Following the Dream

Christian June 9th, 2008

The five hour shuttle between Copan and Antigua was not all that bad. Besides paying the unofficial border crossing fee and not getting dropped off where we were supposed to, it was a breeze. The only odd part was we were not given an entry stamp into Guatemala, we were told our Honduras stamp was good for both countries. We figured we would find out if that was true when we left for Belize. We ended up staying in a place recommended by our guidebook. It was a little overpriced, but we were happy to have some cable TV for the rainy nights and a private bathroom. We were busy the first day we arrived. We managed to book a volcano tour for the next day, transportation to Lake Atitlan, and plane tickets to the Tikal Ruins. We spent the rest of the day walking a bit in the town of Antigua. It is a pretty colonial town, with tons of gringos but since it was raining we soon headed into the comfort of our hotel room…or so we thought… It is not hard to see why people come here to study spanish. It has almost all of the comforts of home, like Subway, McDonalds, a sports bar, and plenty of shopping. What is cool about the town is that all of the buildings keep to the same colonial style, even places like McDonalds.

After walking around the town for a bit, it started to rain pretty bad, so we headed back to the hotel for some much needed showers, rest, and quality TV time. It ended up not being all that great of a place to stay after all. We soon realized it should be called “Hotel Hell”. They had a parrot that would scream “Help Me!” every five minutes extremely loud in the small courtyard outside our room. Someone’s (the owners?) kids were running around screaming all night past our door with their dog chasing behind. Not to mention the next morning we were woke up by a few people speaking spanish really loudly right in front of our door at 5 am. There was never a moments peace at this hotel, you could barely hear the TV at times, yet alone take a moment to relax.

The next morning our we met our shuttle van at 6:30 am to head to the Volcano Payaca. It was a little odd, us and 2 other girls were waiting at the pick-up point when a white van pulls up at the end of the block and a lady starts waving out the window to us to come over. We immediately had visions of her offering kids candy to get into her van. Just a little odd, but afterall we were in  Guatemala. We picked up a few more people (6 in total) and headed out of town. After an hour or so we arrived to the base town of San Francisco where we met our guide. He let us know that we would be walking for an hour and a half to get to some lava. The first part of the hike was through jungle, uphill. It wasn’t so bad, but our group moved pretty briskly. After tripping over a few roots along the way, we ended up at the top of a hill where the tree line ended. From the top, we could not see a thing but mist. The mist cleared for a brief second so we could see the lava field below. After hiking down a bit, we got to the actual lava field. It looked like something straight out of Lord of the Rings.

He gave us a brief safety talk, letting us know that as long as we have positive thoughts, nothing will happen to us. We hiked along the sharp, rough lava rock uphill some more. We could see lava in the distance, up the hill a bit more. Continuing to walk, we noticed that it was getting hotter the farther we got. As we approached the lava, we noticed that the rain that had started was sizzling on the rocks and turned instantly into steam. The first bit of lava we got to was about 30 feet away or so.

The black rock was gray up here, and was much like walking on hot charcoal. I continued up to a spot that was a mere five feet away from the lava. It did not feel safe in the least bit. I came back down after a couple of minutes. As we headed back down from the lava, I learned that some people’s shoes had melted due to the temperature of the rocks. It was intense. We made our way back down the trail of volcanic ash, sliding down it as if it were a huge sand dune. Of course it had started to downpour as was our usual luck, and we were soaked and very cold. Once we hiked the rest of the way to the bottom, we said farewell to the guide and headed back to Antigua for a hot shower and much needed dinner.

The following day our shuttle came in the morning to take us to Lake Atitlan. We arrived on another rainy day. By now we are on Day 6 of straight rain and can’t take much more of the tropical storm we were stuck in. We spent the day looking around the town of Panajachel and walking down to the lake. The lake looked beautiful, but it would have been much better without the low laying clouds and rain.

We made the decision to head back to Antigua if it was still crappy weather the next day, since there is more to do there when it rains. We did enjoy a good chicken dinner which meanwhile locals are always coming up to your table while you are eating trying to sell you something. After watching some B movies and organizing some photos, we headed to bed. Surprise! We woke up to rain once again. We booked a shuttle for 10 am, so we had the morning to visit some more of the town before heading out. Our time at Lake Atitlan was not the best due to the weather. We would have loved to see how amazing the lake looked with the sun shimmering onto it and a tour of the local villages but it was not to be. Back to Antigua it was.

Once back into Antigua, we found a much better place to stay. It was cheaper and quieter. We got a post finished and then headed out for some dinner and drinks. We read that a place called Mono Loco or Crazy Monkey had the NBA finals on plus had a happy hour, so we headed there. After one too many 2×1 drinks we made our way back to the hostel and called it a night. The following day we actually visited some of the churches in town without getting rained on. They were pretty impressive and we finally got take some pictures. We enjoyed some subway and did a few errands before packing for our early flight the next day.

• Guatemala
• Comments(0)