Blogs from Antigua, Capital Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 8

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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 ... read more
Coffee Beans
Plantation Machinery
Coffee Beans


First full day in Antigua and after having a nice lay in, I went with part of the group for an orientation walk with our CEO so that we knew how to get around and explore this beautiful old colonial city. We visited the main church and walked under the famous pretty yellow bridge which has a clock. Our CEO then went to check out some prices for excursions for the group and we had about 40 minutes to go do some exploring, so Alicia and myself went and walked around and looked at some of the old buildings that took serious damage from the 1770's earthquake. Antigua used to be the old capital city of Guatemala but after this terrible earthquake they decided to make Guatemala City the capital as it was in a safer ... read more
Old building
Me in the volcano hole
Church


So after a short flight back to Mexico city then a short flight to Guatemala city then a private transfer we arrived in the cobbled town of Antigua. The town has a lovely feel, very small and colourful. We checked into our private room in a hostel called the Yellow house. Very friendly staff and looks a lovely clean hostal with a nice communal area, with phills favourite - hammocks. We spent the first night having a wonder round the small town, Looking at all the churches, and the clock tower over the road. Then went to a lebanese restaurant. Gorgeous food and place but they were playing disco music very loud which was a bit distracting from the lovely place and food. On the first day we woke up early and had the free breakfast, ... read more
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Antigua is worth visiting, even if you´re trying to avoid tourist hordes. It´s a perfect safe-haven from Guatemala City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Every Latin American country seems to have a colonial city like it, where you´ll feel safe, clean, and at home, but also where it is less authentic, more expensive, and not very challenging in terms of language, transportation, etc. My friend and I stayed at Los Encuentros, which is about a ten-minute walk from the central plaza. We got a double room for 200 Quetzales (including breakfast), which was somewhat expensive, even for Antigua, but they had the highest rating on TripAdvisor, and we wanted to book something for the first night. The woman who runs it is extremely friendly and helpful. The city is pretty easy to get around, though ... read more
Antigua Street
La Cuevita de los Urquizu
Las Capuchinas Convent


To start off my trip, I took a cab at 4:30am to go to the Philadelphia airport. I was sleepy-eyed, but didn't expect my cab driver to be the same. He missed the exit to the airport, which resulted in an additional 20 minute cab ride. What should have been a $55 cab ride became $92 by the time we got back to the airport. Of course, he offered to lower the fare because of his mistake, but still wanted to charge me $75. I thought I may get swindled in Guatemala, but did not expect this to happen before I even got there! Needless to say he backed off his price hike and left me with the $55 fare. At this point I was worried I wouldn't make it to my flight in time, and ... read more
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We woke up a bit dazed today at 6am realising we had slept pretty much a solid 14 hours! We obviousy needed it! We (well I was) were absolutely starving as we had slept through dinner last night so we got up and changed and quickly headed out to go in search of breakie. We stumbled across a place that had a few people in it which is always a good sign, saw that they did coffee and crepes and we were sold. It was the best breakie we have had in such a long time! I had crepes with nutella, strawberries and banana. It was really rich cos it was lathered in nutella! I was only able to eat half of it but it was so so good.. And ben had crepes with seasonal fruit ... read more
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We had to get up really early this morning...like in the 4's to catch the 5.04am train to Newark Airport. We said our goodbyes to Susan who dropped us off at the train station, what an absolute trooper after driving us around the East Coast of the states all week! We made it through the longest security process in history at Newark Airport including having one of those crazy xrays where you have to stand like a teepee. After a quick bite for breakfast (including a sampler at Aunty Anne's pretzels...Rach couldn't buy a full one because she ate too much breaky and wasn't hungry!!) we hopped on our United Airlines flight down to Guatemala City. The flight went pretty quickly and 5 hours later we landed. We had a pretty good run through the airport ... read more
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Guatemala, Puerto Quetzal Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 Terry is off to get our pre-breakfast coffee; I am slowly packing for a L-O-N-G day. We leave the ship at 9:30 for an hour and half commented drive to Antigua, an old colonial capital. We then tour the town on our own for 3 and a half hours and return to the ship by 4, in time for trivia and another win! Puerto Quetzal is a secure working major port and we can’t walk inside the port or to anywhere from it, therefore we are going on an excursion to Antigua. We are back; Terry says he will never go on a long bus ride excursion ever again. It was worth it, we will never see Antigua again. It is an old colonial town, in bad repair, like ... read more
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Na vijf en een halve maand zit mijn "ff wat anders" erop. Ik ben net weer thuis en druk bezig met tijdzones, temperatuurverschillen en mijn familie eindelijk weer zien. De afgelopen maanden zijn interessant en leerzaam geweest in een hoop opzichten. Conclusie: ik kan in ieder geval aardig tegen de warmte. Maar voordat ik in een al te serieuze stemming kom een kleine samenvatting van de afgelopen weken. Via het zuiden van Belize zijn we Guatemala in gegaan en Antigua aangedaan. Het toffe van Antigua in tweede instantie is dat er aan de buitenkant van de gebouwen allerlei kleurige kleuren op de muren staan. Schreewerige borden en neonreclame zijn vrolijkerwijs niet toegestaan in dit oud-spaanse stadje met als gevolg dat er achter de kleurige muren nog wel eens een verrassing zit. Zoals een prachtige tuin, atriums ... read more
Met de bus in Guatemala
Tikal
Chickenbus in Guatemala




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