Guatemala - Antigua

Well, I had a quiet few days relaxing in Las Vegas.  Went to the cinema and watched a bunch of Netflix.  Now I'm in Antigua, Guatemala for a tour south through El Slavador and Honduras to Costa Rica.  All the photos for this trip will be added to this google album.

Arrived yesterday in Guatemala City and transferred to Antigua, a historic Spanish colonial town nestled between some volcanoes.  It's been rather cloudy today, so I've not seen the tops of the peaks, but tomorrow should be clearer according to the forecast. I was going to go out for dinner last night, but instead just went to sleep at 5pm.  The flight from Vegas to Miami left at 11pm and I didn't get too much sleep on it. Then there was some sitting waiting in Miami airport, followed by a short flight to Guatemala.

Anyway - up and at 'em today and I walked the city streets.  They are all cobbled, though it's not the nice even cobbles you might imagine, it's very rough and a bit treacherous under foot.  The pavements are raised quite high (up to a foot) above the road, and are only about 2 foot wide.  They have many drops in them for access to houses, so you really have to pay attention to your footing!

For some reason, even with the cobbles, there are many speed bumps which definitely keeps the speed of the decrepit cars and hundreds of motorcycles down!

The town has a lot of old ruined Spanish colonial buildings, which are moderately pretty to look at, but for me nothing terribly special.

I walked up to the viewpoint shown on the map which gave a nice view over the town (see first photo), and was accosted by some lovely groups of school children (with their teachers) who were wanting to practice their English! I was happy to oblige, and had a good joke with them too.

Back down to the town and it was absolutely buzzing - I think more than being a Sunday it must be a holiday or something - the town square was heaving!

This is the first time on the tour I've felt a bit out of my depth. Everyone here speaks spanish, and my spanish is poor to non-existent.  In the restaurants, they only speak spanish, which has left me feeling a bit foolish when they ask if I wanted a top up of my coffee and I had no idea what they were saying.  I'll get by, but I'm glad to be joining the tour here soon and having some more people about.  I've met a few of them already, but it's time for the introductory meeting soon where I can meet the rest.  11 of us on this trip, or so I've been told!


A few bits and pieces of wildlife in town, and on the hill.  I've not managed to identify any of them yet - I'll leave that as an exercise for dad.

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