Antigua - Colonial but not original

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  Antigua Guatemala, Western Highlands, Guatemala
Wednesday, November 5, 2008

We hopped onto a chicken bus from San Pedro and headed for the bright lights of Antigua. This was an exceptional chicken bus ride and well worth the sore bums we had both acquired by the end of the journey. For the first hour, the bus chugged around the lake, through winding dirt tracks, Guatemalan "roads", and up steep mountains which enabled us to catch a glimpse of the lake from places we didnīt even known existed. We eventually climbed deeper into the mountains and said our final goodbye to Lago de Atitlan, a place that will remain in our hearts our entire lives.
Two cramped, fun filled chicken buses later we arrived in Antigua, just as the sun was setting. To my absolute joy, I shuffled off the bus to find that my trainers, my only remaining footwear, had been stolen. One of the guys decided to take the luggage down from the roof-rack and dump it in the road for some rapscallion to whip my trainers from my backpack! Considering I had had two pairs of flip flops stolen already on the trip, I was absolutely loving every minute of this. With nothing to wear on my feet, I had no alternative but to wear Mishīs flip flops, silver ones at that! I am lazy and havenīt bought another pair yet so I am still walking around in female flip flops. Ah well, Iīm in Central America, itīs not a catwalk......
Antigua is similar to a few other colonial towns we have visited so far, except that itīs very expensive and full of tourists. We arrived and decided we would leave again as soon as we agreed on our next destination. Our first night was spent drinking expensive beer in average bars and eating average food in average restaurants. At the time it wasnīt funny but when I look back at this one experience now it makes me chuckle. Picture the scene....we are in a restaurant waiting for two dishes, one being a bagel for Mish. Along comes the waiter with the food and places it down in front of us. Mish begins to eat and suddenly realizes that what she has in her hand is a hamburger bun, cunningly disguised as a bagel, sporting a hole in the middle where the chef has removed a piece of bread. I could not believe what I was looking at. I went up to the counter and asked what it was all about. Embarrassed, they apologized and I said all they needed to have done was to tell us they had no bagels and we would have ordered something different. The cheek of it was, they still added 10% service charge at the end.....Love it!
We were going to leave the next day but decided instead to look around, checking out some book shops, the market and a few lunchtime haunts. It was at one of these bars that we happened to bump into some English friends that we had met a few weeks earlier. It was really nice to see them all again and that night we went out and did a bar crawl and took advantage of happy hour. We played plop trumps, each trump card being a different animal poo from around the world. We drank, ate and played with poo until the bar closed. What a great night.
We are heading for Honduras after long discussions, over many beers, about where to go from here. Guatemala has been an outstanding country and we have enjoyed virtually every second of it. The people have made it a magical experience and I would definitely return again one day. In just over two months we have traveled 3237km overland. We have spent many hours on the road, some good, some not so good. One thing is always the same though and that is the excitement we feel when we board a bus and head off to a new destination. The thrill of the open road is truly addictive.

XXX

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