Literally Stuck in Paradise, Guatemala // Hasta Alaska // S02E09

Hi, I'm Ben. Meet Alaska, the Caribbean explorer and his capito, our Chilean bug. For the next few years, this is our house. The world is our garden and you are our family. We don't know the time of day or where we'll wake up tomorrow. All we know is we're on the ride of our lives, most of the time. So join us and see what unfolds on this epic adventure. Guatemala gets more beautiful with every kilometre, especially on the steep descent into Lago Atitilan. Guatemala's got some crazy hills. We just got pushed by some policemen to get around this volcanic lake and they're bringing Sean up now. We passed through countless towns around the lake, but once we arrived in San Pedro, we found it hard to leave. I'd heard that Guatemala is a great place to study Spanish. Here, the tranquil setting is perfect and so are the prices. And I was keen too. I've been told I speak street Spanish. Hardly surprising as that's what I've learned and I've never studied a day in my life. We were both keen, so we enrolled. However, it wasn't all work and no play. San Pedro was in the midst of Fiesta Fever. We couldn't sleep in the party, so we made camp with the best peace in town. And there, we took over an abandoned house. We have to try and get out of town now and we have absolutely no power. This is the biggest hill I've ever seen, so I'm literally shitting myself at the moment. We asked all the locals before we came down here to the lake if the roads were okay and if we could make it up the hills. Everyone said it was fine. We made it down just about with brakes still working, but we can't make it back up. Take two. There's no mechanic. There's nobody that can help and I have no idea what's wrong. Check the plugs. A little buggy there as well. Anyway, it's not going to happen. Why are we going down a hill when there's no brakes? Day two. No, day three. Trying to fix the car. Still working on the carburettor. Still can't leave town. Stuck on the side of the road. Running out of options. What are you cutting out there, Sian? I have no idea. What are these things called by the way? Gaskets. Cutting out a gasket from Cornflakes boxes. Fourth time. All right, we're feeling good about this one. Just changed the spark plug. I'm just going to hope that there's no tuk-tuks. Go Peter, go! Come on, son. I can't believe that it was like an intermittent spark plug problem. I can't believe it. I tested that like three times. Most basic of things. Do you think that was it or that's just, we just gave it a bit more tender love and care and Peter's like, all right, I'll get you up that hill. Yeah, he's a mean little bitch. Yeah. But that was only out of the first town. A long way to go. This one's pretty steep. Wrong side of the road. Here we go. Come on, son. It's day five on our quest to leave Lago Atitilan. We've made it up what we think might be halfway up the mountain. It's taken us five days to get this far. We've reached a flat part, so we're going to give Capito a little bit of a break and hopefully we can make it all the way to the top. Trying to get a tow from the policeman as we're stuck halfway up the mountain. Got a nice view though. We made it up one hill. I'm walking behind, got left behind. Police officer. They just keep going off without us. Halfway up, our brakes were sticking again. We needed help. Road's just gone to ----. Had the brakes built, freed up by some mechanics for like 12 hours, which is great. We're making steady progress, but the wheels are spinning on gravel parts and there's a hell of a lot of traffic now. Get stuck behind anything, we're screwed. I don't know what your heart's going like Capito, but finally we'll be racing. Made it above the clouds. We didn't quite make it. He said that we're 500 meters short, this guy. So together, we're getting another tow. He's going to pull us up. We made it out. Five days we were stuck down there, tuning the engine, fixing the brakes, changing the battery. Pretty much every problem that Capito wanted to throw at us. And now we're free and back on the road. Next time on Astro Alaska, we make it to Shala and get to work. You'll see us depressed. I don't know how much more of this I can take. Angry and just plain crazy. When will this be over? Be sure to watch the drama unfold.