Antigua

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In Spanish Antigua means literally antique. Antigua until 1773 was the capital of Guatemala. In 1773 Antigua was devastated by an earthquake that all but destroyed the city. The Guatemalans decided to move the capital of the country to the present location of Guatemala City. Meanwhile the citizens of Antigua rebuilt the city in the colonial Spanish style that had existed before the destruction.

Now Antigua is a world heritage site, meaning that special laws regulate any renovations, or new buildings in the area. Nestled between three volcanoes Antigua is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. Scattered throughout the town are ruins from the 1773 earthquake, colonial buildings now converted into restaurants, shops and Internet cafes.

I had only planned to stay in Antigua for a few days but due to being ill - I woke with a cold on Monday, the day I moved on from Xela - I decided to stay until I had become well enough to climb a volcano.

I choose to stay at the Posada Ruiz 2, a cheap - £2 a night - hostel style hotel a few blocks from the central park. In lonely planet the hotel was described as a friendly place where travellers congregate in the courtyard. The hotel was full of backpackers, I found it was easy to find someone to go and get a beer with, Daniel a Spaniard - we decided to check out Riki's Place, the hottest bar in town. The food was good and the drink cheap couldn't ask for more.

In Xela I had met Natalie, a girl from London, had got on well during the few hours we had spent together, she had said that she was currently staying in Antigua and left me her email address. I met up with Natalie and her local friend Marco, on Tuesday, in the most expensive coffee house in the whole town - Café Opera, really nice coffee though.

The central park is where everyone, locals, travellers and street sellers congregates during the day. Whilst I was reading and chilling out during the afternoon, I overheard a guy describing a juggling trick and trying to perform it for his friends, I went over took his juggling balls from him and showed him the trick, juggling is one of the things I'm good at. Dan and I practised tricks for an hour or so and soon had a crowd of children watching. Dan from Holland was in Antigua studying Spanish for two weeks. We agreed to meet the next day for more juggling in the central park.

Tuesday night Natalie, Daniel and I went to Riki's Place, more good food. In the bar whilst waiting for Natalie, an English girl said we could wait at her table with her, she had heard my English accent and desperately wanted to speak English - a month in El Salvador learning Spanish had put her in this situation. Daniel wanted to speak more English so he too was happy. Jenny was also from London got on really well with Natalie and spoke lots of English throughout the evening. After Riki's we went on to Caspa, the local Salsa club. Jenny had been dancing salsa for 10 years, she was really good, knows all the salsa clubs in London and was moderately complementary about my limited salsa skills.

Wednesday, more reading and relaxing in the morning, my cold starting to get a little better. The afternoon, juggling in the park. I'd met two girls in the hotel, Liza and Helena - Helena could also juggle, this time I took my juggling balls, my new friends and turned up to the park. In the park 8 or so people had turned up to juggle with more watching, the crowd of children grew and grew. Liza took photos with my camera, I taught tricks and showed off when asked to. The evening - more drinking and salsa… my cold started to get worse.

Thursday, more of the same. Reading, relaxing, slightly better with the cold - it is a very hard life here in Antigua. In the afternoon more juggling in the park, even more children. I taught one of the kids to juggle three balls, I was really impressed how quickly he picked it up - he was an instant hero with all his friends. More kids more juggling. At 6pm the police turned up to shut us down. I couldn't work out why, I explained that there was no money involved and that all we were doing was having some fun with the kids. But no… apparently the many flying balls were a danger to the public - it was no longer permitted for anyone to juggle in the park. I didn't argue too much as the police here are all armed. The world over the police seem to have so little to do that they have to go out of their way to ensure that no one has fun in any public place. Thursday night, more drinking, more dancing.

Friday, turned down another 5.30 departure for the volcano. The town was getting ready for Independence Day. 15th of September - Sunday is the biggest day in the whole country, the July the 4th of Guatemala. The last few days have involved marching bands, fireworks, and strange ceremonies involving much speaking and a little dancing. To celebrate Nick (my Australian neighbour) and I went to the market and bought Guatemala national football shirts, became instantly popular with all the local lads hanging on the street corners. We both had turned down volcano trips two days in a row - we both really wanted to climb the volcano, but at 5.30am motivation is a really big problem. The only way we were going to be able to do the trip was if we actually booked in advance, putting hard cash down on the table and getting prepared by purchasing provisions for the trip. So we did this, booked a tour and bought proper food for mountains, chocolate, cakes and sweets. Another crazy night drinking and dancing.


Saturday: 5.30am. No motivation for the volcano - but this time I had paid… got up - found Nick and went off to go climb the volcano. The bus to the volcano was full of Israeli's, I have no idea why - they didn't even know each other. Out of 18 people, 12 were Israeli. The volcano Pacaya was really beautiful, my first volcano, climbing the volcano took about 2 ½ hours. Lots of photos of mountains. The summit of the volcano was billowing gas and steam, constantly. The crater at the top gave off a lot of heat, looking down you could see that it was really deep, but I was unable to see pools of lava or the bottom, too much steam.

To get down the cone of the volcano you can either spend 30 mins walking or 3mins running. I ran, it was so cool, so I ran as fast as I could. I tripped, and rolled for a while, scratching all over my arms and getting black volcanic stones and sand in my mouth, ears, eyes and nose. Another thing to remember not to do again.

Saturday night, more drinking and dancing. Though this time in the park where live bands were playing all night. A particular type of firework display that they have here in Guatemala involves a guy wearing a huge hat covered in fireworks wandering into the crowd and at some random moment letting them all off. The crowd runs in every direction and a good time is had by all.

Today - Independence Day - 15th September, who knows what today will bring but I'm sure it will be fun.

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Photos

Central Park
Liza took this.

Ruins in Antigua
Jenny, Nick, Ali

Nights out.
Natalie, Jenny, Ali, Nick, Daniel

Comments

[meg]

pacaya
Climbing Pacaya was most definitely, without a doubt, the coolest thing i have ever done. But more imprtantly, did you slide down!?

[Ali]

in reply to Meg...
Oh yeah, I more than slide - I ran down like a jerk with a death wish and started rolling! I should put up the photo of me with all the scars afterwards... thanks for the comments :)

[Maarten]

Sounds good
Im lucky to go traveling to atitlan sunday and around the 14th go to antigua for indipendence day. Missed the story about that but im sure that was because it was to overwhelming :) Thanks to your story-comment i might consider climbing the vulcano...but it sounds exhausthing...