Bear, Hunter, Ninja
Trip Start
Aug 23, 2009
1
16
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Antigua Guatemala, Western Highlands, Guatemala
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Antigua
. Then, there are the ruins of this old royal estate. I think its the oldest structure remaining in Antigua. They have a lot of weddings there. There are a lot of high and crumbling walls that encase huge courtyards for I don´t know what. And, the most fun place of the whole city...I think...is the market! The market in Antigua is insane!! Jaime and I stumbled into the market one day, not knowing what we were in for, and literally got lost. There are no organized aisles or storefronts. It is all this giagantic maze where the fruit vendor stand merges into the dog food vendor stand merges into the underwear vendor stand merges into the cellphone cord vendor stand merges into.... If you can imagine taking everything in a Walmart our of all their packages and dropping it all to the ground from an airplane, you might be able to picture this a little better. We had fun there. We ate some really good local food and schmoozed with some locals. I had fun taking pictures of the kids. I would give them all a funny face to make and then I would take their photo and show it to them. They loved it and they followed me all over! One day, my friend, Jake, and I went to the market to find iPod speakers and guess what? We found them. Everything is bargained for at the market. I practiced on some skirts and shoes and stuff (without buying) first before I worked out an awesome deal on my iPod speakers. I got the guy down nearly 50% and barely paid $10. They are pink and have rhinestones...and they work!
So, we stayed at a place called The Yellow House. Its a great hostel. We paid just under $6 each. The rooms were really nice. I got a double bed...YEAH! They had hot solar powered showers, free potable water and a free breakfast that can not be rivaled
All the cool kids waiting for our ride outta town!
! Eggs, beans, bread, coffee, fruit, potatoes....YUM! The lady who served the breakfast every day would say, ¨Esta Bien?¨ Ësta Bien.¨ I wish I could convey the inflection, because it was kind of catchy and everyone in the hostel with infected to say ¨Esta Bien?¨ Ësta Bien.¨with her exact cadence every day...all day. Its been about two weeks and I´m still doing it! So, I also liked this place because of the people. I´ve spent nearly my whole trip going the opposite direction of the people that I´ve met. At th Yellow House, I met a hodge podge group of people who are a lot of fun and who are basically headed the way of Jaime and me for a while. There are a couple of guys from Isreal, a few Canadians, a Swiss German guy and then Jaime and I representing the USofA. Well...it was just Jaime and I until my old friend, Jake, who I met in Boquete Panama (and watched football with in David, Panama) turned up in the hostel across the street from ours! Oh, Jake!! Anyway...we had a great group of people in Antingua!Going out and doing things are never a problem, but going out and doing things with a cold which might have actually been bronchitas are another story! I´m pretty sure that the snotty little kids who were kicking the back of my seat on the Tica bus are to blame. I´m fairly confident that it is because of them that I wound up running a fever and developing the fiercest cough Ive ever know
Jake blowing Jaime´s nose
. Fortunately, the farmacias in Guatemala dont require a doctores RX. I was able to get some cough syrup and a ZPack real easily and for cheap. I lived on Halls cereza (cherry) flavored and I lugged around a roll of toilet paper! NICE! It didn´t slow me down too too much! I still managed to go out for movie night and hike Volcan Pacaya.So...movie night? As you can imagine, movie theatres in Central America are sparce, but there is a demand amongst travelers to keep current with western pop culture. So...usually there are a couple of coffee shops, hostels and restaraunts in town who are set up to show movies. They have a big flat screen TV with maybe some decent speakers. They have some comfy seating and they show movies that theyve usually ripped off the internet. God bless the world wide web. Granted, the bootleg copies are often messed up! This was the case both times we tried in Antigua. Like I said, we had a gerat group of people, so when we abandoned the movie, we all just hung out and it was loads of fun.
I also mentioned that we hiked Pacaya? Yeah...we did and that was probably the hardest thing I´ve ever done in my whole life! I swear, I read about Pacaya in a number of guide books, but I do NOT recall any of them describing this hike for what it really was
Lavasmellows!
. I guess if they did, no one would go. So, how exactly do I explain this? Well, first of all, it was hot and cold, wet and dry. This was not good for a girl with a chest cold, but I HAD to do it! We started off with a long ride in a tour van. When we got there, we were bombarded by gradeschool kids who were trying to sell us sticks for hiking. They wanted 5Q each, but Jaime and I talked them down to 2 sticks for 6Q...that is less than $1. The hike began with a concrete path that went straight up into the air...I swear it. Then the concrete disappeared and we were in the mud...still going straight uphill. When it finally seemed to level out, we reached a clearing in the woods that opened up to an endless sea of volcanic ash on a 45 degree slope. Walking through this was like walking through deep powdery snow. With each step, I sunk into the ash and slip further down the hill. It was really hard work and I thought...it can´t get worse than this. Up until this point, there had been men and kids on horses, offering to give rides...¨Taxi Lady¨...well....it was after this point that the horses started to turn back. Hmmmm...that´s wierd. Well, the reason why they were turning back is because the horses can´t go any further. When I didnt think it could get worse, it did! Holy crap! After the ash came the volcanic rock. I can not tel you how jagged these rocks are and they are stable. When you step up, they fall our from under you and then you have to catch yourself with hands and knees!
Pacaya
Having the walking stick was SMART! It helped a lot, but not totally! So, at one point, I was seriously about to turn back or just sit it out, but it was starting to get dark! What the hell? So, I tried to control my breath and took my time going up and up and up and THEN....I saw it! Lava! It was so red and so hot and there was so so so so much of it. All the sudden, I had all the strength in the world and I skipped right up to the top...all the while followed by all these skinny and unfortunate dogs that live on the volcano and survive off of tourists´scraps. We call them Perros de Fuego...Dogs of Fire. Anyway...we got to the top where it was completely dry and incredibly warm! Some people had to back off because their pants and shoes were melting. Seriously, I know!! Some people from our group, which was the Falcon group, brought marshmellow which we aptly called lavasmellows. We actually roasted them in the lava! How friggin´cool is that? Well, its cool! We took some pictures and I´m pretty disappointed that I´ve lost a good deal of them! Grrrr... Then we made our descent. I won´t detail the journy down the volcano, but I´ll remind you that coming down from a hike is always harder than going up! And...hiking at night is even more difficult than hiking in the daylight! Thank God, I finally got my dumb exboyfriend to give me back my headlamp before I left
Almost there!
! That has been the most handy tool this trip!!So, that concludes, my blog for Antigua. This has been a long and hard blog to write because there was so much to recall and so much to say. As usual, if you made it through this blog, you are my hero! Feel free to leave a comment or not or if you are Dad, you can send me a private email!
Love always....
