Antigua Explore!! Today is my first day in Antigua so after an early start I headed straight to the market to check out all the craziness. The market was huge and probably one of the biggest and busiest markets I have ever witnessed with all kinds of things from animals to clothes, fruits to handicrafts. As it is Saturday and the weekend of Independencia day there are even more people frequenting the market making for even more craziness. I had promised myself not to buy any sweets but within 30 minutes I was already hunting out all the new and exciting sweet and dried fruits - trying some sweetened syrup coconut and some sweetened root vegetable. I then walked around the city centre enjoying all the beautiful old buildings, churches, parks and infrastructure. It started to rain quite heavily so I returned to the hostel for a while and told them I was leaving around 2pm which they were fine with and allowed me to leave all my things in the room. For lunch I headed back to the market and went to the resteraunt section where I found a lovely little place and for $2 got roast chicken, guocamole, salad, salsa and black corn tortillas for $2. The meal was amazing and the locals also eating there were very friendly and couldn't believe that a tourist was eating in the centre if the market. I headed back to the hostel and waited for my CS host to come and pick me up. Rafael my CS host came and got me around 4pm and took me to his beautiful place which is set on an estate with colonial architecture, pools and amazing gardens. Rafael is a photographer and after dropping our things we headed out on the street to take some photos. It was so interesting following Rafael around taking photos and learning about Antigua - the city he is obviously in love with. We took photos of locals, building and volcano backdrops all the time looking for perfect lining and alignment; I think I want to be a photographer. We tried this delicious hot sweet corn drink called attol with various spices which was the perfect thing for a cold night. Turns out Guatemala is the country of an eternal spring and the temperature is always mild because of the high altitudes. We visited some handicraft markets and took some photos before heading to the market to buy some vegetables and other bits and pieces for dinner. For dinner I cooked us some chicken and made some fresh salad, guocamole and tortillas and with a nice bottle of Chilean wind the night was complete. Rafael then showed me all his wonderful photos from a trip to Africa and had me truly inspired to learn a bit more about photography. A hot chocolate and that was me done - a nice first day in Guatemala.

OBSERVATIONS:
- Central Market - busiest and best in Central America
- Rafael - CS host - Photographer