Antigua, Guatemala

Antiqua is a bustling city, with all cobblestone streets built in the old style of mostly one way streets lined with very narrow sidewalks and continuous cement or brick buildings on both sides of the street. Only the ornate doors and wrought iron gates break up the otherwise unending building. On our self-guided walking tour, we managed to sneak some peaks inside these fortress like properties. Through the doors and gates we were pleasantly surprised with lush courtyards, eclectic shops, language schools, restaurants and hotels. The shop owners and managers were all very accommodating as we sheepishly poked our heads in and asked if we could enter. We were not sure if they were private residences or what until after we entered. It would take a week of solid snooping to discover all the hidden gems this city has to offer.



One of the gems we found was this courtyard surrounded by Guatemala Jade Jewelery shops, a Spanish Language School, coffee shop and Museum.

Oh, and then there is the market. WOW!! Booths upon booths of crafts, cd’s, leather goods, clothing, shoes, and household goods.


Then you turn the corner and the farmers market starts, this is not a farmers market like at home, there are booths selling everything from garden produce, pineapples, bananas, papaya, live and dead chickens, coffee beans, chilli peppers, and one of our favourites,


Blackberries the size of ping pong balls. One sandwich bag full for 5Q, and a whole pineapple for 7Q comprised our breakfast each day. There is a worldwide venue of food choices in town so the tourist is never for lack of choices.
We took a bus tour to the Pacaya Volcano, which had erupted about 5 months ago, we took the afternoon tour so we could catch the sunset from the summit. It was a spectacular view, three volcanoes could be seen protruding from the cloud filled valley below. It took about 1.5hours to summit and about 40 minutes to descend, the hint being that we watched the sunset from the summit so the decent was in the dark and this added a nice twist to the usual hike.


We got to eat roasted marshmallows close to the summit because there were open crevices’ that radiated enough heat to do so, one guy even toasted a sandwich which he skewered with the marshmallow stick.