Blogs from Pacaya, Capital Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 2

When we arrived back in Antigua from Copan, lex had remembered that Handel's Messiah was playing that night at a convent ruin turned hotel, so we rushed home to get ready and quickly headed there. It was so so so amazing!!!! Thurs. morning, we got up and headed in to the market to buy things to cook for dinner. It was amazing, in the end we ended up with enough food to last probably 3 days for about $2. All fresh and amazing! We did have to pick up some things from the grocery store though, so that was about another $15 more, but still, not bad at all! Thursday was a day of relaxing, just running "errands" if you can call them that. Making reservations for lex and jose, scoping out hotels for them for ... read more

Pourquoi refaire le volcan Pacaya, me direz-vous ? Et bien, en discutant avec differentes personnes, j'ai compris que j'avais manque quelque chose qu'il fallait absolumment que je vois ! En effet, les guides de toutes les agences de voyage ne prennent pas la peine de contourner le volcan - ce qui ne constitue qu'1 km de marche en plus - pour acceder aux coulees de lave brulante. Et ca vaut effectivement la peine, voyez plutot les photos et le film... J'ai donc entrepris cette nouvelle expedition avec les 3 autres etudiantes qui sejournent dans la meme famille que moi. Chouette petite bande, qui rejoignons d'autres courageux marcheurs. Car monter jusqu'au sommet du volcan Pacaya n'est pas si facile. Il est d'ailleurs utile d'acheter le "stick" que les enfants de la region vendent des notre arrivee au ... read more

Just thought I'd do a quick note about my trip to Pacaya. I went on the first weekend that I arrived, which seems like a lifetime ago now! It's only about an hour away from Antigua and then takes roughly an hour to walk up to the volcano ( or alternatively about half hour by horse...yes I did..I'd had a hard week building!) Anyway it's well worth the trip and you are able to get really close to the lava pouring out of the top, close enough to roast marshmallows as some people were. I'm pretty sure that if in England the place would have a mile no go zone around it but hey this is Guatemala! It was quite a thrill feeling my waterproof begin to melt onto my arm. Seriously though it was amazing ... read more

Saturday - Guatemala City For the first weekend off, I was planning to relax and not really do much. However, one of my housemates, Ralph said that he was heading to Guatemala city for the day and asked if I wanted to go too. Since I was only planning on staying in the city overnight before leaving for Miami, I agreed. Plus it gave us the chance to ride one of the Camionetas, Guatemala´s (in)famous Chicken busses! At the same time however, the city has the highest crime rate for all cities in Central America, so we took only a small amount of money and also I left my camera behind - apologise for the lack of photos. We caught the bus from around the market area and as soon as you walk up there, ... read more

This is my next entry on my list of "Top Things to Do in Guatemala if You're Visiting for a Short Time." (See Dec 24 entry for my list). We had already visited Pacaya once before, during the rainy season (see my Sept. 1 entry "Feels just like I"m walking on broken glass") and the really amazing thing about this place is how it changes so much! I mean, it's as if molten lava would actually alter the landscape...hey wait... We wanted to take the Gellerts and Carlos to see Pacaya because it's such a great day trip from Antigua. Our ExpeditionsGuatemala.com guide this time was a great guy named Orlando, with calves like Lance Armstrong, and he skipped up the trail like he was a goat or something. (I try not to hate such people ... read more