What's up y'all?
Thanks for joining the Travel Tales and Talk podcast with Derek and Makayla.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
Today we're talking about our adventure in Guatemala here on episode eight.
Sweetheart, what brings us to Guatemala?
Why are we here?
Oh, Tacal.
I want to see the Mayan ruins of Tacal.
Another UNESCO World Heritage.
You know me.
There you go.
I'm a fighter.
You be fighting those.
Sure do.
You track them down.
You got them bookmarked in your phone.
Then we also wanted to visit Antigua and you had the crazy idea of scaling a volcano.
Not scaling a volcano.
I wanted to roast marshmallows on an active volcano.
Okay.
That'll work too.
And then we were going to do a stay at the Hobbit town.
What was the proper name of this location?
Hobbitanango.
And then of course your amazing, amazing IG photographs.
You don't stop with these IG pictures.
I do not be picking trips to take IG pictures.
Yes you do.
Why you want to go to Iceland?
Oh, I want to take IG pictures on the black beach.
I wanted to see Diamond Beach.
Oh, Diamond Beach.
I want to go on some black sand with some ice at my backside.
We digress.
So now we're in Guatemala and we really enjoy Guatemala.
Our travel plans are we have to fly to Memphis because we have to take our pets to the parents
so they can pet sit while we're in Guatemala.
Pet sit.
Fur babies.
I'm sorry.
They had to take care of our babies while we're out of town.
So we have to transport our four beagles and our rabbit.
The rabbit stayed with my sister.
The dog stayed with mom and dad.
So we couldn't leave them in Lexington because we had no one to watch them for that amount
of time.
So we fly from Memphis to Atlanta and from Atlanta we land in Guatemala City.
And let me say coming into Guatemala City, what an amazing view.
It's surrounded by volcanoes.
I did not notice.
Guatemala has 37 volcanoes.
Did you know that?
I did.
I didn't know that.
Yes.
Learn something new every time we travel.
I didn't even know there was that many volcanoes on planet earth.
But anyway, the city, Guatemala City is surrounded like four of them and two of them are active.
So Fuego is active and then you have what's the other one?
Pacaya?
Pacaya, yes.
Pacaya.
Then Agua and then the other one.
Give me that one.
What's that one in Spanish?
Acatenango.
Yeah.
So Agua, it's about 12, 13,000 feet above sea level.
It's about three to six miles away from Antigua, which one of the places we visited.
And the last eruption happened between 10,000 and 80,000 years ago.
And like I said, Fuego, it's still active.
As a matter of fact, the last eruption was like May of this year.
So that's scary.
And that's about 10 miles west of Antigua.
The highest point is about 12,362 feet above sea level.
And then you have the one that we're going to talk about in another episode that we scale,
Pacaya.
It's about 19 miles southwest of Guatemala City.
I believe that's the closest one to Guatemala City.
And it last erupted in 2021.
But it's still active.
It still has lava flows from time to time, but it's not erupting.
You see the vents going.
Yeah.
You can see the smoke all times of day and all times of night.
I call it heavy breathing.
Heavy breathing.
And then that final volcano, it hadn't erupted since 1924.
And there was another one in 27 and then another in 1972.
And it has two peaks and it's, I believe, the tallest of the four volcanoes.
La Cotanango.
Yeah.
La Cotanango.
So now that we've landed in Guatemala City and we've taken in this amazing view from
the plane, we have to get on another plane because we're going to Flores, which is the
jump off point to our first destination, the Takao National Park.
So when you get to Guatemala City, we get on this small little plane.
It's like terrifying plane.
It's like one seat on the left side, two seats on the right side.
It's like a sardine can with wings.
It's basically a little bit larger than a private jet.
Really?
It is.
It felt really small to me.
It was.
It was small.
I was terrified.
Private jets are small.
Yeah.
It's just a little bit larger.
It just felt so unstable.
I was terrified.
We had to walk out the airport onto the tarmac to get on the plane.
I'm like, what are we doing?
We going back in time?
Tell them about how tiny it was on the inside.
I'm only like 5'10", 5'11".
My head was hitting the ceiling.
I was walking through, boom, boom.
I'm like, oh my God.
It's small.
I was like, my knees, the seats are small because they're small people.
The Gualamans are small people.
My knees were all in my chest.
I had no room to do anything.
It was my first experience getting a seatbelt extender because I'm shapely.
I have hips and everything.
I fit in a regular Delta American Airlines seat.
American seat.
With no extender or anything because I don't really have a gut or anything.
Sitting on that plane was very humbling for me.
It was like, wow.
Wow.
I was getting scared.
I didn't know what a seat extender was.
It was like, I didn't know.
Then the flight attendant saw me.
He came over with the seatbelt extender.
I had to get help.
I did not know what to do with this thing.
They strapped me in and we flew.
The reason why we had to change planes like that because going to Flores is not a really
busy hub so they don't have major airlines that can take you there.
There's no direct flights.
Their airports are not equipped for a 747.
That's why you have to take the smaller plane.
It's so small, like Derrick was saying, there are no... What's the word I'm looking for?
When you board your plane, you walk down a little ramp.
There are no ramps.
They just stop on the tarmac and you get out the plane and you-
You go to the basement of the airport and you walk out to the tarmac and then you walk
up into the plane.
You're walking on the landing strip.
Yeah.
For real.
Which is pretty cool.
London Rose thought it was amazing.
It was.
It was pretty fun.
I enjoyed that portion of it.
To make that trip, you have really two options.
You can fly, take the small plane or you can take a nine hour bus ride.
Oh yeah.
Oh, but back to the plane.
That plane trip dictated our luggage size for the whole trip because they have strict
restrictions for that plane.
They only had so many bags that they can hold in the bottom, like your check bag.
You can only check one per person and you can only have one carry on per person.
The carry on size was like the size of smaller than our standard carry on.
It was basically like the pilot's luggage.
If you ever watched the luggage that the pilot walks and it's never four wheels, only on
two and you have the- Yeah.
That's the size that you can have for your carry on.
Like a large backpack.
Basically a large backpack.
That's what I had to pull out my stuff in the backpack.
I didn't want to carry extra luggage and then they say, well, it won't fit.
Then I had nowhere to put my belongings.
That would have been a problem.
That was interesting.
And wait, that was my first time buying a luggage scale because I had to literally weigh
our luggage and I had to take things out because it was like, man, we don't want to-
No, no.
We don't want to have this issue in Guatemala.
No.
Get our luggage left at the airport.
It weighs too much.
We don't play with nobody's rules whenever we travel.
We don't follow these rules because we don't know the penalty.
We sure don't.
It might be life in prison.
Don't know.
So.
Yeah.
So we take the tiny plane to Flores and we land at their airport and then we had a hostel
stay.
This is the first time I've ever stayed in a hostel.
I think you've done this before, staying in a hostel.
And I found that hostel very fun.
It was different.
They, the lounging area or the patio area, they had a bar, restaurant and at night they
played music, they had little parties.
So we had options in that hostel.
They had the private room.
They had the apartments and then dorm style hostels.
Yeah, so the hostel that we stayed in was Los Amigos hostel.
Okay.
And as Derrick said, it was very beautiful.
They had paintings, murals everywhere.
They had rabbits.
Rabbits, cats.
They had a dog, bunch of birds.
It's like a.
Turtles.
A hostel with a zoo in it, a petting zoo.
Yeah.
And cause it was almost like they had like a little mini jungle in the middle.
There was lots of birds and things in there.
And we had a private room with a private bath.
As you know, with hostels, you could be in a room with a bunch of strangers with no restroom.
Your restroom might be down the hall.
It's a public restroom.
Yeah.
Public restroom, public shower.
You just, in a hostel, you're really just getting a bed.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
But we booked a private room, private bath and our room was beautiful.
Yes, it was.
And we had, we had three beds.
Right?
We had three beds.
Yeah, everyone had their own bed.
Yeah.
And which worked out great.
Which worked out great cause we didn't have to wrestle with London Rose.
No.
She's a wild sleeper.
Kicking people.
She sleep like she crazy.
Yes.
So I remember about this hotel.
They had a swing in the lobby and London Rose would get on the swing and I think she almost
hit someone a couple of times cause the swing is right in the walkway.
I'm like, who put the swing right here?
Terrible location for a swing.
The food was good too.
They had this bar downstairs.
The beverages were good too.
I partaked in a beverage or two while you were upstairs and the nightlife, they play
music seemed like all night.
I don't know if you recall that.
I do.
I had to put my headphones on cause they were playing music all night.
It felt like it was all night cause we had to get up at what, 3.30 in the morning to
take this ride to our, to call sunrise tour where you almost got us mauled to death.
Stop it.
So we get there, we enjoy the hostel for a little bit cause we have to go to bed because
we have an early day.
We have a bus picking us up at 3.30 AM to make an hour ride to this national park.
I believe you booked the ride through the hotel, the hostel.
Okay.
And so we did that and then we take the ride to Tocco and be sure if you're going to do
the sunrise tour, make sure you have a light cause they don't provide lights.
No.
The lights that we purchased, we purchased like little miners lights that had a head
band and the light sits on your forehead.
So I bought these last minute on Amazon and they came two days, you know, right before
we left, pop them batteries in and we were on the go.
So we also got mosquito repellent, the little, the bands, little bracelets that help, you
know, with mosquitoes cause you're literally walking through the jungle and ladies, don't
wet your hair down.
It was muggy too.
So my hair was all flat iron and beautiful and I'm thinking, Ooh, I'm going to be cute
walking through the jungle wrong.
I had a full fro 15 minutes into this tour because it was misty.
It was muggy.
And it's April and it's still kind of muggy.
The humidity is thick.
Yeah.
It was mist and it was, it wasn't exactly raining.
What was that?
I don't know what you call that, but it was wet.
Fog mist, humidity.
It was thick.
It was like really, I recall at like five o'clock in the morning, it was just too thick and muggy
for it to be there early in the day.
The sun wasn't even up yet, but once again, we were in the jungle.
So when you get there, you meet at the meeting location, you meet your tour guide and then
you take off on this mile and a half, well it was a half a mile walk to the temple where
you're going to watch the sunrise.
That was a half a mile walk.
It felt longer than that because it's in the dark.
So you're terrified.
Yes.
And you are walking in the dark and I meant that, keep in mind you're in a group.
Yes.
And I don't know why I do this to myself and my family, but I book these tours and be forgetting
that you need to be in shape or you need to at least plan for these trips.
So you know, because I wasn't ready.
I wasn't ready for this walk.
Because we assumed, we knew it was a tour, we assumed that like they were going to shuttle
us to this spot.
Yeah.
In my brain, I'm thinking, oh, we're going to jump, you know, we're going to meet our
tour guide right here in point A, then we're going to take a couple of steps and we're
going to be into the park and we're going to be at our spot.
No, had no idea you dropping us off at the edge of the jungle and we have to walk through
the jungle to get to these temples.
And we're talking about stepping over tree roots, going up hills, stepping over logs.
It is for real.
You hope it's a log.
You hope it, oh my goodness, because now keep in mind, we're being very generous and I don't
know why people don't talk about this on social media because that's why I found out about
the call.
I'm just going to leave this stuff out.
Is that you're literally outside in the elements with wild animals.
Predators.
You know, we get like a brief talk, oh, you know, be careful of the snake and-
It said be careful, watch out for the snakes, they kind of look like sticks.
I'm like, what?
And you know, we're like, okay, yeah, yes sir.
But why are we walking?
Then all of a sudden he says, everybody freeze.
Freeze.
Do you see that?
We're like, what?
No, I saw it because I was standing right beside him.
And then Derek was right beside him and I'm like, what?
Derek said-
It's a jaguar.
It was a jaguar.
And he was like, did you see that?
I'm like, yeah, I saw that.
I said, we're going to go that way, we're going to change direction.
Like, we'll give him a moment to pass through.
Yeah.
Now, I want you to think about it.
Okay, like picture yourself.
It was like if you're going through a McDonald's drive-through and you at the menu bar, the
jaguar would have been about as far as where the first window-
Window one.
That's how close it was to us.
There's no fence separating us.
It's right there on our path.
There's no firearms.
There's no Jaguar be-away spray.
You are- I didn't see no rocks.
There was nothing.
You were defenseless.
An ambitious soul could have walked up and pet this thing.
That's how close it was.
And that's the moment- That I realized he was trying to kill me.
I thought, I realized that I be doing the most sometimes, like, woman, you got to calm
down because this could have went left real quick.
Thank goodness nobody was harmed.
Thank goodness he ate well the night before or just finished hunting.
Because it was about 20 of us in that group.
He could have picked us all off.
And I was in the back because like I said, I wasn't in the best of shapes.
So no matter how hard I tried, because I don't know what it was about our tour guide, but
that man was walking like he was in a marathon.
I'm like, bro.
That man was running through the jungle.
I'm like, what are you doing, bro?
It's not going nowhere.
I just could not keep up.
And it was just like, a lot of times I ended up in the back of the group and I look behind
me and it's pitch black.
Pitch black.
And you know I'm scared.
I'm already scared of the dark.
And I don't care.
Who knows?
I'm afraid of the dark.
I sleep with a night light.
It's a real thing.
But you want to do a sunrise tour in the middle of the jungle.
But in my brain, I don't know why I thought that there was going to be some kind of spotlight
or something.
Like I wasn't expecting pitch black with a tour guide that was going to be Speedy Gonzales
and during through this thing.
I'm like, bro, can we slow down?
We got a little kid in the group, which was London Rose.
He didn't care.
He did not care.
He had somewhere to be.
He wanted to make sure we got to that sunrise.
Yes.
He made sure that we made it to that temple in time for the sunrise.
He was on a schedule.
And I say temple, but it's actually a pyramid.
If you've seen Apocalypto, the movie, it's one of those temples.
Temple temples, yeah.
Yeah.
It's literally identical.
I wonder if they filmed that there.
I thought they did.
We have to do some digging.
Yeah, we should look that up.
But let me tell you, so we finally get to the temple that we were going to go up because
you got to keep in mind these pyramids were built.
In the sixth century BC.
It's a long time.
Sixth century.
Okay.
BC.
It's a part of the Mayan Empire.
Yes.
It's an actual city.
So there are some temples you cannot touch.
Yeah.
And there are some that you-
Have access to.
None of them you can climb up them, I don't think anymore.
Not anymore, but when we were there, we were able to climb that temple.
One side.
But since then, people have lost their minds when it comes to college, start taking artifacts
and breaking things of that nature.
So they've kind of limited your access to certain temples.
So you can't really go up them anymore, but the ones that we went up, they had built wooden
stairs alongside of it so you can climb those stairs, which I fell-
Was a hike.
It was a challenge for me.
And once again, I need to really hit the gym hard before I go on these trips because they
are legit workouts.
And have on the right shoes because we never have on the right shoes.
I didn't have on the right shoes.
I have on the right, and I made sure London Rose had on the right shoes.
I had on running shoes and proper shoes for that hike.
I had my little arch support in there.
I was good to go, but my thing was it was just, it was the steps.
You couldn't tell me we didn't have like 17,000 steps before the sun even rose.
We probably did.
We probably had about 25,000 steps before we even made it to the temple.
It was a nice walk, but I will say this, getting to the top of the temple, you're up there-
It was worth it.
And you're above clouds at some point.
I mean-
You're above the clouds.
It was misty.
You're above the canopy of the forest.
Yes, you're literally above the canopy of the forest.
So we're sitting there in the dark waiting, and all of a sudden you could hear the jungle
come alive.
It's like all at once.
They just all wake up.
You hear the howler monkeys going.
You hear the birds chirping.
And we were fortunate enough to even see a quetzal bird fly past us.
The quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala.
It's a beautiful, beautiful bird.
It was just the most magical thing.
As we're sitting there, then the sun rays are starting to peek through the clouds.
It's just slowly getting louder and brighter.
Everyone is waking back up, pulling out their phones and taking pictures.
After a while, when the fog clears, you can start seeing the tops of the other temples
in the park.
It's just so magical.
Our guide was like, wait a minute, just hold on, hold on.
It'll just blow away, and then you'll see the rest of the monuments.
And then clockwork, it just all starts to dissipate.
And then you can see the top of these monuments that have been around since the 6th century
BC.
And they're still standing.
Still standing.
And we sat there for about a good hour waiting for them.
Maybe a little longer than that.
And people pulled out snacks, and we ate up at the top of this temple.
And after a while, the sun really said hello, and that heat hit us.
Stop baking it.
And then the two guys are like, all right, guys, it's time to go down and see the rest
of the park.
Let's get out of the sunlight.
So if you ever come to Tikal, make sure you have on sunscreen and plenty of water.
Water, snacks, sunscreen, proper shoes.
That's our advice.
And then we leave the sunrise temple, and we just tour the rest of the park.
And we go to the Grand Plaza and then Temple One.
It's where, I think he said where they did their games.
They had this Mayan game.
He explained it.
I can't recall the game, but it seemed like it was a duel to the death type game.
So I would have bought a ticket to that.
It's like a cross between football and soccer in a way.
It's a cross of all sports, it seemed like.
But it seemed like it was a blood sport.
Yeah, we forgot to mention that one of the Star Wars films, the, what was it?
Oh, now you're gonna be in a Star Wars movie.
Tikal was actually the Rebel Alliance base in episode four of Star Wars, A New Hope.
So Star Wars, that's your thing.
There we go.
That's your thing, Star Wars.
Sorry, showing my nerd side.
You're nerding out, baby.
You're nerding out.
But then there, we forget to talk about there is a cost to enter the park.
Yes.
What was it, 50?
Okay, so just regular adults fee for nationals.
No, we're not national, internationals.
Yeah, foreigners.
We're not internationals.
It was about $20.
So you have to have your passport.
So make sure you have your passport on you.
And that's $20.
Now to do this sunrise tour, that was an additional 30, about $33.
So 12 and under free.
Free.
And I do believe we did have to pay for London Rose's sunrise tour, but her entrance into
the park was free.
Gotcha.
And then we, you booked the travel there through Viator, right?
The travel from our hotel to the park.
No, I actually booked the transport from our hotel through, from our hostel through the
hostel.
They had a travel agency in the hostel and we booked that through them.
Gotcha, gotcha.
So.
Which I recommend.
If you're not staying in the jungle lodge, which is like right there on the property,
I'll talk about the jungle lodge in a second, that is one of my regrets, you guys, not staying
in the jungle lodge.
That's a big regret.
The jungle lodge is exactly what it sounds like.
It is a lodge.
On the jungle.
But it's, but it is, it's high end.
Yes.
It's a luxury hotel.
It is a luxury hostel.
In the jungle.
Yes.
Big soaking tubs, plush couches, beautiful beds.
The reason why I chose not to do the beautiful jungle lodge is because they said at 10 o'clock
they cut the power.
They cut the power.
And we know she, she needs her power.
I have to have that nightlight y'all.
It's a whole thing.
You want to explain?
No power, no TV.
So they cut the power because it's in a national park and they try to conserve energy because
it was created by conservatives.
So not conservatives.
I mean, what?
Conservationists.
So they want to maintain that at the park.
So that's why they cut the power at 10.
Now you still have access to some power.
You have enough power to power a ceiling fan, a TV, not a TV, a nightlight and a power plug.
That's all you get.
Now, if you want to watch a movie, you can go to the conference room prior 10, 8 to 10
PM to watch a movie, but you can't watch it in your room because there are no TVs.
So that's why it's done that way.
But it's still a high end luxury hotel.
And like, there's like no glass, like glass windows, like a standard to have like, I forgot.
Shutters maybe.
Yeah, I forgot how they explained it, but it's, it's beautiful for one, but it's not
your standard shut the window locket type thing.
And they have like mosquito nets on your beds.
You're one with nature.
You know what, you know what it reminds me of?
If you're into Twilight, it's when-
No, not.
When Edward-
Is that the wolf guy?
No, that's the vampire guy.
When he got married, why can't I think of the, I can't think of the girl's name, but-
Is it similar to interview with the vampire?
Stop getting off the, no.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
When Edward and his, I can't even think of the, the, the lead of the book movie, that
girl-
Oh, Count Dracula.
When they, when they got together and they, they had their honeymoon and they were on
that Island and that their bed had the mosquito net and everything on it.
That's what the room reminds you of.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Okay.
I can't keep the nerd in sometimes.
I'm going to have to watch Twilight.
Which one is that, two, three or four?
I think it's, I think that happens in three.
Is that the return of the Lichens?
Stop, Derrick.
Anyway, it's a very beautiful room.
And they have mosquitoes there.
So, so I told Derrick, I said, if we ever come back, we should bring our, our candle,
the-
Oh yeah.
I can't think of it.
Why am I forgetting things today?
The little candle, you put your candle stick in and you carry it around.
The candle that you use to keep mosquitoes and stuff away.
Citronella candle.
Yeah.
Can you even carry a Citronella candle somewhere?
You probably have to buy it there.
I don't know, it's a thought.
If they let you bring it.
It's a thought.
Cause you're killing the environment.
I'm not leaving it there.
It's coming with me.
You're killing the insects, which are a part of the circle of life.
Oh goodness.
I'm just saying.
So that was the thing.
So that was my regret.
And the next time we go-
We stand at least one night at the jungle lodge.
We would do the jungle lodge for one night.
For sure.
For one night.
So we finished up with Takaul and we head back to our hostel in Flores where you get
a massage, you visit the spa.
So this is a different type of hostel.
Once again, they have a spa in there.
Most hostels don't have any of that.
So you got the massage.
So I got this massage and I'm thinking, I'm going to do her real nice.
I'm going to give her like a-
A big tip.
I had like 56-
You're going to haul out.
Ketsals in my pocket.
And I'm thinking I'm going to give her like 56 quote unquote dollar tip.
You're going to make it rain.
And I'm sitting there and I gave it to her.
She was appreciative.
Can I see?
I said what not.
But then when I thought about it, I was like, wait a minute.
I don't think I-
Gave her a big tip.
Big enough tip.
I don't think I-
You gave her 65 cues and you thought you were giving her a big tip and you realized you
gave her what?
$6?
I gave her $7.21 and I felt really bad after the fact.
But you know, I didn't realize that until like later on after we had left.
And I was like, darn it, man.
She's probably thinking, oh, you little cheap American.
You know, but I'm really thinking, I'm like, you know, making her-
I don't know.
I just dropped 65 bones for a tip.
I really-
I just-
You had it later.
$3.22.
And she did so good, you know, and I don't know.
She did a great job with the massage.
I should have calculated-
You should have gave her more.
Calculated the conversion before I tipped her.
Yeah.
So after your massage, you felt so much better.
We were hungry.
We took a toot toot ride.
So a toot toot ride-
Toot toot.
Yep.
A toot toot ride from the hostel to the little shopping plaza they have across the bridge.
So a toot toot is like a scooter with a buggy attached to it, so to speak, with doors.
It is.
It's like a golf cart with extra seats.
It's a toot toot is literally-
How do you explain?
It's like a, you know what it puts me in the mind of?
Not the teacup ride at the fair.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's one of those little rides-
It feels that way.
You have two people sitting in the back and then one person in the front on a bicycle
almost like, but it's a motorcycle.
Now a toot-
It's like a motorized tricycle.
Basically.
And so a toot toot is only really designed to fit no more than two grown adults.
But it was us and-
And the man was like, no, no, no, you can fit all three.
Get in, get in.
So my tail get in.
And the door won't close.
And the door would not close because of my hips.
Oh my goodness.
And he was like, no, no, it's okay.
Just hold it.
No, no.
First he tried to slam it on you.
You're like, okay, okay, okay.
Just hold it.
And this guy is balling.
He's driving so fast.
I'm like, if he hit this curb, you're going to fall out.
Yeah.
And we're literally riding through town in a toot-toot with the door slightly open and
my hip poking out.
And I'm like holding on for dear life.
And we couldn't do nothing but just kind of laugh about it like why do we do this stuff
to ourselves?
Why?
And then all of that because we just really, really, really wanted to go to Pizza Hut.
Pizza Hut.
Because that's what we knew.
Yep.
Because I wasn't feeling brave.
I didn't know if they ate kui or anything.
That kui is guinea pig.
And I'm-
That's a Peruvian thing.
That is, but there's other countries that eat kui too.
So I didn't know and I wasn't feeling brave.
No kui.
And so basically we just wanted to eat something that we know and we went to this Pizza Hut.
But let me tell y'all this.
That was the best pizza.
Now I'm not going to say the best pizza because-
But it very well may be the best Pizza Hut.
Pizza Hut, yes.
Because Italy has the best pizza.
I got to put that out there.
It may be the best Pizza Hut we have ever had.
But it was delicious.
It was rivaling the pizza over in Italy.
It was unexpected pizza pleasure.
It was so good.
I was like, what is this stuff imported from another country?
Because this ain't the Pizza Hut that we accustomed to.
It's good.
You can tell the meat was fresh, the dough was fresh, the sauce was fresh.
The sauce was amazing.
I just knew it.
The cheese was right, the bread.
You couldn't tell me that if we were to peek back there, there was going to be somebody
over at VAT of sauce and seasoning.
This is not fast food.
No.
It took a while for our pizza to come out, was let us know that they were actually-
Making pizza.
Making the pizza.
It was so good.
It was delicious.
The best Pizza Hut I've ever had.
That's saying a lot.
Pizza Hut's not, in my opinion, not that great.
But this Pizza Hut tasted like gourmet pizza.
It wasn't your average run of the mill Pizza Hut.
Don't know what it was, but it was fantastic.
It was made with care.
It was made with love.
Made with love.
Like my mama's pancakes.
Oh my gosh.
We were sitting there looking out the window just watching the people.
It was just the bravery.
It was a lot of Mopads out there.
We would see people that have four and five people, and I'm not exaggerating when I say
this, four and five people stacked on the back of Mopads.
A mother holding her child in her arms.
You had one in the front, one in the back, and then a man driving.
Driving.
Yeah.
There's three people on the back.
He got someone on the handlebars.
It was like, we're going to see a disaster going back.
But there were no accidents.
No accidents.
They were just weaving in and out of traffic.
No helmets.
No helmets, no leather coats, nothing.
Nothing.
And every now and then I noticed someone riding a horse.
Yeah.
I saw the horses.
Down the street.
Yeah.
Which was just like, wow.
You know?
I don't know if you saw this at the Pizza Hut.
There was a gentleman there, him and his wife.
He had armed security.
He had two guys downstairs with guns and two guys upstairs with him with lunch.
What?
Yeah.
While we were eating.
I thought that must be important because I saw the guys with their suits on, the little
Guatemalan guys, suits on, and they had the guns strapped around their chest.
I was like, he must be like the president or something.
And then I go to the bathroom, which was downstairs.
This is a two level Pizza Hut, so the bathroom is downstairs.
And he has two guys guarding the door.
To the bathroom?
No, the Pizza Hut to get in with their guns, with their AKs.
I don't know how you missed that.
I remember you mentioning that.
I didn't.
I was just so into my pizza.
Into your pizza.
I didn't even notice.
So they got up right before we did, and I just watched these guys walk out.
And they walked out like military styles.
Two guys went out to survey the perimeter.
Two guys stayed with him, and then they walked their way to the car.
They drove off in two cars.
So he was in one car.
Two guys were in the one car with him, and they had another car lead in the pack.
And I was like, that guy must be important or dangerous.
I don't know which one.
But I had never seen that before.
In Pizza Hut.
Like no one better than I except me.
So this must be just normal.
Or maybe he's like the mayor or the governor of that part of the country.
I don't know.
Interesting.
So I thought I'd point that out.
That caught my eye.
So after our great Pizza Hut, we had a long day.
We did the sunrise tour in the middle of the jungle.
We almost became food for Jaguar.
We're just tired.
And we have to get on the plane in the morning to finish the second leg of the Guatemala
tour.
So we just turned it in.
I'm beat.
And it's for good reason because we took a lot of steps that day.
We did what?
About 30?
No.
About 25,000 steps.
But we're tired and it's time to go.
And so the next day we're getting on the plane.
We're going back to Guatemala City to go to Antigua.
So join us next time as we talk about our adventures in Antigua.
Later.
If you made it this far, you are the true champion.
You could have been anywhere, doing anything, but you instead chose to spend your time with
us.
And for that, we say thank you.
I'm Derek.
I'm Akilah.
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Do good, be good.
Until next time.