The rest of Guatemala

Cotinuing in Guatemala...

So we left behind the stunning Semuc Champey and headed to the town of Antigua, about an hour outside of the horrific, busy capital, Guatemala City.  This town used to be the capital but earthquakes caused damage and it was decided it would be best to change. What's left behind is a small town with cobbled streets, colourful buildings, traditional architecture and ruins that are now tourist attractions. Surrounding the town are dominant volcanoes that sometimes spit lava at night, creating a bit of a show. Overall Antigua feels safe, friendly and relaxed and I really like it there.

The drive to Antigua was horrific. The shuttle bus turned up at Semuc without a seat for me and I had to half-stand, half-perch on a metal bar while we went over mountain roads, but after around 2 hours we stopped in another town where a couple of people were getting out and I had a seat for the remainder of the journey.

Although we mostly just enjoyed the town and spent time wandering around we also went to one of the volcanoes that I mentioned. It wasn't too difficult a climb although the heat made it feel worse than it was, and I'm probably not going to climb too many volcanoes in my life so it was good fun.  There weren't brilliant views at the top, and it wasn't the crater filled with lava that I maybe hoped for but we did toast marshmallows from the heat of the volcano which was pretty unique. We also got to crawl into a hole in the ground that was hot and cramped, but all good fun.

We ended up leaving Antigua and returning a week later as we headed to San Pedro on the banks of Lake Atitlan to do a Spanish school for a week, and once we had finished there needed to come back briefly before moving on again. The Spanish school was great, really got me going with things but it's all pointless if I don't now force myself to do more, to get out there and chat to people. So we'll see how that goes...

So Dave stayed in Antigua for a couple of days longer than me, but I set off on a 30 hour trip to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. At this point we are in a bit of a rush to get to Panama as we've got the boat to Colombia booked for 25 August and need to accept that there are places I just can't visit. So the bus took me straight to Nica, meaning I missed Honduras and El Salvador completely and only leaving time for a few days in San Juan (a little coastal town that's a surfer's hangout). Shame, but I think that's going to happen more and more from this point on. 3 months to go at time of writing...