Guatemala – Antigua

We are back from Guatemala and what a time we had! We were blown away by the beauty, the warm, friendly people, and the history of this amazing country. We knew we would like it, but were surprised just how much we did!

The day before we left was a parents volunteer day at the school. We were there at 8am to sand and paint, QUITE the day, we came home exhausted but had a fun, productive day…

Collapsing into bed we were up and going again by 4am, to walk to the bus station to catch the 5:30am bus.

The bus trip to the airport went smoothly apart from Luca vomiting about half way down the mountain. Luca handled it well and no one else noticed, not even Rich 🙂 I always carry a plastic bag for such untoward events, though they rarely happen, thankfully 🙂 Luca was just tired and hot, he felt much better after.

By coincidence there were some friends traveling to the airport on our bus. Micaela and Greyvin, Micaela was flying home to Argentina to renew her visa, we did not know until we saw them, so was a nice surprise. Then at the airport we ran into someone else we know who was flying back to Nova Scotia, such a small world, and seems ours is getting smaller and smaller 🙂 !

Luca had his mandatory pic taken with the San Jose Airport Sloth 🙂

and then had noddles for breakfast ,(a favorite!), so I knew his tummy was now OK 🙂

Then it was off to Guatemala City! We were picked up at the airport by a driver who took us to Antigua, where we were staying for 3 nights. It was about an hours drive. Guatemala City is enormous and so so busy, I was really happy Rich had arranged transport, it took all the stress out of the drive. We arrived at the hostel after dark It was movie night, so so loud and all the rooms came off the central area so no escaping. We ordered some supper and unpacked, thinking hmmm, maybe not for us. However the movie finished, all was quiet by 9pm and we slept like logs in very comfortable beds.

By the light of day we saw how beautiful the hostel was, including the open air half ceiling, gorgeous!

Everyone staying and working there so nice, friendly and welcoming. Here is the link to it

http://www.elhostal.hostel.com/

It is a backpackers so expect minimal privacy especially bathroom wise 🙂

Eager to get out and explore, we were up early, had breakfast and were off.

Luca outside our hostel…

Antigua is a truly gorgeous colonial capital, settled in the 1500’s, the Spanish architecture strong. Definitely somewhere we all agreed we could live.

I loved the windows of the homes that faced the streets..

We climbed the hill with the Cross to get a great view of the ancient city nestled beneath the volcano…

We wandered the cobbled streets looking at the sights, admiring the colors and architecture of homes and shop fronts..

We ventured into the HUGE markets and did some bargaining, what we brought is evident in how Guatemalan Rich and Luca look as the days go by 🙂

Eating in amazing places…

Taking the tuk tuks for the longer distances and we were in awe of the chicken buses, though did not attempt one!

Luca of course made friends with MANY dogs! This is Leo, owned by a Irish guy who has lived in Antigua for 4 years. We had a really interesting conversation with him. He loves living there.

We left on Wednesday, not really wanting to. We had met some cool people ,(some of whom promise to visit us in Monteverde), and had found a pace that suited us in Antigua. It has a lovely feel to it and quite the hub for Spanish language lessons,(people come from all over the world to learn), significantly cheaper than Costa Rica, we definitely see the appeal. There is of course poverty, you don’t have to look far to see it. Luca had many questions and is at the age where he just wants to fix it and cannot understand why adults cannot get it together enough to do that ,(he has point I have to admit!!!!), our travels are a huge learning curve for him for sure.

After biding a reluctant goodbye, we took a shuttle bus late Wednesday to Lake Atitlan…..