Blogs from Antigua, Capital Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 7

Wczoraj dotarlem do Antigua. Przejazd chicken busami zajal mi jakies 2,5 godziny. Po raz pierwszy jechalem chcicken busami, ktore maja plazme w srodku :-) na ktorej leca umilajce podroz teledyski. Sama Antigua jest miastem niezwykle przyjemnym i pieknym. Pelno jest w nim brukowanych uliczek zamknietych dla ruchu kolowego, skwerow, ladny zocalo oraz itp. Dwa wulkany Agua i Fuego gorujace nad miastem dodaja niesamowitego uroku. Kiedys byla to stolica calej centroamerykanskiej kolonii hiszpanskiej. Az do roku 1773 kiedy to silne trzesienie ziemi - a w zasadzie cala seria trzesien ziemi - zniszczyla to miasto. Wtedy tez zapadla decyzja o opuszczeniu miasta i przeniesieniu stolicy do Guatemala City. Nie wszyscy sie jednak temu podporzadkowali i ci co zostali probowali odbudowywac miasto. Do dzisiaj miasto jest w bardzo duzym stopniu odbudowane, a jedynymi wiekszymi pozostalosciami po trzes... read more

This morning we got ready and headed over to the main hotel to eat breakfast before we split up into two groups for our tour of Antigua. The tour was really interesting, we learned some pretty interesting facts about Antigua and got to see tons of cool sites including the main cathedral, an ex-nunnery –which is said to be haunted, and even went to a chocolate factory. At the chocolate factory we learned the facts about how they make chocolate and even got to taste test some! All of us bought some chocolate products as souvenirs before heading out again; it was a really hard choice to decide what to buy because they had all sorts of products ‘choclified’. We broke for lunch and Brandy, Megan, and I headed to Mono Loco to grab a quick ... read more

After diving at the Belize Barrier Reef Bonnie and I went to Guatemala. Guatemala turned out to be one of the greatest countries I saw. Better than I had anticipated, to be honest. The trip started with getting drenched in the rain on the boat to Belize City. Also our bags got quite wet, what was a bit a problem as they didnt dry for 2-3 days...:-( We arrived in Flores, Lago Peten province, in the evening. I was completely exhausted and had a bad headache. But we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant at the lakeshore. The next morning at 4 we got up again and went with a group to Tikal to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately just before sunrise there were clouds moving in. So we did not see the sun rise, but ... read more

Antigua liegt in einem Tal, das umgeben ist von Vulkanen. Heute früh hat der eine gleich geraucht... sah sehr gut aus. Ausserdem war 1974 das letzte große Erdbeben, das nächste ist damit überfällig. Zudem ist September der Monat mit den höchsten Niederschlägen, die Folgen sind Bergrutsche (sehen wir jeden Tag beim Fahren), Überschwemmungen... Und vom Golf von Mexiko kommen die Ausläufer eines Sturmes zu uns... Also eine sehr gemütliche Umgebung. 10.03.1543 gründeten die Spanier hier ihre Hauptstadt "Ciudad de Santiago". Im 17. Und 18. Jh. war Antigua die mächtigste Stadt Mittelamerikas: 38 große Kirchen, Universität, Druckerei, Zeitung und ein blühendes kulturelles und politisches Leben, Aber am 29.07.17734 wurde die Stadt von einem Erdbeben fast völlig zerstört und so verlegte man 1776 die Hauptstadt nach Guatemala City (auch keine besonders gute Wahl, da diese Stadt auf einer ... read more

After hearing stories about Guatemala City and the lack of things to do there I decided to head straight to Antigua in Guatemala rather than staying a night in the capital. A few hours after we crossed the border (and I had my first attempted border scam - unluckily for them this wasn't my first border crossing!) and arrived in Guatemala City. In order to get out to Antigua we needed to catch a taxi from the bus terminal to a public bus stop. The taxi driver at the bus stop told us that it was super dangerous for us to go to the public terminal and if he dropped us off that someone would come up behind us with a gun and rob us - clearly he was trying to play on our fears and ... read more