Hiking the volcano

Over the last couple of days we listened to some music, visited the Guatamala National Museum of Art, visited the Antigua Brewing El Bosque, and hiked up the Pacaya Volcano.

We walked around town and found not one, two weddings! One was at the San Jose Cathedral at the park, the other in a neighboring town. The bride in the second one had on a typical Mayan dress with a very long white veil over it. We walked back to the Caboa Farm and listened to some music while having lunch.

The National At Gallery is in the Central Park in what used to be a governmental building when Antigua was the capital of Guatamala. It is a typical art museum ranging from the early ages to contemporary highlighting Guatamala artists.

From there we walked to the Antigua Cerveca El Bosque - a brewery in the woods. It is the same Antigua Brewing Co that we ate at earlier but farther north of the square and in the most beautiful garden and wooded area. There was a lot of outdoor seating, some around fire pits, a few eateries, and a large screen tv where the Barcelona/Madrid soccer game was being played with many fans watching. You could find excitement or peace depending on where you sat. We choose excitement and watched Barcelona win a championship while munching on delicious nachos and enjoying a beer.

Yesterday we hiked up Volcan Pacaya - the Pacaya Volcano. It is one of four major volcanos around Antigua and is an active volcano which last erupted in 2021. The other the are Agua, Fuego, and Acatanengo. More about those in another post. A driver picked us up and drove us about an hour away to the entrance to the start of the volcano hike, which is a national Park. We met our guide, Jose, there. You must have a certified guide to hike up the volcano. While there are plenty of guides waiting at the entrance to take you up (as well as people offering horses to ride up), there is no guarantee that they speak English. We booked this trip to have an English guide, though he spoke more Spanglish than English. Yet, between his Spanglish and our Spanglish, we understood each other. We hiked up about 1500 feet while Jose told us about the volcanos, plants, and animals in the area. There were great views of the other volcanos and the sprawling Guatamala City (current capital of Guatamala. Antigua was the capital at one time but it was moved when earthquakes caused damage there.) Because it is an active volcano, we could only hike so far up. On one side of the volcano there were a lot of trees but when we started down the other side, we walked through beds of molten lava rock from the recent eruptions. There were also thermal vents giving off enough heat to roast marshmellows.

We drove back going through a very typical Mayan village Santa Maria de Jesus. It is an agricultural village with a very busy center. People were carrying things on their backs, heads or on horseback. Many of the things they were transporting will end up on the Antigua market.

Upon our return we went to what has become our favorite Guatamala restruant/cafe/takeout place - Santa Clara where got delicious savory baked goods for lunch.Læs mere