Antigua, Guatemala

Leaving our jungle oasis behind, the team embarked on another 8 hour minibus trip to Antigua, cracked windscreen and all. We had a few issues with our driver taking on the role of the air conditioning police and not letting us have the AC on full blast, literally reaching back to change the setting from three to two within ten seconds of us changing it, every time. This was bad enough for us, let alone the poor girl sitting near the front who was battling a severe hangover and trying not to throw up the whole journey! Surprising lack of voms though, given the way she looked. What a trooper.

One of our stops ended up being quite entertaining when Scott and Mike found a lady selling hotdogs in a wee shop next to the petrol station we had pulled up at. When I found the two of them in this tiny shop about the size of a two-man tent, with no cooking devices except for a microwave in sight, it's fair to say I was a bit sceptical of how this was going to turn out. The lady was super lovely though and proceeded to put out some plastic stools for us to sit on (basically then using all the spare space in her shop) whilst we waited for her to rustle up the hotdog Scott signed up for. She pulled out a single hot dog from her little fridge, tightly wrapped in plastic which she then proceeded to cook in some water in the microwave. Fresh bread and an abundance of condiments surfaced, followed by the seal of approval from Scotty, so Mike and I were sold. The way she tried to sell us other various things from her random assortment of shop items while we were waiting was hilarious too. Scott was offered instant porridge and baby food to which he had to politely decline but everyone was laughing by the end of it all, as she knew how ridiculous her offers were getting. What a little hustler! One that makes a mean hotdog.

After driving through different villages and lush landscapes for the best part of our journey, it was a bit of a change to arrive in the beautiful Spanish colonial town of Antigua. Founded in 1543, Antigua was the capital of Guatemala until an earthquake devastated the town in 1773 and the capital city subsequently moved to Guatemala City in 1776. This means that much of the architecture here is from the 17th and 18th century and actually reminds me quite a lot of San Cristobal de las Casas that we visited in Mexico. Again the streets are cobbled and the town is surrounded by volcanos plus some more chilly mornings and evenings given we were back at 1600m above sea level.

We'd booked another nice hostel here called Matiox that'd only been open for three months. Sturdy bunks in the dorm, comfy beds and a nice open air courtyard in the centre of the building gave us a nice place to call home for a few days. Dave who worked there was really helpful in recommending us some good food and drink spots to try out, as well as being super flexible with changing our booking around when we realised we wanted to do an overnight trip up one of the many volcanoes that surround Antigua.

The team headed out to try some of Dave's recommendations, the first of which was an Asian restaurant of sorts which happened to serve some epic Indian curries with the plates piled high, much to the boy's delight. Bear in mind that Antigua has many internationals living here or calling it home for a while at least, given it is quite popular for Spanish language schools. There's even a few of the big chains like McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts etc hidden inside the colonial buildings. Slightly bizarre. With the first of Dave's recommendations being a hit, we tried a couple of bars he'd told us about as well. One of which proved quite difficult to find but was a low-key cocktail bar with a slightly eccentric owner, where we got chatting to a couple of Aussies. A few cocktails later and we ended up at another bar with them which had a ladies night on - free drink on entry, or rather something that resembles petrol if you're silly enough to order rum like me. And so we danced the night away.

Understandably our next morning was quite a slow start, but eventually we ventured out to the huge market that Antigua is well known for. This market housed anything from handicrafts, electronics and clothes, to fresh fruit, vegetables, spices...you name it, you could probably find it here. We set out to barter and buy gloves and hats for our volcano expedition, plus all sorts of produce to make a stir fry as we thought we should make some savings and use the kitchen available at the hostel for once! The amount of people and things packed into this place is insane. All was successful until we tried to find some sort of sauce, but eventually we managed to improvise enough with borrowing (cough) a few things from the hostel.

...Wee break here where we went to Volcán Acatenango - separate blog for this one!

To be fair we didn't do a massive amount in Antigua aside from eating (common theme here) and researching our next move, or recovering from the huge couple of days at the volcano. Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) well and truly set in. And what better way to reinforce the pain than do another walk - thankfully much less strenuous - to Cerro de las Cruz (the hill of the cross). It gave us a nice view of the city and the mountain behind, on arguably the hottest and clearest day we had in Antigua.

Unfortunately this was also our last stop with Scotty, who's headed back to NZ/Aussie for the next wee while and to figure out the next move! As for the rest of us, we're off to San Pedro la Laguna, Lake Atitlan to get deep in a week of Spanish language school and stay with a couple of local families. With any luck, this time next week we will be a bit more fluent...Read more