Antigua

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After Hippie life for a week it's time to go to a city again and our next stop was Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town, with lots of gorgeous buildings alongside the cobblestone streets. There are some decent spanish schools here as well and therefore you see a lot of foreigners roaming the streets. Don't count on practising your spanish there though as most restaurants have english speaking staff and most travel agents do too.

The main reason for us to go there was to climb Volcan Pacaya and active volcano half way between Guatemala City and Antigua. Almost everywhere sells tours there and the prices range from $7 - $39! I am not sure why someone would pay almost $40 for the same tour that someone else has on offer for $10 but more about that later.

Our base was a nice little place calle Posada Juma Ocag with a private double/ensuite for Q110. They have a lovely little courtyard and a roof terrace.

The next day we went for the volcano tour and the bus left at 2pm. We haven't left Antigua for more than 5 minutes and the bus ran out of petrol (we had only passed a petrol station a couple of minutes before!)! So, your man just stopped some random guy on the motorbike and drove off with him to get petrol. After 30 minutes he return with petrol and we're off again. It's around 1 hour drive to the village and then another hour to climb up the volcano. The climb itself wasn't very hard but I got pissed off with a few kids on horses behind me betting on when I give up and ride up the volcano. No f*cking way!! Eventually they left and I had my peace. Finally we got to the important bit, the lava!! Absolutely amazing, I have never seen a volcano in real life, it was great. We got very close as well but it was pretty tough walking on volcanic stone, very sharp and I got a couple of cuts and some volcanic stone embedded in my hand, haha. After nightfall we walked back to the village and then on to the bus back to Antigua. Needless to say, the trip wouldn't have been perfect without the bus running out of petrol AGAIN! This time we waited for about an hour for someone to come with petrol, with the police standing close to make sure no one would drive into us. The moral of the story is...pay $39 and you not only get a free vegetarian sandwich but you're most likely guaranteed the bus doesn't run out of petrol ;) and don't ever book a tour with Monja Blanca Tours in Antigua.

The next day I have done some sightseeing and I'll just let the photos talk. Ed was feeling sick and stayed in the hotel. I had lunch in a place called La Fonda de Calle Real and the Caldo Real (their speciality, a chicken soup flavoured with coriander and onions) was to die for!!!

Anyhow, a trip abroad wouldn't be perfect without the obligatory visit of an Irish pub and so we went and had some Cottage pie and Irish Stew, which was excellent as well. Early to bed as our shuttle to Guatemala City left at 4am :( to Flores/Tikal. What were we thinking?

Hasta luego chicos, Yvonne y Ed

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