Antigua - Spanish School, active volcanos and living with Guatemalan Family

NOTE: Due to camera stolen we have a lack of photos for the next couple of weeks!

Sunday 30th September – Copan Ruinas – Antigua

Today we had planned to get up and make a huge amount of noise given what our unfriendly neighbours had been doing the night before and in the early hours! We were so annoyed when they ended up waking us up at 5.30am, with a racket! So we both (in a grumpy mood) got up at 6.30am and headed over to meet our guide. It ended up that he was the owner of Via Via, so we popped over there first for Leigh to have a pick me up coffee. The tuc tuc driver eventually arrived and raced us up the hill with 3 of us squashed in the back seat along with the guides dog. The tuc tuc driver dropped us at the starting point and we agreed a meeting time to go back.

Our guide was very interesting and he is a ex back packer and very well travelled and had vast knowledge of the local area which made for some interesting conversations throughout the walk. We headed into the forest and visited some very remote Mayan ruins that were totally untouched. Unfortunately at the first stop Jo got spooked by the guides very large dog who came charging at her and lost her footing and could only find a barbed wire fence to break her fall leading to very nasty cuts along her hand and fingers. Although a little shaken and bleeding we pushed on and learnt more about the tiny villages on our way. The track took us though a project only just completed which was a new water pump for local villages to receive fresh water. It is such a shame that even such a small project can be riddled with corruption and theft and took a massive 6 years to complete!  We pushed on into the spider valley and were given a lesson on how the highland farmers make there “extra cash”. These farmer are a key part in the cocaine trade to the US and offer their services to walk the drugs through the highlands to a drop point. Interestingly drug planes are not used and the farmers earn a whopping $50 - it seems a perfect way to get the drugs through without any notice. We finally came out to a another small village with our guide having banter with all the locals along the way. The tuc tuc driver was suppose to meet us at a certain point but with his failure to turn up we walked along the highway and waved down another tuc tuc. With just enough time to have a shower we raced over and boarded our bus to Antigua. It was a bit of a squeeze as it was in a mini van  that was jam packed with not much leg room. The border crossing was simple although we were quoted 3 different prices we were eventually charged $3 to enter Guatemala. The trip was slow but is is always exciting to enter a new country! We finally arrived into Antigua late at night, but were fortunate enough to come across a lady in the street who ran a hostel. We followed her and agreed to stay for the night. We then ventured out into the beautiful town and found an awesome restaurant to really blow the budget with. The food was amazing, wrapped in banana leafs, really spicy and lots of tortillas to accompany it. We walked back to the hostel and discussed our plans for trying to find a Spanish school the next day.

Monday 1st October – Antigua

We woke up around 8am and had a quick shower before setting off to check out some Spanish schools. The owner of the hostel had a friend who ran a school so she trotted off ahead of us in very high heels which still didn't make her tall. We arrived and met Marco who spoke good English and was very keen for us to join his school. We had a look around and it was quite a nice setting but all the students had gone to celebrate kids day so the school was empty. Leigh managed to bargain the price but we said we wanted to check out a few other schools to compare.

After looking at a couple of others which seemed very well organised and lovely settings, we decided to go back to Marco's school as the lessons were spread over 8 days rather than 5 for a cheaper price. Leigh decided to bargain a bit more and got it even cheaper! We headed off to Maria's house who is Marco's ex-wife which is the family that will host us for the 8 days. We were shown to our very small but tidy room which is across the hall from the family shared bathroom. Maria cooked us lunch and we chatted to two Swedish people – Josephine and Michael who were staying there also. We were both very much looking forward to the immersion into a Spanish speaking family. After lunch we wandered back down to the schools and met our “Maestro's” aka teachers. We paid for 5 hours a day, one on one with a teacher which we thought would be best for our learning. We both thoroughly enjoyed our first lesson and by the end were starving... our brains must have been working very hard for the first time in months! We then enjoyed a nice meal and continuously met members of the family who appeared from nowhere. It was quite difficult to work out who is who, but is a nice family environment! We wandered around town in the evening, but felt quite tired so went home did our homework then went to bed, like good students do!

Note...The family that we stayed with is very complicated so we have included what we believe to be the family tree after much investigation:

Living in the house

Maria- Mother. Marco Snr- Father to 6 with Maria, although they are now divorced, he still eats his meals there before returning to his other lady of which he has 2 other kids, but also has 2 other families. Marco Jnr- Does not work, lives at home. Negro – Tuc tuc driver, likes substances. Julio - womaniser and teacher at school. Julie - youngest daughter and mother to Alexandria (when she was 15) who lives with Maria.

Tuesday 2nd October – Antigua

We started the day with what became a very familiar routine. At 5.30am Negro would start his Tuc Tuc up right outside our bedroom window and rev/warm it up for 15mins before leaving for work. We would then snooze until 7am when Maria would yell out all through the house “Desayuno, Desayuno”, which would give us 10 minutes to get ready before we would meet Mikel and Josafina for breakfast.  Thankfully we had not been given to much homework so we could slowly start the day. It was really hard to get into this routine and managed to be late to school for the first few days! It seemed all to familiar to Jo. We got to school and Jo's teacher Lucia was a lot more conversation minded so talked about what we did last night and who at the school is having affairs with who. Leigh's teacher was very verb orientated so Leigh spent most of the week copying notes while Jo flourished and spoke lots of Spanish.

We would take our 30min break at 10.30am which today we just spent across the road in the park enjoying the sunshine and watching Antigua-ins work through there day. Class finished at 1pm and we headed home for lunch, which was a 5 min walk. The best thing about the home stay is they try to speak as much Spanish as possible to us. It really helps and is a very good way to practice what we had learnt during the days lesson. Maria though spoke very fast at times and was quickly reminded to slow down by Marco Snr. Today we had a chicken breast and some salad, it was always fresh and right on time for 1.15pm. What we did start to notice was the family would have extras for example tortillas with there lunch or a bottle of coca cola. At first we were not bothered but over the week it began to get a little rude (well in our culture). After lunch we headed down to the market and began to look for a few souvenirs to take home, because at this point we had not bought any memorabilia. The markets were very big but nothing that we had become unfamiliar with. There are always your typical stands of rip off DVD's, t-shirt stands etc and of course the very smelly meat section, which Jo closed her eyes while Leigh led her through it! We decided to avoid that section and headed to the Artisian Market which was not as busy and very clean and had all the things we wanted. The first item we purchased was a multicoloured rug which we have seen in lots of countries. Leigh was not taking a bar of the opening prices and after 3-4 attempts we got the right price. Leigh tried to further lower the price by trying to pick up a hammock as well but then the vendor got greedy so lost the sale of the hammock but we took the blanket. We could of bought lots but with there not being much to do in Antigua we wanted to leave ourselves things to buy so we would come back later. We also bought a few placemats and then headed to a cafe to do a little study. The cafe turned out to be Mc Donald's, not a bad thing as they were showing Manchester United playing which kept Leigh happy while Jo did some study in the beautiful courtyard out back. We took our time getting home, via lots of shops - all of which were a lot more expensive than the market.  Home in time for dinner at 7pm, we were served beans, rice small piece of meat (the family had double the portions of meat than us) but not to worry. After dinner we went to the internet before heading home to bed.

Wednesday 3rd October – Antigua

Like Groundhog day, 5.30am tuc tuc, 7am the sing of “desayuno, desayuno”, we had a quick shower and Jo was succeeding in having breakfast pushed back to 7.20am to have a extra 10mins sleep.  Maybe this week Rosemary will have flashbacks of Jo at college! Breakfast was basically left overs -  frijoles (beans) and eggs for Leigh, Josafina and Mikel while Jo got some fruit. The 4 of us headed to school for a prompt 8am class as we got told off for a couple of late starts. The thing with having 1 to 1 classes is you become close to your teacher and Jo did especially. Jo very quickly learnt who fancied who and was in the thick of the school gossip while Leigh was learing more and more Verbs and tenses! The hightlight of the morning was finding a tiny tortilla shop were we were allowed to to watch the ladies roll and cook them. It is a very basic yet skillful task as the mixture must be rolled very quickly. We bought 5 fresh warm tortillas for about 10p! Tortillas taste very differently depending on the country you are in. The taste of the Guatemalan tortillas is very corney. They were so nice and fresh and was a great way to spend our break as we had been trying to see how they were made for weeks.  Back to school for the second part of the day, we chatted with other students for a few minutes before resuming class.  We finished 15mins earlier than usual today as both our teachers had things on in the afternoon. We were never sure what these things are but during the first few days of school we seemed to get so hungry that finishing was early was not such a bad thing. We headed home for lunch and Jo was really not enjoying having a cooked lunch because for the last 4 months we have had either a salad or sandwich so having cooked rice or pasta and usually meat was a big change. Today was Pasta and veges and Marco Snr even offered us Coca Cola which we all guzzled as it was the first time we had been offered it! We hurried through lunch as we had to get back to school as they had out on a field trip to a Myian music and coffee museum. It was really good as the museum tourist bus came and collected us and the school arranged a teacher to come along to help translate, but we really wanted to practice our Spanish so hoped we would not need her. The first part was the Myan music part, which was interesting and the guide spoke in very clear Spanish. Jo understood a lot of it but with Leigh still not practicing conversation relied more on the English translated notes. We were all relieved that we were moving onto the Coffee Museum which was much more interesting.

We learned the history and modern methods of producing coffee. We then had a sample of some local coffee which was very nice.  It was a great afternoon and was a really good way of learning and practicing our Spanish. The two of us and Mikel and Josafine decided to walk home which was about 15 mins away – much more interesting than the bus trip. The streets were very busy and full of local shops and some very interesting electrical work with a power line so overloaded it was amazing that it could work! The other 2 headed home and we headed into town to research our onward travel. We returned home for dinner at 7pm, enjoyed some stewed meat with beans and rice, the coca cola was no longer so it was back to the water!  After dinner we completed our home work and headed to the internet. We got home a little late so went straight to bed.

Thursday 4th October – Antigua

5.30am Tuc Tuc, 7am Desayuno Desayuno. Today we had fresh fruit with bread and jam, although the bread was slightly unappealing due to the mold! We got to school a little earlier so enjoyed some time chatting with fellow students and we were fast making friends with everyone there so starting class got harder!  More verbo's for Leigh and Jo was playing fun conversational games and talking lots. We headed out for more tortillas at break time and today bought some extremely spicy sauce for all of 50p - it was such a great snack. After a little more playground chat it was back to study.

We finished up at 1pm and headed home for lunch. More rice and beans with a Guatemalan style taco, topped with beets, meat and salad. Was actually quite nice, but what wasn't a good idea was the white table cloth as Leigh dropped beet on it first followed by Jo making a mess 5 mins later. Josafina and Mikel laughed and must of thought we were piglets! After lunch we headed back to the markets to buy some more goods. We hunted out a hammock and began bargaining. We ended up buying a bright green double hammock for a good price. We are not yet sure where it will hang but we enjoyed buying it all the same. The next purchase was a wooden bowl holder, the most enjoying purchase of our goods as the seller was a 12 year old boy who bargained like a veteran. Leigh and the boy had a 15 min negotiation before agreeing a price. Leigh really met his match and they shook hands after the purchase, it was more like a competition than a sale!

In the evening we had sandwiches for dinner, yum! However their main meal is lunch so it's kind of the reverse of what we are used to. After doing homework we headed to bed again around 10.30pm. Just like being a kid again having such a strict routine!

Friday 5th October – Antigua

5.30am Tuc Tuc, 7.00am Desayuno Desayuno! Cornflakes and fruit this morning which was a nice change and the 4 of us headed off to school at 7.55am. After some school yard chat we started our day - more of the same for both of us. We decided to spend the break at school and enjoyed a fresh sandwich bought from a lady who sets up a stool in the yard every day. Tonight there was a party planned at one of the students house who lived all of ½ a block away. We discussed the evening and decided that we would have dinner at Amy's (aka the host of the party) and forfeit dinner with Maria. During the break today there was a mini celebration. Firstly a long time student was leaving and secondly Leigh's teacher Pedro was celebrating his birthday in the weekend. It was a great reminder that we were at an adult learning center as the coca cola was topped up with a rather strong rum! We enjoyed some cake, which tasted soggy but that's Guatemalan cake for you and got back to class 30mins late.  Today we did have a slight break in routine as Jo had to return for another 2 hours in the afternoon as her teacher couldn't make lessons on Saturday. So we hurried through lunch and Jo returned to class at 1.45pm.

Unfortunately for the first time on our travels we suffered a problem with the laptop power supply, so Leigh managed to find a repair shop and after a few attempts at fixing it told Leigh to return the following day. The good thing is because it's hard to buy new things here, well expensive anyway, they have lots of fix-it men who are really very clever! We met up after Jo's class and headed back to town to grab a few things for the party. We headed over to Amy's place at 6pm where Josafine and Co had put on a fantastic tapas meal, with fresh Quesadillas, salsa and nachos.  Gradually the numbers of the party increased as did the consumption of alcohol.  One of the randoms bought his laptop and speakers, so the music played all through the neighbourhood. Most students (including Jo) did not have class the next day, unfortunately Leigh did so should have been watching how much he was drinking but all the study he was doing must of made it slip his mind! We had a great night and really got on with everyone there, we headed home some time past 12pm and fell asleep immediately.

Saturday 6th October – Antigua

As we mentioned Leigh had class this morning, so it was extremely hard having the Tuc Tuc go at 5.30am but thankfully Maria was running a little late so Leigh managed to catch a few more minutes of sleep.  For breakfast he was served mashed beans and eggs, unable to stomach it he waited until Maria went outside and he tipped it in the bin. Jo really enjoyed her first lie in for a week and loved getting up for a 9.30am breakfast. Leigh went to class while Jo went for coffee with Mikel and Josafine.  Leigh's class was slow as it was Pedro's birthday and Leigh was not feeling the best. It was not a bad thing as they spent more time talking in Spanish than writing verbs which made for a nice change!

Jo on the other hand was  enjoying her leisurely morning and had a very organic drink that tasted like you were eating the garden!  Jo and Josafina picked Leigh up from school with his first question asking what the rugby score was. We headed over to the internet and got the score and we were at that point up 10 – 0. We hurried home for lunch and arranged to meet the others for a movie at a cafe. We hurried down to a pub that advertised they were showing all the rugby world cup games and were more than angered when they would not show the game as they were playing NFL for a handful of Americans!  We were at a dead end with the rugby so made our onward travel arrangements for Monday and booked a trip to the Volcano for the following day. In the mean time Leigh had checked the internet and received the devastating news that the All Blacks had lost, with a distraught look on his face he told Jo (who was more importantly trying on sandalias) that we had lost, the ladies in the shop thought something was seriously wrong and were rather concerned. Jo then explained that we lost the world cup and they were like oh well do you like the sanadalias? After the initial shock passed we headed back to collect the power supply for the computer.  Thankfully it had been repaired although a little unorthodox with his methods we were happy that we could use the computer again. We headed over and met Mike and Josafine for a quick drink before the movie. The movie was by far the worst movie we had ever watched, although it was bad it was a really nice relaxing afternoon, but no matter how good the day went, Leigh was never going to get over the rugby!

We all headed home and Maria had gone to visit her mother so dinner was left to Alexandra (one of the daughter) to prepare. We were a served a traditional Tamila served on banana leaves, which is traditionally what they eat at Christmas so a real treat! Marco Snr joined us for dinner so we had an eventful evening. We decided to teach Mikel and Josafine how to play 500 and they loved it so much, we all stayed up rather late, well for a school night anyway!

Sunday 7th October – Antigua

We both had class this morning and Sundays are a day off for the host family so it is feed yourself day.  We made the most of not being woken up so slept in until after 7.30am and leisurely headed to school.  Weekends are different as there is no one around at the school, so we were locked our for at least 20 mins before we could get the attention of the family that lives on sight. We started class and decided to skip the break so we could finish at 12.30pm. It made for a long morning but was good to finish early.

Today we had booked a trip up Volcan Pacya and arranged to be collected from the school at 2pm. We headed home and had a quick lunch of tortillas and hot sauce with a few pieces of fruit. Really cheap and quick and we got to school in time to be collected by the girl from the office who sold us our tickets.  It was really funny as she was running around the town on foot collecting customers and eventually lead us to the bus parked at the main square. We boarded the bus and met up with a few people from our school. It took about 1.30hrs to arrive at the base of the Volcano where we were greeted by lots of children trying to sell us sticks for the walk up and trying to convince us that we could not make the walk without one of them. We had already bought a stick from our guide but decided we would give it back to the kids when we returned for nothing so they could resell it. We began our ascent and it was easy going for a while, as Leigh chatted to a lady from NZ and Jo a lady from Ireland most of the way up. The hike got harder as we reached the plateau but were so blown away with the views over Antigua and the volcano the sweat dripping off our faces didn't bother us.  The highlight was seeing in the distance a massive hot lava flow which was where we were heading!

We made the short walk down to the edge of the black, crusty, dried up lava and were expecting some kind of safety talk. But in safe keeping with the Guatemalan way, we embarked on quiet honestly one of the most dangerous experiences of our trip! We needed to get at least 50 meters to the first “safe” point, but to get there we walked over razor sharp dried lava, carefully avoiding weak spots to ensure we didn't fall into a hot lava hole (well... that was almost at every step). We also had to keep moving and walking fast enough for your shoes not to melt. So many people lost their soles along the way!  This was an amazing experience, although you had to really fend for yourself and think carefully about each step you took. After 20 mins we had managed to make it to the relatively “safe” point after watching a girl fall through a hole, luckily not where there was hot lava, but she still scratched up her legs badly so they were bleeding. A few German lads from school found a good hot spot for toasting marshmellows and even cooked frankfurters. It was at this point were the heat was almost unbearably hot and you had to constantly move as to not burn your feet. Jo stayed put at the safeish point, while Leigh pushed on right to a fast moving lava flow with Yoko from school. Jo eventually headed back with another girl while Leigh enjoyed a frankfurter with the Germans before heading back. Jo tried to yell out to Leigh which was the safest way to get back after using her stick to test the sturdiness each step. We both got back safely and were stoked to have done the walk but felt very pleased to be back on solid ground. Jo was still shaking at the end of it as Leigh said at the start that if you slip you'll lose a leg. By the time we had climbed up the first hill, darkness had set in and the colour of the lava made the Volcano look like an orange city in the distance. The peak of the Volcano was also glowing orange.  We made the trek down in the pitch black (we had read the advice on the ticket and bought along our head torches) so it was easy for us to see.

We reached the bottom and gave our stick to a very young local boy and enjoyed a few cold beers with the Germans. What made today so good was the fact that we had no idea it would be so dangerous and the lava flow so big. We returned to Antigua after 9pm and went our for dinner with the Germans before heading home to bed just before midnight.

Monday 8th October – Antigua – Flores

Today was our final day of Spanish lessons. We shared mixed emotions as we have both enjoyed them and learnt so much, but at the same time we were ready to move on for our next adventure. Jo played a really cool memory card game with her teacher, which involved matching the cards that said “day and night, happy and sad” etc. It was so much fun that we managed to find the game in the market later on to take home. We both said goodbye to our teachers and all the members at the school who we had become friends with and headed back to Maria's house as we were invited to lunch with the family. We weren't suppose to receive lunch on the final day but they wanted us as their guests. Quite ironic really as we got there and the family had almost finished tucking into their meals, drinking all the coke and leaving none for us, but we were given the scraps with a smile.

After lunch we headed again to the market to bargain for a few more things as we have decided that we are going to buy small wheelie bags to transport things home. Plus the colours are so beautiful and it's great to be able to support all the locals however we can. We had agreed to meet Josephine and Michael at a really cool cafe to play 500 as they were hooked on the game. It got to the point were it was so exciting as the scores  were close that we played until 30 mins before our bus left. So as soon as the girls won (of course), Leigh ran off got Subway while Jo went back to the house grabbed the bags, then we raced to catch the mini van.

The mini van took us from Antigua and dropped us at an absolutely dodgy bus station. Well this can't be avoided in Guatemala city! The driver was really on edge trying to protect the people remaining in the van and ushering us to get our tickets. We arrived over an hour early and were told that our tickets would be issued in “just a minute”. Time kept on ticking by and you could tell there was a problem. Just as the bus was about to board they questioned what tickets we had bought so Jo explained quite forcefully that we have 2 seats reserved and we are getting on the bus with or without a printed off ticket as we had paid the full amount. Finally it got sorted and Jo boarded first as the policy is girls board the bus first and are strangely not really security checked. Then the males are allowed to board after serious frisking. We were both stoked with the seats as we were upstairs and had no one in front or behind us and dinner was included, so we didn't need to get subway after all! We both fell asleep on and off for the 8 hour bus ride, although Leigh woke Jo up in the night a few times as the police had hopped on to check our bags etc. However Jo in her grumpy night mood due to lack of sleep ensured the policeman did not disturb her too much.