Spent 5 fabulous days in Guatamala. It was unexpected, beautiful, historical, and perfect! Unexpected only because Guatamala hadn’t been on my list, it was on sale through a travel company, and we decided to impulsively (mostly impulsively) visit. Highly recommend that you visit, and that you hit the the places that we visited, though there is always more things to see than there is time!
Day 1: Arrival in Guatamala City, and just adjusting/acclimating. We stayed at a place close to the airport in Zone 10. We were close to restaurants, shopping malls, etc.
Day 2: Full day Antigua tour - we were able to see some beautiful locations in Antigua such as a convent that was converted to a hotel, see Antigua from a scenic viewpoint, see the antigua Arch. Could have spent more time there. Others of our group did the tour independently and took an uber to/from Guatamala city which is another option. Be prepared for the traffic.
Day 3: Full day Lake Atitlan and Chichicastenago - Our group opted to do a visit to the lake and spend some time there, though we could have gone straight to Chichicastenago. Definitely enjoyed Lake Atitlan, it was beautiful. We did a short boat ride to check out the blue waters and scenery. Then we were only able to spend a short amount of time at Chichastenago but it was good - be prepared for the people (lots and lots of people) but very cool to see the market place live as it would have been any normal Saturday.
Day 4: Highlight for me - visited Tikal National Park. This was an early morning flight to Flores, picked up some additional visitors, and walked around Tikal National Park. We had about 4 hours there including lunch and had plenty of time to visit all of the pyramids, and climb the ones that we could. We saw monkeys in the trees, and other wildlife, and were able to enjoy being out of the city.
Day 5: Homeward bound so early morning walk in Guatamala City and then headed to airport to go home!
