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Published: December 3rd 2006
countryside
a view from the vanThe journey to Antigua from Rio Dulce was quite hard going but the scenery was pretty cool. After the flats of the Yucatan and the relatively small hills of the Belizean countryside it was great to be traveling through some 'dynamic’ geography. By that I mean the road was cut into the side of huge big bloody mountains with massive drops just feet away from the wheels of the van. I kept my eyes shut most of the time. There are millions of huge volcanoes in this part of Guatemala and the views are simply breathtaking.
I had to take some photos from the van window I was so impressed at how pretty the country suddenly became (it was nice in northern Guatemala but it was quite dry and not very green).
Anyway, we finally arrived in Antigua, an old colonial town that was once the capital of Guatemala. It’s a very pretty little town but some people don’t like it as its chocked full of tourists studying Spanish. It makes for very interesting people watching though as it can be difficult to guess where people are from - unless of course they’re American in which case it’s a bit
antiguan hotel
where we stayed with the tour in antigua obvious.
We only spent one night in Antigua to drop off our big rucksacks and get some rest before heading off on a 2 day trip to Panajachel (or Pana). Some chicken bus surfing was required, which was fun as the trips were pretty short this time and the novelty didn’t really have time to wear off. We stopped in Chichicastenango (or Chichi) which is renowned in the area for having a kickass market for tourists to visit and while there I bought some slippers from the bored looking woman in our photos (The slippers are damn cool and I've been wearing them quite a bit as nights and mornings in Antigua are chilly).
Newly slippered-up, our journey continued until we reached Pana, a busy touristy town that wasn’t that great. What was great is that it sits on the shore of Lago de Atitlan, a collapsed volcanic cone that filled with water. Its surrounded by muchos more volcanoes and is gorgeous.
We spent a couple of nights in Pana and spent a morning doing a boat tour around the lake to have breakfast and visit a couple of villages and buy some stuff. The place we
antigua 1
the view from our hotel went for breakfast was stunning. It was a little hotel set into the side of a hill (possibly a volcano, they’re everywhere) that could only be accessed by boat. The views from there were jaw-dropping, some of the best we’ve come across yet and so we took squillions of photos of them. After some yummy pancakes here, we headed off to the first shopping village. It was a bit touristy and evil. The market was packed and it was a pain to get anywhere. I got some cute earring but am still trying to restrain the heavy shopping until later in the trip. The second village was tiny and not at all touristy but we did meet two women who wove scarves (I bought three!) and tablecloths (thankfully I don’t have a table so I managed not to buy any of these).
Shopping over, the group returned to Antigua extra early the next morning as most people were planning a volcano climb. I had planned to go too but the early morning and the late finish of the climb put me off so I decided I could do it another day if I wanted to. Ross went up with
antigua 2
the huge volcano in the background is volcan agua most of the group and they apparently didn’t enjoy it at all. They came back in such a foul mood that I’m really glad I didn’t go with them.
The next day was the last day of our tour (oh no!) so we had planned a big group dinner. The tour was continuing on to Costa Rica and picking up some new arrivals that day so they joined us for dinner too as it was the first night of their tour.
That morning some of the group went to visit a women’s project just outside Antigua. The village where it was based had been struck by poor crops and illness resulting in poverty and other not very nice things. Some women from the village decided to take steps to lift themselves and the village out of this poverty and set up the project we went to visit. The women only spoke their regional Mayan dialect when the project began but they requested teachers from the government so they could learn Spanish and they began to put the proceeds of their weaving and farming into funding projects in the village such as establishing a school and a medical clinic.
antigua 3
the main square in antigua. the fountain has statues of women with water coming out of their nipples on it. its truly delightful. The project is doing well now and last year it put 400 children through school. The kids who weave and make purses and bags to sell put their names on their work so that when it gets sold the proceeds go directly to them to buy school books and materials. I’m going on about it a bit but it was pretty amazing to meet these women and see what they’ve achieved. They showed us their weaving technique, ground us some coffee to drink (and let us have a go grinding - bloody hard work) and let us massacre some tortilla dough in our attempt to copy their tortilla patting technique. Then they (evilly I thought) fed us our own icky tortillas with some delicious lunch and then we bought come of the kids’ crafts. It was a good experience and I got a really cool wallet and a pretty skirt. What more could you want?
Our final dinner with the group was fun but pretty sad. They were lovely people and we all got along pretty well. I’m sad that they left us!
We were left with a week in Antigua until our flight to Peru on Dec
antigua 4
the main cathedral on the central square 4th so we have spent the time catching up on this blog and bumming around eating far too much good food. Talk to you soon from Peru! X
Ross:
Ok this section of the trip was a bit boring for me as it mainly involved shopping for tat and fending off locals trying to sell you even worse tat. But as you can see from the photos the scenery was fantastic and kept me occupied trying to get the best shot of the many volcanoes in the area.
The trip back form Pana was great though; our chicken bus driver believing himself to be Colin McRae thrashed our chicken bus to with in an inch of its life through the steep and twisty hill climbs and descents on our way back to Antigua. Pulling off maneuvers that an Impreza would struggle with; chicken bus drivers seem to be either a strange mutant breed with the powers of precognition to avoid certain death during the frequent blind corner overtaking maneuvers or it’s all a game to see who has the biggest cojones.
The only other highlight of the day (or so I was lead to believe) was a trip
Pimp my ride Guatemala1
these things look fun but are a bit scary, especially on mountain roads when the driver seems to be a retired nascar nutter. up a volcano.
Thinking we would be in a small group so everyone could keep an eye on each other during ascent and especially the descent as it was in the dark. We were shocked to be lumped together with around 30 or more people and only 2 guides to take us up (neither spoke any English which made the safety talk a lot of fun). Although their idea of safety was generally shouting a lot.
After a steep but steady climb we reached the first crater, so far thoroughly unimpressed we went a bit further and spotted some lava through the thickening cloud that hid the summit. Now slightly more impressed we continued on to the lava field at which point our guides sat down and let everyone stream out on to the lava field. There’s no designated path and the rocks are razor sharp with open lava vents hidden in dips and gullies. The lava was pretty cool but once you’d made it over and took some photos and looked about a bit it had got very dark and you still had to make the trip back over the lava field, hard enough when there’s plenty of light,
Pimp my ride Guatemala 2
big ass buses with little ass seats! lethal when you’ve only got a torch.
After struggling over this somebody surprisingly got lost (still don’t know if the guy went down with another group or was actually still up at the lava vent). After a very cold hour and lots of fruitless shouting by the guides we eventually started back down in a very bad mood. Although there was a bbq waiting when we finally got back to Antigua it was small consolation.
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