy Monterrico

I just got back from a bizarre weekend in Monterrico which is a beach resort, 2 hours drive from here.

I went with Karen on Friday morning. 8 am shuttle......which really was closer to 8:30 am. We arrived around 11 am. The shuttle bus was old, and we had an extra battery he had to pick up on the way- just in case we broke down. The coastline drive was awesome. Hardly any big trucks or chicken buses. We were delayed a bit by some traffic, but nothing major.

At one point, we were not moving at all, until we saw that we had to ferry it across the river to the other side. What a sight! Very organized, trying to get 2 or 3 lanes of traffic into one, by size and fit.........onto these funny looking flat bed type ramps that they motored across with a jet boat motor! The largest one fit about 6 cars, 3 on each side. Some trucks went on their own as others did not fit. The water was filthy- and you wondered what would happen if the engine died....but we just stayed on the bus laughing and took pictures of this 10 minute ride. Crazy!

Once we got to Monterrico, we were dropped off at this hotel, where there were these guides coming up to us to offer us assistance in finding a hotel on the beach. We looked at one for 50Q a night- can't remember if it was each or total- but it wasn't that great, so we walked on to look at a few others.

We settled for one right on the beach.... room 5.....Hotel El Mangle. I'm pretty sure he over charged us.... 500Q for 2 nights ($75.00 Cad ). He kept on saying it was the long weekend, tons of tourists blah blah blah..... Our room was okay- 2 beds with mosquito netting and a useable bathroom- if you call a filthy toilet that flushed and a shower that was just a pipe- useable. The rooms were under this super big hut with one roof, so basically each of the rooms did not have their own solid walls, and you heard all the noises around you. The only good thing about this spot was that we had our own hammock out front. I love hammocks! They will be getting their own blog comment after this. The swimming pool was pretty small and had no chairs around it to lie around on. There was also no front desk, just the owner walking around collecting money. Insane.

They call this a resort? Yikes.

We ended up buying a tour from our guide once we had made a decision on the hotel. You had to know there was some sort of catch to his helping us! 100 Q ($15) for 2, on a boat tour for 6 people ...Mangrove Swamps. 5:30 am on Saturday. He had also taken us for a quick tour at one of the turtle sanctuaries right next to our hotel. There was this huge huge turtle there, as well as all these eggs buried in the sand. I can't remember how long it takes for them to hatch. We also saw these baby turtles that were going to be released out to the ocean the next day.

I'm thinking..........where am I? Especially after seeing this long long beach with black sand and very hot if walking on it barefoot. The ocean waves were also very high and loud......... crashing down on the beach.

We also saw all these sand dune buggies motoring around and thought We just HAVE to rent those on Saturday! It turned out that we should of done this ASAP- as it rained and rained the next 2 days.

Lesson: Do everything as soon as you see it! Don't wait.....weather might ruin options for later!

They also had horses you good rent for the beach or wondering around town.

We figured we had tons of time to do EVERYTHING if we wanted, so we changed and headed to Johnny's for a drink and something to eat. Well...the hammocks were fantastic so we just hung out all afternoon.

After spaying some bug spray on us, we walked the beach to figure out what we would do later that evening. As we were walking, it started to rain. Really hard. We had no choice but to stop at Vivotizon.

Highlights of this bar:

• Our waiter taking our orders and forgetting to come back..even after us reminding him several times.
• Mark, the bartender from England, with the beautiful eyes, but drunk and wet, trying to find us a bottle of warm white wine- that he put on ice especially for us.
• Walking and standing in the flooded bathroom, with water past your ankles.
• Meeting Luis and Oscar from Guatemala City our new dance partners for the night!

The beach was really really dark.........but LUCKILY I had my headgear light to help us along the way to our next destination.

"El Animal" was a very busy little bar on the beach. Loads of fun. Met tons of other people we partied with.

Good thing I remembered we had a 5:30 am boat ride.......so we called it a night around oneish.

The boat ride was FANTASTIC the next day! Check out the link I have for some pictures I found on Monterricco.....I think it will give you a good idea of where I was!

The rest of the weekend rained and rained and rained! We did however, get a chance to check out ¨Cafe del Sol¨and another bar by our hotel with some great local music.

Coming home on a different shuttle was nerve racking. We kept stalling and it only took us 3.5 hours to get home from a 2 hr trip- no traffic.

Scary.

http://www.eveandersson.com/guatemala/monterrico