ANTIGUA - A RUSTIC GUATEMALAN BEAUTY

COBBLED STREETS, FEEDING MY GUT, VOLCANO CLIMBS AND PUB CAR PARK AIRPORTS

LEAVING COSTA RICA

After 4 weeks traversing Costa Rica it had become time to fly the nest and head on to our next destination. Guatemala.

By now you understand as well as us, that the roads in Costa Rica were an absolute shit show, so not wanting to be dealing with too much more of this we decided an internal flight was the best way to go.

We organised a cab to take us from Montezuma to the internal airport of Tambor.

I fully expected that this would be a tiny airport, but nothing prepared me for quite how minimal.

Yep. That’s about the size of it. Check-in. Security. Gate. All in one solution. So much simpler.

Such a basic set up, but it worked. Makes you realise how much nonsense we have to deal with at larger airports.

Beyond the fence was the airstrip which looked no bigger than a pub car park.

There’s our plane!! 🛩😬

This was, without a doubt, the smallest plane I’d ever boarded and I was slightly anxious about it. That anxiety was soon quashed, however. This was a great, smooth flight with some fantastic views:

Great fun.

After a short flight we arrived at San Jose, where we had a layover of a few hours, before our onward flight to Guatemala City.

A bigger plane this time

We landed, got our baggage and headed out of the airport to be greeted by our taxi driver that we’d pre-booked to take us straight from Guatemala City to the town of Antigua.

FINDING OUR WAY IN ANTIGUA

A quick and comfortable ride from the airport – which was an absolute game changer compared to the slow, arduous, bumpy journeys from our time in Costa Rica – and we arrived in the town of Antigua and to our central hotel, Casa Rustica, which had a great roof terrace, giving us panoramic views of the volcanic surroundings of the town:

What we noticed immediately was how different this place was from Costa Rica. Historic buildings lined cobbled streets in a way that spoke of culture in a way that I realised was totally lacking in our trip so far.

This place was a beauty.

The streets were shaped very orderly into a grid-type structure that would befit any New York district. These drone shots will give a better idea of this:

THE FOOD

A new country, a new cuisine potentially. With the restrictive diet that both I and Holly had been following, the prospect of this ceased to be exciting and more daunting.

No need for concern in Antigua, however. The food here was top notch and widely varied. I didn’t have any problems finding delicious gluten free & dairy free options. None more so than Samsara. An absolutely fantastic, casual restaurant, which, whether you’re vegan or not, you can’t help but love!

Taking care of my microbiome big time!

TAKING IN SOME OF THE CULTURE

Around Antigua there are many monuments of cultural significance. On one afternoon here we took a stroll through the hotel Casa Santo Domingo that features an exhibition of some old relics and statues, which proved quite an interesting sight.

There were a number of statues, which featured glass eyes to give the statues a very lifelike quality. These really freaked me out. The eyes seemed to follow you around the room and it actually felt like these little statuettes were harbouring human souls that were trapped inside, screaming to be let free. I’m sure I was just going mental, but take a look at these pics and you might understand what I mean:

Here’s a few other pics from this little jaunt:

This is a bit creepy

As if Jesus hadn’t had a hard enough time

PACAYA VOLCANO HIKE

Overall we spent 6 nights here in Antigua and for our last day, before moving on, we decided to do one of the many volcano hikes in the area.

There are many options available, varying in difficulty and duration – the overnight hike up Acatenango which overlooks the very active Fuego volcano seemingly the most impressive of the options.

We didn’t have the time (and, let’s be honest, the inclination) to do this hike at this point, so we instead opted for a daytime hike up the Pacaya volcano.

This hike was set to be 4-5 hours in total (up and down), which sounded very achievable and there was promise of potentially seeing live lava flow and being able to toast marshmallows in recently cooled lava. This sounded awesome and would tick most of the boxes of the more arduous Acatenango hike, so it seemed like a good fit considering the time we had.

The hike was relatively easy, but not quite as easy as advertised. Certainly not difficult enough to warrant the assistance of a horse.

Oh, wait… some people seemed to think so.

The hike to the peak was around 1.5 hours and became more arduous the closer we got to the top, with loose volcanic scree making the trail more slippy.

The fog started to close in as we got closer.

And got ever denser at the top.

We’d have had no idea we were at the peak if it wasn’t for the tour guides.

As atmospheric as the fog was, it prevented us from seeing any of the landscape views that I was hoping for. Also, alas, there was no lava, but we were given marshmallows to toast. Not on lava, but in ‘hot holes’ that we found within crannies of the surface, as demonstrated expertly here by Holly:

The word ‘toast’ was very bold. We weren’t able to actually toast the marshmallows here, but had to make do with a slight crispiness to the outer texture. Good enough.

After munching on our marshmallows and wandering around the volcanic scree at the peak of Pacaya for a few minutes our group started to make their way back through the fog and down the trail to the base of the volcano.

A nice afternoon, but certainly not worth the hype. I’m sure the Acatenango would have been much more rewarding, but maybe I’ll give that a go another time, if I ever come back to Guatemala.

So that’s all for Antigua. Here’s a video diary to check out if you want to see the volcano hike in more detail: