Rotub* 

A few days before flying to Guatemala I was only able to find a handful of blogs that had positive or helpful information about the country. It was common to come across scary reports, news articles and statistics that basically described the country as a dangerous, no-go for tourists destination.

The good blog posts that I did find were very helpful and got me really excited about visiting. I wish to add to that list of blog posts for people researching for an upcoming or possible trip. Before writing about all the good times, I would like to touch on safety in Guatemala as I am aware that it is seen as an issue to people traveling there as it was for myself.

Reading blogs and articles for what to do and where to go in Guatemala, there is a lot of talk about dangers such as petty crime, armed robbery, unsafe chicken buses etc to the point that I actually felt unsafe to be going. Guatemala is not a very popular country for travel (yet) and therefore it is easier to find negative information rather than positive.

Obviously no where in the world is safe. Every country I have been to has been labelled with difficulties or dangers that may occur. Judging by stats and horror stories however, Guatemala sounds dangerous on a whole other level. Statistically, Guatemala City is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It doesn't take many Google search results to start questioning ones safety.

I do believe when traveling abroad 99% of the time everything will be fine and at most one may experience petty crime however I want to be careful not to come across as someone who happened to have a safe and awesome journey across the country and then disregard and poke fun at all the reports and statistics of serious crimes. I take them seriously and believe Guatemala can be dangerous. For example when we were staying on Lago de Atitlán, I read warnings that travelers run a 99% risk of getting held up at gunpoint nearby on a road between Santiago and San Pedro La Laguna. Here are a list of crimes that occurred in places we visited during our time in Guatemala, according to the Guatemalan US Embassy website:

• Antigua: Five armed men hijacked a bus around midnight out of Antigua and robbed all passengers including a tourist who was on his way to Nicaragua.
• Guatemala City: A tourist was celebrating with friends and family at a local store, when unknown individuals entered the place and fired several gun shots at them killing the tourist, his sister and another friend.
• Antigua: Unknown individual stole the bag of a tourist containing her sister's and her own passports, a cell phone and money.
• San Marcos La Laguna: An unknown individual stole two passports from tourists at a rented house while the tourists were out of the house.

Hard to ignore reports like those. In an attempt to put my mind at ease, I turned to Twitter and asked locals about the safety situation over there. I received a number of replies and all of them basically said the opposite of what I wanted to hear... somewhere along the lines of "the danger is serious here and you need to take precautions in order to reduce risk of having troubles"

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the bad things that I was reading, like those listed above. Despite this, I left Australia feeling excited, ready-for and feeding off the unknown. I took the lack of personalized information on Guatemala as confirmation that I was visiting a land that is less traveled which is exactly what I was looking for in a backpacking destination.

I guess what makes this topic on Guatemala different is that reading into it more and more the country started to sound like it would look and feel more dangerous than other countries. I thought the feeling of potential threats and dangers would be ever present in my travels and ultimately affect or limit the fun factor. This simply wasn't the case. While the culture and everyday living was different to other countries there was nothing else that deviated from normal.

So in conclusion the country as a whole felt safe (a developing country definition of safe). It was difficult to believe that the very real horror stories have taken place in areas where we met so many friendly and helpful locals. If you're heading there, read some horror stories so you have safety in the back of your mind, then leave it in the back of your mind while using common sense to minimize risk and as I did I'm sure you will love the country, its colors and its culture.