bit by bit i catch up with the blog. i should write a novel. except it wouldnt sell.

Well, needless to say, the previous trekking had left us pretty beat. On Thursday we woke up and had a leisurely morning, leaving for Guatemala City at around 11. We arrived early evening to a grey, busy, dirty city. It was a bit of a culture shock  after having been up in the gorgeous mountains with teeny towns every 20 miles. We shacked up at the Hotel Colonial, an old colonial house converted into a Hotel, in the zone 1 area of town. The area was a little suspect, and our guide book strongly advised against staying there. After a quick regrouping at the hotel, we headed out to try to find dinner, Jon equipped with a pocketknife, and me trying to look as un touristy as possible. Maybe we were overly suspicious, but the dark rainy streets with all of the shops shut with metal grate and lock didn’t help to prove the guidebook wrong. We ended up finally catching a taxi to a Guatemalan restaurant that was recommended for its typical food. It was a fun meal with live music, and Jon tried Kak Ik, which is basically veggie soup with a quartered turkey in it. Literally, they just chopped the turkey in four parts and shoved a fourth in there. I could still see its liver. And maybe some arteries. But Jon enjoyed it. At the end, they gave us a ceramic turkey whistle as a souvenir. After waiting for a taxi to show up for about half an hour (by this time it was pouring, and I think all the taxi drivers had gone home to bed..) what we think was one of the waiters friends showed up in a beat up car to take us back. It was a very confusing situation, and were still not sure if it was a real taxi or not, but we paid the guy and got up to our nice dry room.

 

Friday we planned to go to Copan, thinking that Guatemala City, being the capital, should be the hub for busses. Unfortunately, after our concierge made several calls, we discovered that only one bus heads to Copan, at 5 am, and it is $65. Tired by the confusing city and all the previous travel, we decided to give up on Copan for the time being, and head to Antigua to relax. We paid a taxi driver to get us there asap, and 40 minutes later, we were in gorgeous colonial Antigua. I left Jon with the luggage in the central square and went off to find a cheap hotel, to no avail. However, when I got back to tell him the news, he had befriended a guy from the tourist office who was telling him about a homestay Spanish lesson deal that housed, fed, and taught you for a week for $165. Given that the cheapest hotel I could find was $65 for a double, this sounded intriguing. So, that is how we ended up doing a week long homestay in Antigua, with Jose, Karla, their three kids who are 15,12 and 7 years old, and their three dogs. The lodging is minimal, Frommers would probably place it in the one star category, but its pretty fun to be part of a family. They are very nice and easy to talk to, and Jon is taking 4 hours of Spanish every morning. We also made it to Antigua at the same time as Kitawna, one of my friends from field school in Belize. So, its been nice to go out with her too, and on Sunday we all went to the Chichicastenango market, the biggest market in all of Guatemala, which is a couple hours away from Antigua. It was fun to have someone to go on a shopping spree, and I think we did pretty well. Antigua is also home to some of the best restaurants in the world. Our first day we found a great spot called Saberico, which is housed in a huge overgrown garden, full of all of the herbs that they use in the food. AND they make wine mixed drinks! It was heaven! Yesterday we also had dinner with John, a family friend of Jons parents, and his partner Jaime. They invited us over to their house, which John designed himself, and we had wine and cheese (yaaaaay) while watching the sun set on the volcano. Then they took us to a fabulous pizza place right next to some of the cathedral ruins of Antigua. Due to the location between about 5 different volcanoes, Antigua has had some pretty serious earthquakes, mostly during the late 1800´s to early 1900´s. The old Antiguans, who were very fond of building large churches, seemed to be oblivious to the fact that if your church fell down in the first earthquake, and you built an identical one, it may fall down again. The city is littered with abandoned churches that are now just arches and facades toppled over on themselves. So, this is home for the rest of the week, and I am enjoying it. It is a gorgeous area, great people, great food, lots to wander and look around at. Friday we plan to attempt to see Copan, but well see how that goes, given the coup and other turmoil….. I really hope so though!!

 

So, we successfully made it to Copan. We decided to splurge on a tour package since we only had limited time until Katie arrived Monday, and wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. Saturday morning we were picked up at 4 am, to make the loooong drive to Copan. We arrived at our hotel, had an hour or so to relax, and then met our tour guide at noon. He was incredibly knowledgeable. He knew about history from all over the world, and made comparisons between Mayan and other cultures that I had never thought to put in the same category. Copan itself was really interesting as well, mostly for its stelae and other carved buildings, because the artists put faces on everything. There were kings faces, old man faces, faces that looked like they belonged on cartoons… it was impressive. We spent the night in Copan Ruinas, the town next to the ruins, and ate at a fun little restaurant called ViaVia that served thai food. The next day we took the morning to see the museum, which Jon loved, and then caught our ride back at noon, getting into Guatemala City around 7pm. This time we stayed by the airport, leaving the dirty, uninviting center behind. Our hotel was more like a hostel, a house by the airport in a really nice gated community. They had huge warm comforters so Jon and I just buckled down after some Subway from the airport, and watched a movie, ready to get up early for Katies 6 am arrival.

 

Katie got in with no problem (we were tracking her flights online the whole way through). Jon and I had found a great deal on a cab, and were ready to sweep her off to calm Antigua. However, once we got in the cab, we realized that the guy who offered us a deal was not actually a cab driver, but a porter, who had nothing to do with the taxi service. Jon had already given him a tip for helping us when we found out the price of the taxis to Antigua was double what we wanted to pay. Unfortunately we realized this after the cab had already left the airport, so Jon argued adamantly with the driver for half an hour as we drove, and the driver argued back that it wasn´t his fault. Eventually the arguing turned to chatting and we were all friends again. Then the taxi broke down. We were about half way to Antigua, it had started to rain, and no other transport was in sight. The poor driver fiddled with the engine for a while but it was obvious we weren´t going anywhere. Luckily within 20 minutes, another taxi drove by and we were pawned off to make the rest of our trip into Antigua. When we finally made it, the first thing we did was head to our favorite coffee shop, drop our bags, and have a big breakfast with some very strong coffee. All this and not even 8 am yet. Katie and I took the responsibility of finding a hotel (and getting Katie a tour of the town too!) while Jon watched the bags. After a few iffy places, and some that were overly luxurious for our budgets, we found the one. It was the place Kitawna had stayed the week before, an old colonial house turned hotel. The manager showed us the room he had available, a huge dark wood paneled room with… A LOFT. There were two beds and a few pieces of Victorian furniture and a tv on the first level, then on one side of the room a ladder led up to a second little level with two more beds. We loved it. At first the price started out at $110, but when I told the guy we were looking for something more along the lines of $35, he lowered it to $40 and we were sold. We took the afternoon to savor the place and to gear up for… Volcan Pacaya!!!!

 

At 2pm, we boarded our minibus to the volcano along with 5 other tourists from various countries, but all with about the same travel stories we had (a bit disheartening, I felt so unique but turns out everyone sees the same things…). We were a bit worried, because the evening seemed to be getting cloudy and we thought this might block our view. We couldn’t see much on the drive up, and for the first mile or so of the hike, the few lookout points we passed were useless. By the third mile, though, the volcano, with its black pumice slope had the clouds as a background, and the view to the entire valley had cleared in time for the late evening light. The slope up was steep and crumbly, made up at first of big chunks of volcanic rock that wobbled unsteadily, then becoming little gravelly bits that slid out from under you as you tried to make your way up. It was tiring to say the least, and we were all getting pretty annoyed with our guide, who, fit and ready from doing this tour twice a day every day was bouncing up and down the mountain with ease. When we finally made it to our destination, which was not the very top, but a  level area about 500m down, huge bursts of heat would come shooting out of clumps of rocks and you could tell lava was nearby. All of a sudden the guide pointed down, and right under our feet between the rocks that we thought were safe, lava was flowing without a care in the world. A bit further and we got to the main lava flow, a river about 5 feet across streaming down the mountain. I tried to get close, but it was so hot that the metal chain on my necklace started burning me and I had to back up. One of our group mates had brought a Barbie to sacrifice, and we watched how quickly it burst into flame once it touched the jello-like lava. It was really incredible to be up there, and I think Katie even stopped hating us for making her do it on 4 hours of sleep. Getting back down was an adventure as well. The gravel that seemed so hard to get up was impossible to climb down without falling every half step. Katie and I got into a giggling fit after we made it 3 steps in 2 minutes. Eventually we developed a technique that alternated sliding on your butt and using your feet as skis to shuffle through. Got pretty good in the end! When we got to the bottom and began our hike back through the forest, the sun had completely gone down and the lava river was glowing brightly, suspiciously quite a bit larger than it had been when we were up there 20 minutes before and with chunks of lava rolling down the hill. But we were at a safe distance. We sleepily dragged the 3 miles back, barely making it to the vans, and once we were home, managed to get some pizza in us before passing out completely. And we slept like rocks.

 

Tuesday we woke up at a leisurely pace, having booked our ride to Lake Atitlan so that we didn´t leave until 12 30. We had a delicious bagel breakfast (Antigua isn´t very incredibly exotic), and even had a couple hours to show Katie some of the ruins around town. We went to Santo Domingo, a huge old abbey turned museum/5 star hotel. The hotel part is beautiful with gorgeous colonial rooms and macaws placed strategically throughout the gardens. The museums consist of going through the ruined half of the abbey, which has several crypts still filled with bones, an archaeology museum, a candlework museum, an art museum, and a medicine museum. It was pretty fun, especially the crypts. Around 11, we went back to pack and watch some tv before our ride. The ride that was supposed to be a simple 2 and a half hour drive similar to our drive to Chichicastenango with Kitawna the week before. However, when we got in the van it was obvious by the seats with springs hanging out (and some not even connected to the floor ) that this was not going to be a luxurious ride. Our driver then proceeded to take us down one of the bumpiest windiest roads I have ever been on. We had to grip our seats to make sure we didn’t seriously injure eachother on the curves, and sleeping was out of the question unless you wanted a concussion. When we finally reached Panajachel, the main hub of Lake Atitlan, we stumbled out of the van in front of 5 star hotel, and decided to treat ourselves to a 5 star snack. It was a good idea, the place had one of the best views of the lake, the service was perfect, and they even let us leave our bags there for half an hour after we were done to go look for a more affordable hotel (which we found). Again, having 3 people made the hotel situation so much nicer. We got a huge sunny room with tv, hot shower, a pool, a view, 3 beds for $10 each. We all took a moment to enjoy it, document it in photos, then spruce ourselves up to go out and watch the sun set on the lake. The lake really is as amazing as people describe it. The volcanoes around it and the way the light hits it made it seem magical. We ended our night with some amazing Italian food, and watched some tv to end the day.