Antigua y Atitlan

My Spanish Classroom

Well I'm five days into the trip and so far Guatemala has been amazing. I arrived in Antigua on Wednesday afternoon after a long drive from Guatemala City. I am staying with a host family while I take a week of Spanish lesson at Antiguana Academy. So far, my Spanish has improved slightly but for the most part I'm still knocking the rust off my Spanish lessons in high school. 

The host family has been great, I spend most meals sitting with Oledia and chatting in Spanish. The food she prepares has been for the most part delicious, although I'm still not sure if I agree with corn flakes and hot milk. The handful of meals I've had outside the house have been fantastic. I don't know if I will ever grow tired off the tostados and tacos on every street corner. 

Antigua is a great town, surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. I’m almost certain that the unemployment rate is 0% as everyone seems to do some sort of work, from the boys selling sticks for hiking the volcanoes, to the elderly woman who delivers fresh tortillas to your house. Almost every house has a store in the front and I assume they’re open from sunrise to 10pm but I haven’t seen any hours posted. The cobblestone streets are buzzing with cars, tuk-tuks, motorcycles and chicken buses; each driving like a New York cab driver.

After class on Thursday we went for a tour of a macadamia nut farm. While the tour was interesting, my first chicken bus ride was definitely the highlight. The chicken buses are old yellow school buses shipped from the US and used throughout South America for transportation. While the bus may have the shape of the old bus that drove me to school, the similarities end there. Each bus has its own unique paint scheme and features ranging from flashing lights to spinning rims. The bus drivers pride themselves on cramming all of the flashy features on the bus as well as cramming as many people in the bus. We sat seven people across every row of the bus and at every high-speed hairpin turn, we sandwiched someone on the wall. Chicken buses will be one of my main forms of transportation and I’m sure they will be the source of many stories.

Volcano Pacaya

One Friday after class, myself, an Englishman, and an Aussie went to Volcano Pacaya for a hike. Once we reached the lower summit we roasted marshmallows over the hot lava rocks spread across the crater.  Dogs from the local village followed us up and down the mountain hoping to get a fallen mallow. We had hoped to see some lava after experiencing a 5.4 earthquake the night before. While no lava was visible, there were many vents belching steam.

Lake Atitlan and the surrounding volcanoes

A submerged house on Lake Atitlan

Because earthquakes, volcanoes and chicken buses hadn’t been enough adventure for the first three days of my trip, I decided to take a shuttle at 5:30am to Lake Atitlan. The large lake sits deep within a ring of volcanoes and mountains and has five towns dotting its shores. We chose to take a boat from Panajachel to the community of San Pedro. San Pedro has apparently grown extensively over the past few years and I saw why people could get stuck there. The safe and friendly San Pedro was a backpacker’s paradise. Hostels lined the streets, overlooking the calm waters of the lake while the friendly locals were always willing to help us out. We kayaked through houses eerily submerged in the water due to rising water levels.

San Pedro

We decided to blow off some steam after the stressful day of wandering the streets of San Pedro and drinking beers by the pool overlooking the lake so we went to a full moon party. A full moon party is pretty self-explanatory but we took a boat at midnight across the glassy waters to the shell of an old house. As 1am rolled around, the ruins of the three-story house built in the side of the mountain filled up with people dancing to the dj and sitting beneath the moonlit forest canopy.  Following the hours of dancing, we jumped on the first boat to arrive at 5am and returned to

Some graffiti at Lake Atitlan

sleepy San Pedro. After a catnap and a great breakfast, we went and swam in the lake before our boat back to the real world picked us up.

After a traffic lengthened bus ride back to Antigua, I finally had a moment to catch my breath and write this post. If all goes as planned I will be taking a bus to the ruins of Copan as I start my journey south. I will try to make another post next Sunday in whatever country I’m in at the time.

For more pictures look here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/108668495@N04/sets/72157648810984690/