Almost from the time we walked out through the Guatemala City (GC) airport doors, we felt as though our journey had come full circle and we were back somewhere in Asia. Far from the organised streets, polite citizens and manicured gardens of Naples, GC is busy, roads are chaotic, and potentially dangerous.

For this reason we decided not to stay in GC but instead headed directly to the ‘old capital’ of Antigua Guatemala (meaning Ancient Guatemala), about an hour to the south-west (not to be confused with the Island of Antigua in the Caribbean). Antigua Guatemala has the reputation for an ‘enchanting and romantic town’ full of colonial charm so we were going to check it out for ourselves.

The Spaniards ordered that Antigua should be abandoned after an earthquake destroyed many of the buildings in 1717 and the capital was again moved to the new capital GC about 45kms east. Antigua has three volcanos close by and one remains active even today. Some citizens defied the order to move and the city has enjoyed a gradual resurgence in popularity over the years. While many of the buildings were not rebuilt, those that were retain the wonderful Spanish colonial baroque style of architecture and are painted in colours ranging from pastels to earthy hues. Cars, tuk-tuks and motorbikes rattle along the irregular cobblestones that cover all of the one-way streets.

Our guesthouse ‘Taanah’ is owned and operated by a young couple Evelyn and Fernando, and has just four bedrooms each with a private bathroom. We had a room with two double beds and private bathroom and through our French doors we could look across the rooftops towards the Volcán de Agua or “Volcano of Water”, some 3766 meters high. It had a real homestay/guesthouse feel, as it includes breakfast each morning cooked by Evelyn.  They also allow use of their kitchen so we could cook each night and prepare lunches and snacks as needed.  They also had 2 cats, 2 kittens and a dog which entertained the girls daily, and they even delayed the departure of the kittens to their new homes until after we left as the girls were having so much fun with them.

The guesthouse is at the north end of town, and really only a 10 – 20 minute walk from most attractions. While there are footpaths on either side of each road, they are often crumbling, very narrow and only wide enough to walk single file in some places. Many of the house windows have window boxes which protrude outwards over the footpath at head height, adding another hazard to the unwary walker, like Imogen can attest to after walking into one!

It seems that every city block has a church lying in ruins and one large basilica and convent complex has now been converted to a museum, convention centre and hotel. A popular place for the locals to gather is the large Parque Central, directly in front of San José Cathedral. Modern shops selling all sorts of wares from jade jewellery and local textiles to timber furniture now occupy the buildings. While the original facades are maintained, the interiors are transformed to boutique hotels, health spas, dentist practices…

Small dance studios are scattered through the streets where one-on-one salsa or merengue lessons are available, but the most popular activities here for foreigners are the Spanish language schools, with students coming from all over the world to learn Spanish through immersion.  Dave and I took some lessons with a private tutor at our homestay for the very reasonable cost of just 50Quetzal ($6) per hour.

While in the US, we noticed the almost iconic yellow and black school buses everywhere. It seems that when they are retired from school service, they are shipped to a Caribbean island or central America where they are given a make-over and second lease on life. The school buses are transformed into brightly coloured and shiny vehicles, nicknamed ‘chicken buses’ and used to transport the locals between and around towns.

And now, unfortunately, the dark side to Guatemala… Stories of thefts, muggings, credit card skimming, and robberies with violence are everywhere. Guatemala has one of the highest violent crime rates in Central America and for 2012 Guatemala reported an average of 100 murders a week. Although the vast majority of murders do not involve foreigners, other violent crime such as assault, armed robbery, carjacking etc reported by US citizens and other foreigners has remained high.

The cautious visitor will not travel on the local chicken bus or walk home late at night. A French lady who was also staying at the homestay frequently uses the chicken buses to travel between towns and on our second day there she came back from a day out having had her small backpack slashed and wallet stolen while she sat on the bus with the backpack on her lap.

A couple of days later  we also hear about a child of a prominent business man in a town not far away had been kidnapped (for ransom), and I can’t help but think ‘imagine what they would think they would get if they kidnapped a western child?’ So after having built Phoebe and Immi’s confidence about venturing further out by themselves over the last few months I reign them back in again and tell them not to ever lose sight of each other or us!

Usually I take the travel warnings on Government websites with a pinch of salt, they will always err on the conservative side, however these travel accounts I was reading about were being written by actual victims of the crime and some were very recent. Perhaps if I had done all this reading prior to booking I may not have even come but here we were and at the same time I was reading about where to go and what to see and do, it was equally peppered with warnings about safety.  Frankly I got a dose of the heebie-geebies and I didn’t like it.  I have never experienced the feeling of unease like I did here. The more I read and heard, the less I wanted to venture out or travel through Guatemala and that didn’t sit well with me – I have never been afraid of venturing into the unknown- what was the point of being somewhere if you weren’t out exploring and experiencing it? Did we ever actually feel threatened? No.  It was just my internal feelings of unease that I had.

So our list of sightseeing stops around the country dwindled to just two – Antigua and the Mayan ruins in the north at Tikal and ideas about travelling the 12 hour trip north by bus changed instead to an internal flight.

Stories of credit card skimming are rife and seems to be a matter of when and not if you get done over.  Antigua, especially, seemed to be heavily targeted for this and we didn’t want to compromise our credit cards this late in the game either by potentially being a target coming away from an atm or a bank or getting the card skimmed.  As we paid our accommodation costs by PayPal we enquired with our hosts whether we could deposit a larger amount to them and have them give us the change back via their withdrawals at their bank, which they so kindly agreed too.  This enabled us to get a combination of US cash and local currency that lasted us our time in Guatemala.

We spent two weeks catching up on school work mixed in with some of the safer local activities of walking around the city exploring shops, visiting churches, an afternoon at the Chocolate Museum, and visits to the local markets. We also frequented the local equivalent of Brumbies Bakery where we could buy a large, freshly baked banana bread and a fruit loaf together for less than $5.

Those not stopping here for extended language lessons, seem to try to ‘do Antigua’ in two days but as always, we like to get to know a place slowly and part of that is stopping in at little corner stores or the bakery buying the odd food item or ice cream, practising some Spanish with the local shop owner and we did this a few times over the two weeks we were there.

One morning we did the walk up behind our guesthouse to the Cerro de la Cruz (Hill of the Cross) for a great panorama over Antigua and the Volcanos.  Then to appease the girls, the afternoon was spent at a rather ‘flash’ local hotel/resort where we could pay for the use of the swimming pool so they could enjoy splashing around for a couple of hours.

Antigua has a large market area that comes to life on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Again, very similar to an Asian market with everything imaginable on sale from fresh fruit and veges to copied brand-name clothing. We went a few times always having a different experience each visit.

After careful consideration (due in part to the cost, but also for sanity and safety), we made the decision to fly from Guatemala City to Santa Elena to get to Flores in the north where we planned to stay for another week and visit some of the country’s Mayan ruins.

So, the girls bid a sad farewell to the cats and kittens who had become their best friends at the guesthouse and we set off by private minibus back to GC airport. Check-in went smoothly, however we again came head-to-head with the airport security goon show when they attempted to confiscate our plastic sporf’s (spoon, fork and knife combo eating utensil) held in my carry-on backpack. We had bought our sporfs back in Australia and they had faithfully travelled the thousands of kilometres with us proving to be one of our handiest purchases.  Determined not to have a repeat of the vegemite incident at the Paris airport, we confidently told the security officer (in no uncertain terms) that no other airport security in the world – including the US, France and Germany – had any issue with these harmless devices. The security supervisor was duly fetched who advised the airline would have to be informed and that they would make the final decision. We had arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and were in no hurry, so we stood our ground and indicated that we would await the airlines decision. After further discussions, the security manager came over and briefly glanced at our plastic ‘weapons’, shrugged her shoulders and waved us through. Once again, a whole lot of fuss over nothing!

Our ATR-40 aircraft was running about half an hour late, but soon we were on board and climbing away from GC. A beautifully formed storm cloud, in the classic anvil shape and complete with lightning flickering inside, was off to our left – perhaps an early promise for the wet season which would begin soon.