Day 72 - Antigua

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We woke up early but found it really difficult to get up. It's astonishing how much the body is able to sleep when there's nothing it really has to do. We wandered around Antigua's town to discover coffee shops, pretty courtyards and hidden little oases. It's a very easy place to lose a few hours.

We booked ourselves on tours, bus journeys and hotels for the next couple of days, both here in Antigua and also in Flores (a city near Tikal and its Mayan ruins, that we have both wanted to visit for a long time).

Antigua is a beautiful place, the people and atmosphere are great. We are so pleased to have had Nicola's advice about coming here. Even though this place was devestated by an earthquake in 1773, and more recently by Hurricane Stan a couple of years ago, it seems a place to pick itself up and carry on with what it has.

We attended a lecture and discussion about a very active US charity called 'Friendship Bridge', which does a lot of work in the rural villages around here. It's not that 2 months of travelling has made us (well, Ed) go soft, but because they are involved in providing microcredit and education to help women and their families create their own solutions to poverty. Bottom-up schemes like this are definitely a compelling way to conduct aid giving and charity work in developing countries. Very interesting and inspiring.

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