Lucky mistake - spontaneous Couch Surfing.

My incredible hosts

Sometimes traveling does not go according to the previous plan. I got stuck just after crossing the border to Guatemala, because the last day in El Salvador I over hitchhike... It was a very lucky mistake at the end.


I got to the border with the country that I wanted to go next. But I arrived to the wrong boarding crossing. I aimed to go to straight to Antigua and I wanted to skip dangerous capital Guatemala City. But in El Salvador I went too much North and the only road in Guatemala to Antigua was leading through the capital. It was already five o'clock in the evening and it seemed that I would get to the capital after the sun rise. I rather wanted to avoid this, so I decided to get to the nearest city and look for economical accommodation just for few hours till sun rise and afterwards continue to Antigua. I got to Jalpatagua and went to the first hotel... It was far too expensive for my budget. I went to a second one, which was cheap but was serious shit hole, one of the worst I came around. I continue looking. I found the third one which looked very nice. I started to negotiate price with the owner. And then I was telling him about my trip we talked a bit.

Isaac with PowerGrip.

He invited me for a dinner to his house at the back. Frank was Maltese and he married a Guatemalan women, Shenny. Now they have two lovely sons Isaac and Matthias who are 7 and 4 years old. In the meantime I started to play a bit with Isaac with his PowerGrip, spinning top. It is so great that nowadays children are playing with the same games as my parents did!!! I had great time practising my spinning skills with Isaac.

After dinner they invited me to stay at they house.

Me with Matthias.

The next day I wanted to go on, but after breakfast Isaac convinced me to jump to a swimming pool with him and to play with the ball. We had great fun and the time in the swimming pool passed very fast. When we finished there was a dinner time and it was already kind of late to start my travel. So, I continue playing with children and talking with the parents. There was also interesting parade in the city since students from one of the school were celebrating school birthdays. In the evening they arranged the cinema and we all together watched cars 2. The next day Izak went to school, so with Frank and Matthias we drove him there on the scooter. After small sightseeing of the small city I started to continue my travel.

Here is a short movie from our way to Isaac school:

Incredible colonial house.

This was a great, spontaneous Couch Surfing experience. There was a great energy and atmosphere filling the whole house. The house itself was an old colonial building. It consisted of two parts. In both parts buildings were surrounding the patio (courtyard). The first one was allocated for the hotel with the swimming pool in the middle, the second was dedicated for a house to a family, and different types of animals. Above cat and dog they had different types of turtles, Iguanas, parrots. This house was located in the city, but thanks to extremely green patio inside one could feel that one is in the countryside.


I hope that one day my paths will cross again with this family. Every member of this family had a huge luggage of positive energy. Thank you a lot for this experience.
All the best to you guys. Isaac, Matthias keep on practising your spinning skills.



And few photos from the school parade in Jalpatagua.




P.S.
I also learned from the locals that in Guatemala City every day there are on average 25 people shoot down due to the drugs cartel war and robberies. I am not sure if it is so bad but I was glad that I did not have to check it.