We´re finally back on the road and in Antigua! We landed in Guatemala City but hopped on a shuttle to Antigua thirty seconds after walking out of the airport. It's pretty obvious that nobody expects you to stay in the city. Everyone we've talked to says you only stay there if want to get robbed so we moved right along and ten bucks/forty-five minutes later, we pulled up to our hostel.

For some reason, I thought that the two years of Spanish I took in school 7 years ago would magically come back and I´d have no problem talking to people. Unfortunately, it doesn´t work that way! Hardly anybody speaks english and we´re having a pretty hard time figuring things out. But hey, that´s all part of the fun!

Our hostel, Villa Esthela, has a killer view of Volcan Agua (6 bucks a night for a dorm). The problem is that the whole top half has been completely covered in fog since we got here. I´m not totally convinced it exists...

After napping in the hammocks on the hostel´s terrace (and nearly going to jail over six dollar sunglasses; tell you about that when we get home) we headed out and got some street food for dinner. 80 cents each. I love it here!

Our feet are killing us now because we basically walked the entire city today. There are some beautiful buildings here and they look even better lit up at night. The market is great and there are convent ruins everywhere, mostly two or three hundred years old. Many of the old colonial buildings have survived the earthquakes (a sad consequence of building between three volcanoes) but their roofs didn't. The walls are all there, but earthquakes have brought down the roofs one by one, so you walk in through a door and look up at the sky. A lot of them have two or three levels and you can climb to the top. One of them had a great view of all three volcanoes surrounding the city. Of course, the tops were covered in clouds, but there was a gap around Fuego´s cone that lasted long enough for us to see an eruption! A huge plume of ash flew into the air. How cool is that?

The chicken buses are a lot of fun to watch. Old american schoolbuses find their way down here and get used until they finally sputter to their deaths, but not before being painted with bright colors and covered in chrome. Peru had a similar setup, but they didn't "decorate" the buses quite so colorfully. Brittany laughed hysterically when we saw a ¨new¨ bus that hasn´t been painted yet. On the side in big black letters was ¨Newark Central School¨. How the heck did that thing make it here from New Jersey?

Things are definitely different here than in Peru. I think I kind of expected them to be the same. There are fewer tourists here (which is nice), and you don´t have to listen to three thousand offers for a MASSAGE?!? every time you walk out the door. It´s been kind of weird seeing nice cars, too. BMW, Audi, and Land Rover are all over, right next to the twenty year old Datsuns that the other 99% drive . All things considered, Cusco still can´t be beat.

Tomorrow we´re going to hike Pacaya. We were really looking forward to seeing the lava but there hasn´t been any since the eruption last year. It should still be pretty cool though; how often do you get to hike on a volcano? A chicken bus will be picking us up at 6AM, and we´ll drive out to it for the two hour hike up. Please let the clouds be GONE!!!