While following your guide to cheap restaurants in Antigua, I stumbled upon El Porton (awesome food by the way and priced at Q25) and next to it is an agency called Lanquin Travel. They offer Q125 for Antigua – Lanquin and Q150 for Lanquin – Flores.

Hike to Pacaya Volcano is only $8. Other agencies charge $10-15.

Their WhatsApp contact is 502 4656 6919 and [email protected]. Address is 6ta. Calle Oriented #8, in front of Hospital Obras Sociales Hermano Pedro.

I hope these updates are helpful for everyone :)

Thanks for the update Matt. Do you happened to know the current average rate from other travel agencies in town? Wondering if everybody has raised their price for this particular trip.

For any future info seekers – you won’t regret staying longer if you have the time.
we just came back. Languin and Semuc are relaxing, inexpensive and worth staying for at least a few days. We stayed 3 – plenty of time to see everything, but chill a bit. I could even have stayed a day longer & gone to Semuc a second time. we stayed in a private cabin by the river in languin, but there were also lots of backpacker rooms at the lodge. A low-key backpacker resort kind of atmosphere. it was my favourite place in Guatemala.

we went from Chichicastenango to Semuc Champey. It was bumpy, some crazy mountain passes, but fine. (It was a van bus that left from Pana but stops in Chichi – so good seats were taken…).

But for anyone thinking of going from Semuc to Rio Dulce or vice versa– ask lots of questions first. I’ve been on some bad roads in my travels, but that was by far the worst. Like a river bed set in a mountain going through dozens of small villages. Kind of interesting, but mostly incredibly bumpy & slow. (one plus – it wasn’t a particularly dangerous road. Not particularly safe, but not “we’re going off a cliff on the next turn” kind of road either).

For us, it would have made more sense to Tikal first and catching Rio Dulce on the way back to Guate City. (especially since we also had a few days extra to visit Copan Ruinas, in Honduras, too).

33 does seem like too many people! we had 16-20 and it seemed fine to us.

My kid LOVED travelling stand-up in the back of a pickup truck. Definitely not up to western safety standard snuff, but was actually more fun than we would have guessed. Personally, I found it a reasonable risk-reward calculation, but everyone needs to make their own decisions, based on your own values. (e.g. I wouldn’t want to be the one standing on a bumper, either!)