The Westin Camino Real Guatemala Guatemala City

... Encuentros and Chimaltenango I sat next to some girls who - get this - starting talking to me. Turns out they are going to uni in Guate to be elementary school teachers. There was one turn somewhere between Chimaltenango and Antigua that hit me pretty hard, just with the memory of seeing it before.

It's funny how you don't notice things you are looking for. When I arrived in Antigua, I had to think about which hostels were there, where they were and which ...

... uit te zoeken. Het was bijna 20.00 uur.....en de hele hut was leeg. We kozen voor drie verschillende voorgerechten en nadat we de wijn ontvangen hadden moesten we verkassen naar een andere tafel door een enorme regenbui. De straat stond blank, de muziek was niet meer hoorbaar en we konden elkaar ook al niet meer verstaan. Het was ¨kind a spooky¨ maar de wijn was heerlijk. De voorgerechten waren heerlijkñ gamba´s in sambucasaus, gegratineerde asperges in seranoham en groquettes de ...

... a nice resort / hotel. Not a high-rise condo like in Florida, but sort of a B&B. On the second day, George and I hiked to the top of Volcan Pacaya while Abby, Ben, and Holly spent the day in Antigua. On the third day we all went mountain biking on the outskirts of Antigua. Beautiful!

... which was the much preferred options for me because I did not feel like lounging at the airport terminal for 3-4 hours. Again, I was promptly picked up at the arranged time. This time I am sharing a van with 5 other people. I had a good conversation with an American woman from Oregon. She was here on business making arrangements with a village along Lake Atitlan to ...

... busy. It was my last week of Spanish classes too. My oral skills have definitely gotten better, but I certainly wouldn't be putting "fluent in Spanish" on my resume just yet. This past Saturday I spent sometime walking around Antigua seeing things I hadn't seen yet. Here are the pictures. Sunday I went on an adventure with Marta, Sandra, Marta's sister and her daughter. Turns out Marta's daughter, Marta Maria (prrretty sure that's her name ...

... not everyone is as fit as Tom. Especially someone who clearly eats that many doughnuts. I wanted to ask the guide if there was any wildlife on the mountain, but he didn´t speak any English. I tried to show him what I meant by doing an impression of a baboon, but he just looked at me as if I was mad. About an hour into the trek, even I was getting tired, but the guide explained that in 5 minutes, the terrain would ...

... 2 weeks of Madre and Padre´s Água Caliente´, made me one happy traveller. Antigua is a place for lazy strolling, taking photos and ice-cream eating which was about the long and short of our stay there. There is an opportunity to tackle the active volcano which provides a rather breathtaking backdrop to Antigua. Here you will be literally metres from molten lava and your shoes may melt. We chose to just relax instead and let it all sink in.