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Published: November 26th 2011
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Antigua Street view
Tuk Tuk on the streets of Antigua with Volcano beyond This is definitely the way to start a holiday. The spaciousness and luxury of a four bedroom, colonial house with multiple private gardens, balconies, spaces to lounge and relax. Even our sometimes hard to please children were impressed - though it goes downhill from here boys (at least in terms of space). Jose, the housekeeper for Casa #3, also met us at Guatemala City airport and drove us home in his comfortable mini van, making for a very easy and safe arrival.
We are all completely exhausted from our continued lack of sleep ( 2 nights in a row on planes) and quickly select our rooms for some quality dozing - who could believe a hard bed could feel so inviting? Then we wake the boys again and head to town to purchase some local currency - Quetzals - and enjoy some Guatemalan food. Jose has suggested we try the Rainbow Cafe and the boys tuck into huge plates of chicken and bean nachos and enormous liquados bananos (banana smoothies), while Michael and I enjoy the "menu del dia" option of fresh, delicious soups and sandwiches. A great way to begin in La Antigua.
This is a really interesting
town - perfect for spending days wandering it's dusty cobblestone streets and catching the glimpses of beautiful gardens, interesting shops and local workers behind the walled exteriors. You begin thinking Antigua must be very small, but once you have spent a few days walking around you get a sense for how much there is left to see.
The highlights from our week in Antigua are many but definitely include:
• Buying beautiful bags, fascinating jewellery, table runners, hand blown glasses, colourful belts and scarves, cool animal masks etc from the local
Artisans Mercado and local shops. The quality is fantastic and the prices great value.
• Exploring the local food and vegetable market.
• Climbing the
Pacaya Volcano. We took the sunset tour option which starts with a 2pm pickup. Make sure to pack marshmallows for toasting at the top, take water and a sweater for the walk back plus a good camera. Costs about 115Q pp - about $16, including your park entry fee. Very hard work at times - but worth the effort to climb an active volcano.
• Relaxing around the grounds at Casa #3.You can find it on
www.vrbo.com • Exploring the grounds of the
Convent and Monastery of Santa Clara- now a listed, preserved site. Q40 entry fee.
• Walking to the
Cross on the Hill, overlooking Antigua. We went on our own, but timed it to be there around 4pm, when the police are in evidence both at the bottom and top of the climb, due to reports we had read of robberies. An excellent way to get an overview of the Antigua township.
• Dinner on our last night at
The Kids Restaurant (see
www.kidsrestaurant.org ). This fairly new initiative close to Antigua is the only restaurant run soley by kids. It is on every Friday night and for Q75pp they pick you up opposite the Park Central and take you to the restaurant which is about 7 mins out of town. Each week the cuisine changes and ours happened to be a healthy spin on Burgers/Fast food. All the proceeds from the meal go to the kids, for their future education. It was a delightful experience. The 10-15 kids about 11 yrs of age practise their English, cooking and waiting skills on you. The young woman behind this and other projects is Tessa de Goede and you can find out more about her great work helping
Guatemalan kids & babies with cleft palates at
www.tessunlimited.nl Any donations or help is hugely appreciated.$300 buys a complete cleft palate repair.
Antigua is an easy town to navigate, as it is based on a grid system and we felt totally safe the whole time we were there. I would have happily walked the streets on my own during the day and the Guatemalans we encountered on the streets and in the markets were friendly and considerate. There is lots of traffic travelling down the bumpy roads but they nearly always stopped to let us cross. We chose not to ride the chicken buses and had no need to catch a tuk tuk...as it was so easy to walk everywhere.
Thanks for a great introduction to Guatemala, La Antigua and we are very excited to be heading to Lake Atitlan.
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