Guatemala

Your journey through Central America starts in the heart of the Mayan world. Spend the night in Lanquim, a trading centre for the indigenous people living in the surrounding high mountains. Before reaching heaven in Semuc Champey, a rainforest haven where a river hides beneath the hearth, giving way to the 300 meters of natural pools with an idyllic turquoise touch. You will be brought down back to earth while visiting the harsh reality of the local Mayan communities. An experience which will make you realize the heavy and sorrow difference between escaping the real world and living trapped outside of it…

On the way to Livingstone and the garifunda side of Guatemala, cross Rio Dulce, a gorgeous waterway through the jungle heading all the way to the Caribbean sea. And then, the Tikal, the lost city, one of the most impressive archeological complexes left by the Mayan civilization that have survived to this day.

After the city lost in time, the one that will make you wish to run away from it and start planning a definitive escape from the real world anchored in Central America: Antigua. Perhaps out of respect for the 3 impressive volcanoes dominating the horizon, man didn’t dare to leave any scare in this unique natural setting, but only a perfect and warm-hearted colonial architecture.

Before reaching the Atitlan, one of the most spectacular lakes in the world surrounded by high slopes of mountains and volcanoes, a last dive in the indigenous world in Chichicastenango. A tiny village where, twice a week, the rainbow in carefully dissembled and its pieces are displayed in a market that redefines the concept of colour.

The Central American experience is not complete without a couple of days of surfing and dolce fare niente, gently rocked by a hammock, on a peaceful and virgin beach by the Pacific. Shared with turtles and local fishermen alone…

• Semuk Champey, in the middle of the rainforest, a river hides beneath the earth, forming a water park only nature could have created;

• Visit the Mayan Q'eqchi' communities, micro agricultural societies living isolated in the high mountains, which still today ask for Madre Tierra’s permission every time they open a “wound” to farm the land;

• The Dulce River, a water road throughout which the jungle opens itself to the Caribbean, crossing local communities to whom it is the only lifeline;

• Livingston, a peaceful village that lives with its eyes settled in the sea and with their back covered by thick rainforest, probably the only peninsula in the world connected to land... solely by water;

• Tikal, one of the most important and spectacular archeological complexes left by the Mayans, one of the only 31 places in all the World simultaneously classified as UNESCO Cultural and Natural Heritage site;

• Live an experience with a thousand years e dazzle yourself with the sunrise seen from the top of a Mayan pyramid;

• Antigua, perfect, proud, warm and irresistible, as all colonial cities should be;

• Chichicastenango, an explosion of colours in a market whose existence dates back from ancient times, that still today remains as the main trading point between the several Mayan communities living in the surrounding mountains;

• Lake Atitlan, an ocean of water born from an eruption that took place 84 thousand years ago, a lake that, already in the 19th century, Aldous Huxley described as being just “to much of a good thing”;

• Climbing the San Pedro’s Volcano, which “is best to start as an old man to finish with the strength of teenager” and only loose you breath away with the spectacular view over the Atitlan from 3.000 meters high;

• Playa Paredon, after a surfing and dolce fare niente day in an untouched beach, fall asleep between a window guarded by two volcanoes and another trough which the Pacific waves whistle you a lullaby;

• Redefine your concept of challenge witnessing a baby turtle just out of its egg adventuring itself in the sea, kicking off an odyssey of several days and dozens of kilometres in search of its first meal.