Antigua and assorted other events.

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Ok so we left off when I was leaving La Capital, as they call it. I left thinking I was going to stay in Amatitlan for a night and then go who knows where. I got to Amatitlan Via bus and started looking for a hotel, because the city isn´t in my guidebook. Lots of walking, it always is, because I have a personal vow that I will not set foot in a taxi, at least not as long as I have two feet. So i strolled around, no luck, and even went into an internet cafe to search for a hostel online. Finally, I found a sign for a hotel. The guy in the tienda downstairs told me, you don´t want that hotel, its dirty. Thinking I could handle anything I walked up and scoped it. This one guy told me he wasnt the owner, speaking vbroken english which i´ve realized is usually a bad sign (the people you want to run your hotel are kind old ladies, not guys who say, "let me tell you something about amatitlan on a saturday, amigo:"), and the place was a payby the hour motel, not the place for me. I walked out in search of another place, got bad directions to a couple resorts that didn´t have hotels, and luckily wound up at the gondola park. It takes you up a cliff to a view of the lake. Its funny because in guatemala the beautiful nature isn´t locked up in parks, its right outside the cities. As I looked down at the city, beautifully situated on a volcano lake, I realized that there was no way in hell I would stay in that motel. I went down and made an on the spot decision.

The other thing on my mind was antibiotics. Maren, my friend in the cities, was nonresponsive with meningitis at this point. Thank god she´s ok now. But the thing is I was in contact and at risk to get the same thing, and I needed preventative antibiotics. I knew where the hotels were in the city but there was now way I wanted to return, I´d worn out my welcome by a day at least, so I figured that I´d go to Antigua, where there must be good medicine for tourists right? A bus back to the Capital and a bus to antigua and I was there, under the bright lights that light up pastel cathedrals and the young honeymooning lovers in the park and the bars lining cobblestone streets and everything is so unbeliavably glossy. Its a different world, one fueled by the dollar and the euro and catering to a different traveller. I found my hotel, a nice hospedaje with a courtyard and a little old lady who always said "Es possible que Pagar ahora?" I walked around a little that night but I was beat. What a day.

The next day I walked around for hours taking pictures of all the churches. It was hot and it got to be a personal challenge. By the end I wasn´t even interested in the name or history of those buildings, I had a checklist and I was checking of my photographic scavenger hunt. The fun part was that the map of the town I had in my back pocket didn´t say whether the church was functioning or an ancient ruin. So every church was a surprise. The other interesting party of the day was that I went to the cemetary. It was all white. Not the USA color of death, mind you.

In antigua I found the Mercado Municipial. Its the closest thing to an actual cultural experience in walking distance. It is where all the comedores are and where the people who live in that city actually eat. I walked around there and had breakfast a few times.

My other antigua adventure was the trip to Pacaya. I tried to take public busses rather than the tourist travel agencies but it was quite a mistake, albeit an adventure. I got there at about four, two hours too late, and ended up paying six dollars more than the shuttle bus rout cost, but the local guide took me up a trail in a pick up and showed me his house on the volcano and led me down short cut paths to dry lava with a machette. Mor on this later.

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