Ancient Antigua - Guatemala

Not a great journey to Antigua as Lissa was travel sick during the whole of the 7 hr trip....most of which, I must say, was due to the shite driving of our bus driver (he was a break tapper) ! There was a lot of traffic (especially in Guatemala shitty...oops I ean City !) & a lot of fumes which didn´t help either....so, a couple of plastic bags were put to good use !!

Evenetually, we reached our destination & first impressions were good ones. Beautiful cobbled streets & the central ark all lit up with Christmas lights...very pretty !

For the first 3 nights we stayed at a "flat" of a friend (Annalies) who was away for the weekend....I say "flat", but I use that term in the loosest sense possible ! It was in fact a cardboard shed at the end of someones garden...but it was free & comfortable (especially with the 3 of us sharing the double bed ......no smutty comments please !!)....& it did have a roof terrace with great views over the city.

The city was, by the way, gorgeous. A very old colonial place with incredible architecture, cobbled streets & beautiful inner courtyards in nearly every house/building that you walked by. It had anice feeling to it & felt very safe walking around (even at night). The only negative thing about it was that it was overrun with tourists ! It´s known a "Gringolandia" because of the number of North americans living & working there & it really has been the first place we´ve been to where we´ve seen so many other travellers ! In fact we bumped into a friend, Eyal & his brother Nils one day, so spent the evening with them catching up & drinking Eyals´ special Israeli coffee that kept us up ALL night !!!

One of the positive sides about being a touristy place, was that we were able to eat really well.......& we had the luck to chance upon one of the best  Italian Restaurants I´ve been to. It was run by an Italian guy (strange huh !?!) called Juan Carl, who was lovely & full of amusing stories !! We also had an excellent sunday morning "Eat all you can Buffet Brunch" so stayed for about 4 hours contemplating life...............................& also what to eat next !!!!!

On the Monday (11th Dec) Lissa & I moved into a hostel run by 2 Lovely Guatemalan brothers (Raul & Fernando) as Annalies returned from her weekend away...& I thought that 4 in a bed might be just a bit TOO much !!!

Together, we visited (accompanied by the tourist Police, as was suggested) Cerro de La Cruz.....a lookout over the city with magnificent views of the surrounding volcanoes ("Pacaya" which is still active & "Acatenango", "Fuego" & Agua" that are inactive)& also the old town, that was destroyed during the 1773 Earthquake. In the evening we watched the sunset from a rooftop bar (Cafe Sky) & we even saw Volcan Pacaya explode & lava pouring downs it´s sides !! How Exciting !! All this beauty surrounding us made for an incredible backdrop to the city.