Sorry the internets been a bit bad so havent updated in a while!

so we left Rio Dulce and got a bus to the UNESCO world hertiage city old city of Antigua, Guatemala, the old capital or Guatemala. It is now guatemala city due to eartquakes ruining Anitgua. It is a very pretty a quaint city built in a spanish Baroque style. It is laid out in blocks with streets running in avenues and calles (streets off the avenues). And all the streets are cobbled. The houses are are low rise with only one floor visable and mainly all buildings, shops included, has large arched wooden doors at the entrance. As it is a world heritage site, the building front have to be kept in line with the town so even the local macdonals only has a simple gold plain MacDonalds sign above it, and isnt visable from the street unless you walk past it. There are two main Plazas in the town, the first with grass a palm trees and water display where apparently at weekends local womaen come to was clothes in the mornings, and the other square is laid out in a more spanish style with manicured gardens behind railing s and a famous mermaid fountain in the centre where the water comes out of her boobs. Nice. There is also a daily market at the bottom of the town (everything is no more than atwenty minute walk away), which sells most things from clothes to meats.

We stayed in hotel Santa Maria which was near the first plaza so easy to navigate. We were told at the start to always use maps because the streets all look the same, though by the end of what seemed like an eternal stay, its safe to say i know the streets like the back of my hand. Though the good thing is that most apartments and houses are all like sealed communities behind the big wooden dors which lead to gardens and fountains and food terraces, so even thoiugh you may know the streets, you could never know what was behind every door!

Antigua is nice, there is a lovely yellow catheral which you access by walking along a cobbles street off the main plaza and under large yellow arches (Arco de Santa Catalina). There is also a large Cross (central america is mainly catholic and very religous) which you can go to if you can handle the heat and climb up the surrounding hills. Antigua is in a basin and surrounded by hills and three large volcanoes which are really visable.

While we were there we visted the markets (several times), finaly foudn the large supermarket even though it was selectively hidden away, and we visitd the next door bakery every day as it was relaly good with warm breads stuffed with herbs and cheese. We are all so sick of the ´local´rice and beans, cold scrambled eggs and fried bananas and plantain. how can it be local if the entire of central america serves it as the local dish.

Anyway! at least the food and nightlife was good. it is quite a touristy area with decent bars like La Sala, Lonomonco and more! Our leader Adriana knew the bar starr i la Sala so every night we had free tequila . When it ws busy you could get on the bar and have free shots or dance on the karge stage beside the DJ just to get access to the fan as it was roastin!!

We also took a salsa calss as it was included in our tour. In our group at tyhis atge there are 2 boys so kind of awkward for them being the only ones practising the Males moves but halarious for us! So after an hour of salsa dancing we were all obivously experts so got the moves out at any opportunity after a few too many tequilas! sure why not! when in central america.... ahahah.

The reason we were in antigua for SO LONG was because there were teacher strikes on which blocked the roads we were supposed to take to the town of Panajachel. So we joke now about {does anyone know if there are cobbles streets/markets/guatemalan flutes/arhces/catherals in Antigua? OF COURSE THERE IS)

It is a lovbely place but because we exhausted a lot of the activities like tuk-tuk rides, the arches, the catherdal, the chocolate factory, the massages, the coffee shoes, the plazas in the first tgwo days, we were ready to leave.