Heading back to Antigua and our last travel day. Yipee, it must be Tuesday!

---

Today was our last (YAY!) travel day. We were all happy about that as it was getting a bit tiring being in the van all the time. We had a half hour boat ride back to Panachal, then about a 3 hour van ride to Antigua and we would be FREE from travel. FREE AT LAST! Kidding. sort of. This last van was very small with little leg room (and that’s saying a lot coming from me) with dark windows. I must admit I was feeling quite claustrophobic in it and restless. Then Justin put on a video (it actually had a small TV screen) of Mel Gibson’s movie the Apocalypto from 2006. Justine figured after all the Mayan sites we had visited (3; 2 in Honduras and one in Guatemala) we would appreciate seeing an interpretation of it. Wow, this movie was incredibly violent and depressing. The movie basically cuts right into a scene of a smaller Mayan village being annihilated by a larger group of more violent Mayan’s who rape and pillage and throw babies and kill and on and on. Now I *like* gratuitous violent modern day Hollywood movies, probably because I know they are gratuitous and fake. This one had me turning my head away, and feeling almost sick. I could tell that most of the van felt that way; but it was like a train wreck, you couldn’t really look away.

We stopped for a quick break and I asked everyone their thoughts and they too were horrified (more so than me) with the movie so I asked Justin to turn it off. He apologized afterwards, and we did find out that we saw the worst bit, and it got better, with a slightly happy ending but we were all so turned off we simply didn’t care anymore. How ironic - we laughed that had we seen the movie before visiting the sites we probably wouldn’t have gone!

Made it to Antigua by early afternoon; hotel wouldn’t let us check in so we wandered back to the main square area to have lunch. We went to McDonalds, where I sat and everyone else ate, then went to get a Latte with soy milk and then *I* was happy!! I don’t do McDonald’s under any circumstances, so I sat politely while everyone else ate. We then just wandered around the city, checking out some shops, some old ruins, seeing how the city is prepping for Semanta Sana, as there are still 4 days left of Holy week and saying Antigua celebrates in style is an understatement. Many people literally from around the world, come here to celebrate, and while I’m excited to see all the processions and carpets (hand made flower carpets along the streets) I'm also leery of the crowds. It was difficult enough getting a hotel for Good Friday night, we have to move unfortunately as we can’t stay where we are, and even getting that was quite the struggle.

I enjoyed the lazy afternoon, just wandering, relaxing and knowing we were not going anywhere for 3 days! Found the office for Old Town Outfitters (that I had booked the Volcano hike and the Chichicastanango Market through) to get an update on schedules and timing. Found out that in order to do the market (biggest in Central America - and huge on Thursday and Sunday’s) we would have to walk to the outskirts of town, pick up the bus at 06:45, and drive 3 hours EACH WAY. Sigh. I was dying to see the Market, as I have not been to Otavalo in Ecuador, however the thought of spending 6 hours in a bus (again) was painstaking and I was already twitching just thinking about it. So I made the decision to cancel it, as sad as I was I couldn’t do anymore travel this trip. So instead, we are doing a bicycle tour to a small coffee plantation, tour there, then cycling slowly back to Antigua through other smaller villages and countryside. Sounds like a lot more fun and good exercise as well! Confirmed we actually had a hotel post night (thankfully) and that was a huge relief, and got directions for the location of the hotel (more on that later.......)

Wandered back to the hotel, then we had a cooking class, part of our G Trip to go to for dinner. We were making appetizer of guacamole (with spearmint instead of cilantro - yum!), a traditional Guatemalan dish of Pepian (which is a stew with pumpkin seeds, seared chilies and vegetables and generally eaten with chicken and rice) and a dessert of a sweet bun with heavy cream inside of it, soaked in a simple syrup with cinnamon.

I was drooling over watching the chef make all this - especially the Pepian. We had had Pepian day before at the home stay and it was delicious. I had had it once before in a restaurant and didn’t enjoy it as much, but it is made with a basic recipe (you singe/sear all the ingredients to borderline burnt, then peel the skins, blend it with chicken stock, water and there’s a bit more to it) but can get fluctuate slightly depending on flavors, vegetables handy and of course, the cook! It can end up tasting a bit more burnt than I would have liked - but I can certainly change the cooking style at home a bit, as it is still tasty!

We got to watch a procession as well go by, in part of the Semanta Sana again - these will continue to go on all week. Watching 40 individuals carry about 700 tonnes of Statue is impressive, and their faces show how difficult it is on occasion. Afterwards we slowly wandered back to the hotel and decompressed. Except for the shower. Let me tell you about the shower. HA! Turns out Randy and Janice from our group stayed in room 209 that we were now in, and the shower was broken and spraying all over the bathroom. So we checked, and sure enough, it still was as the hotel hadn't fixed it yet. So Larry tried to fix it, had no luck so we draped a towel over the shower head to at least hopefully keep the water going down instead of everywhere.

He had a shower - that incorporated a lot of yapping and some screaming and of course cold water. So I decided to have a shower, but let the shower run for a bit (thanks for a warning from Larry) and while warming up the water, the towel wrapped around the shower head came off and I didn't realize that so suffice to say the bathroom was now a small lake. Literally. There was at least 2 inches of water everywhere. oops. And only one towel each, with one small hand towel to share. he he he. he. he. um, now what? So I ignored it, had my coolish shower and called it a night. Not my problem:-) SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE PHOTOS and check out the link!

AND first video from coolest G Aventures Guide ever: http://vimeo.com/92166882

---

Photos

Lake Atitlan
One of the 3 volcano's that surround the lake

Waterfall along the highway back to Antigua
My photo does not do it justice!