Hobbitenango (website) and Altamira (website) parks up in the mountains past Antigua in Guatemala for an awesome view of the valleys and volcanos. Incredible day, and if I cared more for Instagram would be even more pictures of me.
Would definitely come back and stay overnight in one of the spots and catch the sunrise and sunset though. Highly recommend, and would love more time in Guatemala.
Early Morning Start
Started bright and early for the tour at 7am. Went out to check the temperature and it was not terrible and we were definitely docked, so even though my tour was at 8am, I ventured out to see if my guide was already there.
Found my guide and turns out that we were combined with another small tour to get to Antigua before splitting up on our respective tours. No worries as it was a small group and van anyway, but felt bad that they were waiting on me, as our tours were probably booked at slightly different start times.
Tour
We stopped outside Antigua at a winery to wait for individual cars for our two tours. While we waited, they told me I could look around and wander, so I did. Awesome views, and already started to see parts of the volcano and enjoyed some time in the winery, even with the dog that wanted to come say hi (and protect its territory :D).
Hobbitenango
Next, went to the Hobbitenango to see a hobbit town recreation. My first instinct was “why is there Hobbit stuff in Guatemala?” but as I started thinking about it and asking around it started to make a little more sense. There’s volcanoes everywhere and with the mist over the mountains everyday before the sun dissipates the mist, it does actually look kinda like the misty mountains as well.
Pretty fun time up there, and apparently you can even rent a room in the hobbit houses and stay overnight (there are 3 different houses). One day maybe I’ll come back and experience a sunrise or sunset.
After getting tickets we waited about 15 minutes for the open air pickup truck to come pick us up to take us up the mountain. Walked away from the crowd to find a quiet spot to do some bird watching and as I was waiting patiently, saw a couple birds as well. One of them actually had not one nut in it’s beak, but one in its throat as well, and it was flying around with it. Felt like a metaphor for the world cruise and the people hoarding food like they wouldn’t find anymore later :D.
The village at the top is really cool. There’s a bunch of restaurants and lots of activities to do (supposedly axe throwing, games, giant rope swing — which had a long line, so I skipped it). The main attraction (other than the hobbit houses) is the giant troll that has an outstretched hand with views into the valley and volcanoes.
Altamira
Next, we walked over to Altamira, a nature park nearby and about a 10 minute walk. We took our time as it was definitely getting hot in the sun as it came out of the cloud cover.
We turned the corner and were greeted by a giant (Charles Chapin). I asked why there were so many giants here and thank goodness for Google Translate cause we used it a lot out there to communicate back and forth. My guide told me that the giants are the guardians of the valley.
Lots of “instagram spots” that feel like they’re there just to play to people’s ego, but as you can tell, I don’t like taking pictures in those spots, and just use them to frame the valley and volcanoes. I’m sure people that care would LOVE these spots.
We started exploring the park with an aerobike experience which was included in my tour (apparently). Super wild to be biking on a wire (with grooved wheels) while being suspended by harness. The views however were INCREDIBLE.
We then started the long descent down a bunch of stairs to get to another one of the BIG giants. On the way, we saw all sorts of random sculptures and birdhouses that were really interesting (minnesota interesting…).
LOVE that sign about “Humanity is greater than status”…a good reminder for some of the people on the ship….
Also saw this sign which made me sad, and also utter my all too often refrain of humans being the worst. Like seriously….we can’t just observe and enjoy, we have to destroy and take things…
We did finally get to the giant and I was in a fit of giggles as I crouched down to go inside to get to the hand.
Because on the inside, there’s a sign…
Awesome views up here too though.
On the way back, we stopped by a couple other hands (gold and silver) and just really enjoyed the views as well. I think my favorite part about all of this was that there really weren’t a ton of people. Maybe 20 people total that we walked by and really it was quite peaceful up there as well.
Props to Carolina, my guide who took pics with my phone (even without the inside screen working).
After taking in the views, we made the trek back UP the many stairs and then back to the Hobbitenango parking lot to get back to the car and returned to Antigua to meet back up with the other tour.
We made it back and then made the long trek back to the port, and we had plenty of time to spare (which was a little bit of a worry since we were on a third party tour).
Back to Ship
We made it back to the ship around 3pm, with all aboard at 3:30pm. After a quick shower and cool down, I downloaded and edited a few photos in the pub for a bit (it was way too hot outside and it was already a long day).
Around 6, I went back out to the helipad to catch the sunset, and it was lovely, but it was also SUPER windy as we were really booking it, and I guess the tide was also coming in.
Turns out that when you go outside and stand in facing the wind for quite awhile with semi damp hair that it acts sort of like a hair dryer. The rest of the night, my hair looked like this…
Food
Tomato soup, bbq ribs with creamed corn (delish), and a cookie, nutella and marshmellow concoction that was SO incredibly sweet….thought I was going to go into shock and only ate half of it.
Future Plans
Came back to stateroom to find that there was a letter about disembarking in Cabo. There’s SO many hoops to jump through even though I have the downlining trip already approved. Ended up spending quite a bit of time down at guest services confirming and re-confirming the process to get off the ship (a lot of it has to do with customs and the instructions being very vague and unclear on what we need to do).
Spent also a couple hours trying to book Hong Kong Disney Tickets for me and Nate, but every single credit card I own wasn’t getting through their automated system (tried Visa, Mastercard, AmEx on multiple browsers and even tried to VPN into US and HK to try to see if it was a location thing). I’m pretty sure the API response from their website is timing out before the authorization is coming back. I even went as far as calling my banks to confirm that it wasn’t a block on my side.
Finally, I tried chatting with the HK Disney people on the website, and after some back and forth they just said I “now had a reservation in their system and I could pay for it at the gate”, but when I asked for any sort of email confirmation or acknowledgement, they said “don’t worry, you’re good to go, we don’t give confirmation emails, etc.”. Super sketch. Around 2am, I gave up and decided to just go to sleep and tackle again tomorrow.
Vibe Check
5 parts joy
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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