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We arrived in Guatemala city and headed straight down to Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town with vibrant colours and cobbled streets. It's also quite touristy and expensive! We spent our first evening exploring the city and getting our bearings. On Sunday afternoon we went on a hike up to the Pachaya Volcano - one of the area's active volcanos. We walked up a fair distance - the weather was very misty so we couldn't see much of the scenery along the way, but arriving at the volcano was quite spectacular. There had actually been an eruption a few days earlier so there was a lot of lava debris around. The rock was red hot and, although the day was quite chilly, as soon as you got near the volcano, it felt as though you were sitting next to a fire. We up as far as we could....the rock was so hot that it melted the bottom of Matt's tripod!
We had hoped to do a bike ride on Monday but there weren't enough people on the tour, so instead we spent the day visiting the craft markets and museums in Antigua and enjoying the atmosphere of the town.
On Tuesday we caught a bus down to a small town called Panajachel. The route was very windy and we climbed quite a bit in altitude, with a packed van and the rain sheeting down we were glad to arrive! Panajachel is a town on Lake Atitlan and has a wonderful street market, where vendors bargain with you till you give in!! We bought some souvenirs and enjoyed some people watching at one of the street cafes. We caught a boat across the lake the following morning to a small town called San Pedro - we had met a couple in Argentina who had raved about the place so we were keen to visit it. Up until now our entire Guatemala trip had been very wet, but as we arrived in San Pedro the sun came out and pretty much stayed out for the entire time we were there which was great. We found a hotel that had been recommended to us and it was amazing - $12 a night for a huge room and en-suite overlooking the lake...we were happy and ended up staying for 4 nights. On our 2nd day there , we joined a tour group for the day to Chichi..famed again for its markets and traditional Guatemalan life. The journey was incredibly windy and bumpy and we both started feeling very green - we were happy to be back in San Pedro at the end of the day! We spent the next few days kayaking the lake, Matt did some fishing and we hired a motorbike to tour the surrounding towns...all the time the weather stayed perfect! We were sad to leave!
The couple in the room next door to us were heading to Xela, a city South West of Guatemala. We had heard good reports so we decided to catch a minibus with them and see for ourselves. The journey again involved windy roads and altitude climbs and we had to spend the rest of the day recovering from the effects! Matt climbed the Santa Maria Volcano..a difficult climb which involved getting up at 4am, brave man! We also went to some fantastic natural hot springs, huge pools of boiling hot water coming straight down the mountain...wonderful!
Our next move, we decided was to see Tikal and Flores as we had a week left in Guatemala before heading to the US. We booked a bus, and had to connect in Guatemala City. On the way there, after both feeling car sick once again, we impulsively decided to get off in GC and see if we could fly to the US early. We enjoyed Guatemala, but a combination of weather, illness and perhaps being in a Spanish speaking country for 5 months had taken its' toll and we were eager to have a change of scenery....conscious too, of not getting to the point where we took the sights and our experiences for granted.
So we caught a taxi straight to the airport, only to find the Continental Airlines desk closed for the night! We knew there was a flight the following morning at 6am so we stayed at a nearby hotel, got up at 3.30am and headed to the airport! Unfortunately, the flight was full but were were booked on the flight for the following morning...with this, we went back to the hotel for a snooze and waited in anticipation for our flight to the United States of America!
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