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Published: August 18th 2013
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The Bikes
Fraser and myself on the bicycles I woke up fairly early as decided to visit a coffee plantation and the excursion included cycling there from Antigua. Fraser from the group also decided to do this trip and we both had to walk over to bicycle place to meet a guide and collect our bikes. The total cost of the trip that included a tour of the coffee plantation and the bike was about 360 quetzals, which sounds expensive but when converting it into British Pounds, It was only £30.00, so not too bad really.
Once we had paid, we got onto our bikes and followed our guide to the coffee plantation. It took my a while to get used to the bike as I hadn't ridden one for about 10 years and it wasn't easy cycling over a coble street. After about 5 minutes, I got the hang of it and felt like I had ridden a bicycle my whole life. The journey to the coffee plantation took about half an hour to get to and, for most of the journey, it was ridding on the cobles.
Once we got to the coffee plantation, owed by a R Dalton, we met one of the workers
Coffee Beans
Coffee Beans being getting harvested at the plantation and he toured us around. We first of all visited the plants where at the moment the plants are growing their buds as it's rainy season and at the start of the dry season (November) they will start to harvest the beans. We did find some beans that had started to ripen, the bean is coted with four layers and our guide told us to take the first layer off and taste it, and when tasting it we got this sweet taste. Anyway after walking around the plants, we then visited all the machinery from start to end and then watched some workers processing the coffee beans and packaging them up for them to be sold.
At the end of the tour, we got to try one of the coffees in their restaurant. It truly was one of the best coffees I had ever tasted. I wished I could have brought some home with me but didn't have much space in my backpacks. We did get told that the owner of the plantation has a relation in London who owns a coffee shop and they export their coffee beans out to her, so will keep an
Plantation Machinery
Plantation Machinery eye out when visiting London.
After cycling back to Antiqua, we then had to relocate hotels, which didn't take long as we used a taxi. Once I had settled into the new hotel, Rachana and myself went for a walk in Antigua and the first stop was Mcdonald's; it was weird as it's in an old colonial building but once you walk in you definitely get the Mcdonald's vibe. After food, we went to the markets where they sold lots of interesting stuff but we found all the stalls sold the same stuff, so it got a bit boring. I then went to meet my friend, her name is Zzielo and I met her from Busuu which is an online website to help you learn a different language; I have been using this site to learn some Spanish for this trip.
In the evening we went out for a nice meal with live music and then went to a bar/club as it was our last night in Antigua, and Lisa and Fariba joined us to say goodbye. It was a very messy night and I went to bed knowing that in a few hours time I was going
Coffee Beans
Coffee beans at the final stage to have to get up for a 13 hour bus trip to Flores.
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