Antigua and Volcan Pacaya (Again)

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With my brother arriving from the UK just a couple of days previously, I decided to make my long-awaited visit to Antigua after dealing with visa formalities in the capital to extend my stay.
Antigua is well-known as a beautiful colonial style city with a large junk of tourists lining the streets. Because of it's reputation it was in many ways everything I expected, which basically means it is unlike anyway else in Guatemala.
Antigua has a monopoly on attractive buildings, churches, streets and restaurants. It also has higher prices and a more westernised feel to it. I felt I could happily live there for some time, possibly teaching English with plenty of the comforts of home nearby. But somehow this isn't real Guatemala for me, being so unrepresentive of the rest of the country despite being a good place to chill.

My brother and I spent most of time in Antigua just wondering about taking photos, the best of which are attached.

On our second day we visited Volcan Pacaya (which I had already visited once before), this time taking the tour option. It was a clearer day this time and the recent increase in activity of the Volcanoe meant though although we were unable to visit the peak this time, we could see slowly following down the side. This more than made up for it, and gave me the advantage of experiencing the same site in two different ways. A good few days in total, although a fair bit of the contents of my wallet seem to disappear in the process.
On the return journey we took numerous Chicken buses and a lancha to return to my second home of San Pedro. On one such bus a guy tried to lighten my wallet further, through illegal means this time, but the buttons on the pockets of my trousers (pants) saved me a bit of cash.

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Photos

Lava
Lava running down the side of Volcan Pacaya