Y Antigua tambien

After a hearty breakfast of french toast a la Kate (thanks for cooking for us!), Eric and I helped plug a hole in the fence through which little Mapache kept squeezing to eat random things in the grass. That was a little bit of an adventure in itself, because Mapache is VERY persistent! Then we grabbed our bags and Kate walked us to where the bus would pick us up for Guatemala City. A few sleepless, jolty hours later, we arrived in Guate and immediately hailed another bus, this on a painted up school bus, for Guate's older, cooler and prettier twin, Antigua.

I guess Antigua was okay. It kind of sucks when you're unfamiliar to a city and don't know your way around or where to hang out. Also, it's entirely possible our "upscale" room had bedbugs, because we both woke up with really itchy bites that have yet to heal. But that aside, I think we had fun there. On the second day, we decided to go out and take pictures of all the beautiful, ancient architecture, and an INGUAT guide (kind of like the tourism protection agency) approached us and said he'd give us a tour of as many churches as we could stomach for $20. Sweet! I don't really know how many we hit that day...12? 9? All I know is that we walked from 9 am to 1:30, when we returned to our hotel to catch a 2 pm van to the Pacaya volcano. The guide was very gregarious and entertaining, with detailed answers for every question. Have a look here at all the beautiful churches!

We grabbed a lunch and got on our van to Mount Pacaya, which was maybe an hour and a half away. More bumpy, windy roads. We arrived in a tiny hamlet called San Francisco, where we were mobbed (still in the van) by throngs of children brandishing walking sticks, begging us to buy them for 5 quetzales. I had heard they were helpful on the way down Pacaya, so we got a couple, as well as a flashlight. The hike up the mountain took forever-- at least two hours. And when we got to the top, there wasn't any active magma oozing out, just deep crevices with red at the bottom. I poked my stick in one and the bottom caught fire! The breezes from there were so hot they took your breath away and in some places, the hardened volcanic rock (which I realize is incredibly hard and durable) sounded hollow under our feet. It made me really nervous...it was definitely NOT something you'd be allowed to do in the states without signing a waiver! And there would've been fences EVERYWHERE, nobody would have been allowed to get so close. A couple of people were roasting marshmallows, putting their marshmallow-adorned sticks all the way into the crevices. I won't lie-- I was scared, and I wanted to get off the magma-place as quickly as possible.

Luckily for us!! Nature forced us to get off the magma-place by introducing a thunderstorm, complete with a violent downpour and lightning strikes all around us. Of course. As the day had previously been clear and we don't exactly watch the weather channel in Guatemala, we'd left our ponchos in our hotel room. Not they'd have done much good by the time we hiked the two hours back down the mountain, this time in slippery volcano sand, mud and the dark. We were soaked. But now it's a fun story, isn't it?

And to top that, on our way back to the hotel, one of the passengers became violently ill and barfed out the window. Swine flu?! Just kidding Sue! Sort of. I opened our window and made sure we had a stream of clean air flowing across our faces for the rest of the ride.

The next morning, we departed for Lago de Atitlan, the only place in Guatemala where we've actually been swindled out of some money. I guess it was only about $20, but it's still upsetting. GRR! The rest of our time here has been pretty great. Oooh, I smell dinner! Hasta pronto.