Customer Feedback

Holidays to Guatemala arranged by Condor Journeys and Adventures

Instead of displaying only one-sentenced-flattering and useless comments, we decided to publish the whole message of out customers as they wrote it. This page provides you with valuable information about our holidays into Guatemala as well as about our organisation skills and the feedback is written by people who experienced it during the past years. Our customers being international, comments are published in the native language of the writer.

Elke from the US, Tailormade arrangements all over Guatemala and Belize 06/2004
Now, to our trip! Our vacation was really terrific, and not at least for the fact, that this time we had a couple days of simply doing nothing. The travel agent in Guatemala who took care of us was very caring, and our driver (I believe his name was something like Josue?) very courteous. We invited him to see us in case he’ll make it to Orlando because he was so nice. However, that poor Josue had to drive repeatedly all the way from Antigua to Guatemala City just to pick us up from the airport and drive us to the hotel was a bit over the line. We finally figured it out and just took a local taxi, making sure his boss wouldn’t suspect that he complained to us, since he didn’t. In fact, he really tried to talk us in that it wasn’t a big deal for him. Right, getting up at 3 AM, drive to Guatemala for an hour, just to shuttle a few stupid American tourists to the airport, which is a 20 min. trip… Our hotel in Antigua was built as I would have built my dream home if I could have afforded it, with that gorgeous atrium garden inside the hotel, sigh… We even found Bill Clinton’s autograph there, he had stayed at the same place a couple of years ago. Wow!
Marvin, who had hoped not to be stared at for once, was stared at more than ever, especially by kids about his age! When we saw Antigua 11 years ago, many of the churches who are now lovingly restored, were still in ashes and rubble, the city of Antigua has done a marvelous job renovating this old colonial town! I am always fascinated by the laundry sinks, which you can find all over Guatemala, however the one in Antigua is gigantic. Since I am not sure whether you had found it, let me describe it to you. Imagine a huge basin with water, similar to a little rectangular pond. Out of this basin drainpipes lead to sinks, one every four feet. Every Saturday (and only on Saturdays! Just like me!) the women come to this place to do their laundry. Each one occupies one of the sinks and starts washing. The used, soapy water drains into the sewer, fantastic!
We found out that Marvin comes from the Lake Atitlan area. All we knew before was, that he was from the Highlands, and that he is a “pure bred” Maya Indian. As we approached Lake Atitlan, Josue told us that all the true Mayas live here, and since the lake is in the Highlands we concluded that this is were he must be from. He was fascinated by this idea and checked everything out very well. Now it was him staring at the people! Lake Atitlan is, sigh, I don’t even have the words to describe it! Lake Atitlan and Chan Chich were the two places we enjoyed the most! The hotel was pure luxury, surrounded by this marvelous botanical garden (did you know that people who do not stay at the hotel have to pay an entrance fee to be able to see it!?) We only had breakfast at the hotel, since this was included, walked every day to Panajachel, where we had a lunch and bought cheese and bread for our dinner. The restaurant at the hotel was very expensive, and moreover, we liked the little restaurants in Pana actually better. The trip to Chichicastenango was a bit on the “tourist trap” side, we personally like small Indian markets in little towns like Pana better, but it was fun, and we enjoyed visiting the Indian-Christian church.
This year, talking Spanish was no problem, the first time that I started jabbering right away, not shying away from it. It must be that I taught Spanish three times a week for the whole year. I was baffled myself! It was in Pana where Marvin and Michael understood why I did not allow them to pack their American teenage uniform (here they wear their pajamas! At least that’s what it looks like to me!) The women and men at the Lake Atitlan wear their traditional Mayan clothing, and I am sure that although they are used to tourists in shorts and t-shirts, they would not have understood the oversized teenage-wear my boys use to wear at home! Anyway, the four days in Atitlan were just beautiful, something I will not forget in my whole life.
Guatemala City was like every other metropolis on earth. Loud, dirty, crowded. We were surprised to find out that the Camino Real now has a ‘family quarter’, where they house all the adoptive families and their babies. We asked whether we could get our two rooms there, and they granted us this wish with a smile. In the family quarter there is a kitchen with a huge refrigerator, a playroom with all kind of toys, every room is not only equipped with a crib (which we had already in our room 11 years ago when we had Marvin), but also with a baby bathtub, baby cosmetics (shampoo, lotion, oil, etc.), and baby food! Oh, man! You can imagine that we were beside ourselves to see all this!
We ran into two American women who stayed there with their babies. The one, with baby Carl, 8 months, has in the meantime returned to North Carolina and sent me already an email (which I haven’t answered yet…) The other one had a little girl, Maya, who was already more than a year old, and she was from California. Both women were already 4 -5 months in the country waiting for the adoptions to happen! We had stayed with Marvin only for a week! For all of our children this was quite a revelation, to see how such an adopted family begins!
From Ciudad de Guatemala Josue drove us the 20 min. to the airport to catch the flight to Copan (that’s when we figured that that didn’t make any sense! What a waste of energy! People’s and petroleum’s!) The airport in Copan is hard to find and the pilot struggled a bit, using his GPS. We never told him that we were aware of it, because we didn’t mean to embarrass him, but we had our fun with it. Copan is one of the best-preserved Maya archaeological sites, and we had a great guide, who was very knowledgeable, who explained everything in great detail. We knew already a lot from our history lessons, and I think that may have impressed him. We knew and could read the Maya numbers, we knew about the four calendars the Mayas had, and which one was used for what. Maybe that was the reason why he gave us such detailed explanations, about the Maya king 18 Rabbits, and that the Maya hieroglyphs can only be deciphered since a couple of years. Copan was another highlight on our trip!
Well, I told you this would be a long one, and now you may understand why it took me so long to sit down, take my time and write it. However, this is not a good excuse, and I apologize. I can imagine that you must have wondered why I did not write yet!
I am looking forward to hearing from you,
Best regards,