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Published: November 5th 2006
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After a short trip from San Pedro, we arrived in Antigua, a cute cobblestone colonial city in the early afternoon. I (Flora) was quite sick and went to have a lie-down in our small dorm in the Black Cat hostel, a place which is full and buzzing every night. With a Norwegian who was on our bus we explored the city centre a little bit later that day, around the Parque Central, where you have a great view of Volcan de Agua, a huge volcano which overlooks the city.
We spent 4 nights at the Black Cat, a definite highlight (of our whole trip, we can safely say) was climbing Volcan Pacaya, a volcano about 1 and a half hours drive away from the city. I had recovered quite well from my bug and now Krista seemed to have a bug so we were both feeling a little weak, but this climb gave us our energy back, it was so amazing. We had a pretty fastpaced and sometimes steep climb of about an hour, which led us to a lookout with a great view of Guatemala City (we took the afternoon/evening climb so we would see the lava better). Then
we started to see the lava and we started climbing over the dried lava rocks which were about 3 months old, and obviously as we got closer we could start to feel the heat. We saw a group of people ahead already taking pictures, but it wasn't until we stood next to them that we saw the lava stream which was about 2 metres away from us!! We then had our own little photo session ofcourse 😉 It was completely dark by now and the rocks were very small and crumbling and now that there was no light we could see that the rocks we were standing on were extremely hot and you could see the lava below which made us a little nervous, and with our burning cheeks we decided it was time to head back down. It was extremely wobbly and hard to find something steady to stand on, and Krista slipped and fell (on the rocks, not lava thankfully) but we made it back down safe!!
Once we were back in the bus heading back to Antigua we ended up in a traffic jam where there had been a car accident. Everyone was standing completely still, but
our van decides this does not count for us and passes everyone until we get to the point where the police were "controlling" the situation. Our driver then said, "OK so we're sleeping here", which was apparently a joke (he did not say this, but we assumed it...we were hungry and sweaty) After about half an hour we moved on when the police finally managed to "control" the situation and then we had a nice well-deserved dinner at the hostel.
The next day, still feeling excited and proud of our volcano climb, we were picked up by our friend Luis who went to NIMBAS with us in Utrecht. He was going to show us around Guatemala City, which was a great opportunity for us to see this city by a local who would be able to show and tell us things that we would never know or find by ourselves. And of course it was great to have a little NIMBAS reunion!
We drove into the city and first visited a college where Luis is volunteering to help educate a lot of these students which come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The boys and girls study in separate
parts, the girls study at a hotel school where they learn all sorts of skills such as crafts. Luis explained that many of these girls come from the countryside and that these studies really give them an opportunity to make it here. Next we drove through some of the different districts of the city, we saw a very poor neighbourhood on the hillside which consisted of many shacks. This area used to be a very natural area but because the people want to stay there instead of move to government-funded housing, the government is creating structure in this neighbourhood. We then saw the city centre, with a beautiful church and municipal building, and as it was Sunday there was a big market with food and mostly clothing materials. We went to visit the church museum, with a small collection of church artefacts. From here we drove to the financial district, which could have been any country-lots of large business buildings and restaurants, and people driving big SUVs. We had a large plate of Guatemalan snacks for lunch, which was delicious (and too much to choose from for our full bellies!!) Next we drove to the Maya museum, where there is
a collection of artefacts found at the different Mayan temples such as Tikal and Yax'ha. The bowls, statues, necklaces were in such great condition it is difficult to believe how many years they have managed to preserve them (maybe the QUALITY that the salespeople keep going on about when we bargain with them for souvenirs is pretty good after all 😉
After the museum we were pretty tired, so we drove to the lookout point where there is a great view of the city, and here we had a cup of coffee (the real Guatemalan kind, not the watery stuff that most places serve). After this we drove back to Antigua, where we had a drink in the hostel and already had to say our goodbyes. It was a great way of experiencing Guatemala in a different way, quite a unique opportunity!! Thank you Luis!
The next day we said our goodbyes to Antigua and headed for the mountains once again, this time to Lanquin...
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Froukje
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Guay!
Que guay chicas! Leuke foto's ook weer. krijgen we nog een presentatie als jullie terug zijn?? besotes, Froukje