Hotel Museo Casa Santo Domingo Antigua Guatemala

Since we're going to be in Antigua for 12ish weeks, we've decided to take it upon ourselves to try and rate every cafe/restaurant in town (a little ambitious, we shall see how it goes). We devised a tortilla rating system to standardize (0-5 tortillas) - Zero tortillas being we wouldn't mind seeing the place torn/burned down and 5 being we want to marry the place and someday open a similar place of our own. Meals ...

... museum) which gives us the history of Mayan costumes and shows us how to weave (and then the tour guide tells us he has recently found God and we should go to church next time we are home to pay homage to Jesus?!).

To eat I would advise a visit to Café Condesa in the central square which is overpriced due to its location but the breakfasts are amazing, Myk has the fluffiest omelette I’ve ever seen and I have Mexican Eggs to die for. To ...

... the insurance probably wouldn't cover someone putting their back out lugging a massive slab of wood around, but I'm sure they could manage something.

All in all, Antigua was such a nice spot that I spent a week there despite my limited remaining time and still felt like I didn't really want to leave. That and the volcanic disappointment put it firmly on my List Of Places To Go Again, which is getting longer by the day!

... in Guatemala) armed with bottles of beer to consume back at Jarachik. We woke up to find there was no running water, which was quickly fixed as was the wireless by use of my laptop. The others (Frank, Matt, Steve, etal) decided to kayak over to San Marcos and do some cliff jumping, I decided to write a story and feel sorry for myself as my stomach for the first time was reacting to something. 4 days later and it is still not great but I don’t think there ...

... soon encouraged to drop everything and jump on the bus, its something that is hard to understand, if the people are that fluid in their movements or just placid, I mean can you imagine being in, lets say Nottingham and some guy driving past in a bus, jumping out and screaming LON LON LON D D D D DON... would you get on? I mean do these people not have other prior arrangements? Like i said they are the original "wherever i lay my hat thats my home" kind of people or they are ...

So friends, round 3 ding ding. We are writing this as fully fledged, trowel wielding, cement mixing, stove builders! Huuuuh. In the last 2 weeks we've each helped build 3 wood burning stoves with our mason amigos, Alberto and Carlos. 2 days per stove for building the breeze block base, the red brick body and rendering a smooth concrete coat. I know we said it before but some day we will actually upload photos for all to behold ...

Reminiscent of San Cristobal in Mexico, Antigua is a quaint town of cobbled streets lined with colourful houses. Accommodation is more on the expensive side (for Guatemala) but still reasonable. There are loads of young people here studying Spanish and where better to go to school amidst the backdrop of three active volcanoes! The first couple of days here we spent wandering the streets and visiting the markets and it was in a particular fruit market that the threat of a stomach ...

... The camera began to perform better on the decent. I will post some of those pics as well. My legs are still hurting some three days later. My abdominal muscles also got a workout from the uphill horse wide. We had no injuries on the trip. I will not be surprised to hear in the future of some terrible incident up there, when the mountain burps, or there is a quake. We are glad we did it, I wont do it again. Onward to Panahachel in the Central Highlands.

... beer i´ve ever had. I genuinely, really, regretted spending $4 there. I´d travelled halfway around the world to end up in the this pretentious sh*thole full of the kind of people i hated back home. Never again - time to start picking and choosing experiences a bit more carefully. It was only an hour and involved less money than a pint back in the UK, but it´s oddly memorable for all the wrong reasons - i guess that to discover what you like, you really need to realise what you hate. Tick.

... given too much and was really stuffed. I was still stuffed in the morning and didn´t even want to see food. So I didn´t have naything but water and coffee until 1:30 PM which was fine. Class was good. I studied using the Passive voice and we talked about all sorts of things. It gives me a chance to practice what I am supposed to be learning. We all (except maybe John) seem to be hitting a bit of a ¨learning¨ wall to one extent or the other. This ...