Byron's Travel Blog: Antigua, Guatemala: A Change of Plans

First off let me say, "Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!"

Ok, now on with the post...

After being here for a month it seems that I may have to make some adjustments to the overall plans of my trip. The good thing is, since my plans weren’t really rock solid plans to begin with, adjusting will be easy.

First, it looks as though I will have to get an apartment for my last month living in Guatemala, as opposed to staying with the family. I’ve done some analysis of my spending over the last 23 days, and it seems that I’m spending quite a bit of money here on a daily basis. I actually anticipated this while I was to be staying in Guatemala, since I’m also paying for the Spanish school, as well as costs of living and having fun.

One of the things that appealed to me about living with the family, other than being forced to speak Spanish 24/7, was that my meals were included in the payment for the accommodations. As it turns out, and as I’ve said in one of my previous posts, we don’t get fed very much around here. I know I eat a lot, and I have discussed this with other students in the house and they had said basically the same thing…that they are always hungry as well. As it turns out over the last 2 weeks, I’ve been going out and buying 2 to 3 separate meals a day, as well as eating what the family feeds me, or just completely skipping their meals all together; because bread, beans, water, and fried banana is not sufficient for a dinner, and I don’t care what anyone says about the issue, that’s a fact.

With that being said, and since I’m paying $400/month to stay with the family and I'm also buying 2 to 3 meals a day on my own, I think it would be more cost effective to rent a nice apartment for $200-$400/ month instead. With the savings, I could definitely be eating really well considering the fact that last night I splurged on: an Angus steak sandwich, french fries, a bowl of soup, a glass of Argentine Malbec, and a bottle of water at a high end restaurant which, including tip, only cost me $8.

Which also makes me wonder why I’m being fed such little food when I pay $100 a week to stay here. There are 4 other students that stay here aside from myself, which means the family is generating revenues of approximately $500 a week in US dollars. So if 1 huge meal plus wine at a high end restaurant is $8US, imagine what you could buy at the market with $500 per week! Seriously, you can feed a small army in Guatemala for $500/week, so it makes me wonder where the hell is all the money going?? Anyway, enough about food because it’s making me hungry…

Also, it looks like I may swap going to Belize for Costa Rica. The main reason being, is that a round trip flight to Belize from Guatemala City is outrageously expensive (I’m talking like $430!). I actually could take a bus to Belize City, but that would mean a very long trip there, and then I would have to turn around and return back through Guatemala City to fly over to Panama, since it’s my next destination. Flying directly from Belize to Panama would be out of the question since it’s even more expensive just for one way ($350-$500!). I figure it would be easier to fly one way into San Jose, Costa Rica from Guatemala City and bus through the country doing some exploring as I make my way into Panama. This way I could have an amazing trip through Costa Rica and save cash at the same time, as I want my entire trip to last as long as possible, or at least so that I wont be forced to return to the US before I’m ready. I also wouldn’t lose any of my Spanish in Costa Rica. In Belize everyone speaks English and I would be concerned that I would start to forget what I had learned. Even though I would have liked to have tasted the enormous lobsters in Belize that people have told me about, it looks like at this point Belize is out, and Cost Rica is in.