Antigua

After a satisfying night’s sleep we set out again for Antigua on the same road. By the time we reached it this morning they had set up a detour converting the one-way road out of town into a two-way while they cleared the route in. All along there were visible signs of having cleared great boulders off the road. Evidently, the jungle doesn’t take well to being developed.

At Casa En Familia, we were escorted to our room and then to the Laundromat next door where a friendly lady smilingly weighed in my enormous laundry bag at twenty-nine pounds. After that we proceeded to wander the streets of Antigua which, even on the third visit, proved every bit ask oddly confusing and easy to get lost in.

After a meal, a nap, and trip to Bodegangonas we were ready for the 5:30 awakening and trip to Pacaya the following morning.

Mom Pays a Visit

Mom arrived at about 10:30 p.m. in good spirits and happy to see her son. Given her flight's delay and my arrival in town just at nightfall (a precaution), I waited a total of four hours at Arrivals to receive her. For some reason the guy checking passports at the door to Departures decided to ask for a boarding pass (unlike last time) and since I didn't have one, I had to wait downstairs and forgo dinner.

Upon greeting Mom, I called for a cab and got a busy signal. We had no choice but to take our chances with the taxis offered at the airport, but I had seen several people accept rides in these and the one guy running the airport taxi hustle made me relatively confident. I don't know why, but this time I had decided to skip the hostel by the airport and go straight to Antigua.

About ten kilometers from Antigua we were turned around by police. A landslide had blocked the main passage in and out of town. We could go around via Chimaltenango but it was nearly twice the distance and would run us another fifty bucks in the cab. I decided to cut our losses and scoot to my old standby, Hostal Los Volcanes.

Arriving at the hostel we were distressed to discover what money we had was yet not enough to pay for the trip to within 10k of Antigua and back. Not knowing what to do, we opted to stash our bags in our room and have the driver take us to an ATM. Luckily upon hearing our plight, the guy running Hostal Los Volcanes decided to loan us what we needed and save us the trip.

Sleep came easy.

Antigua: Circumspection

After more reading I found myself sitting near a fair German lass studying Spanish. After about three more of my chapters, a rather striking black man approached her and asked for a cigarette. She begrudgingly offered it up only to hear him answer that he doesn't smoke (forward of him, no?). The girl, it turned out, was Leah, a recent resident of New York City where she had just finished working for several years as an au pair. The man, I learned, was Stephan, a Belizian tour guide and pro diver whose first language was English. Rest assured, the conversation was anything if not interesting. The rain had let up so I left for a park I had visited with Lori.

For another hour or two I read rather gloomily until it got dark. When I returned to the hostel, Leah was hunting for me to bring me to a bar to meet a local guy she had met through an online friend she had made before coming to Guatemala. She had with her Stephen as well as a charming German chap she had met named Rene. The three of us followed her to a bar where she introduced us to Emilio and everyone hung out and got to know each other a little better.

After that is was off to a Salsa club where a former member of Buena Vista Social Club was playing with his band and some really incredible salsa dancers were doing their thing. The place was generally packed, but the way it was set up, it never got too ridiculously crowded. I hadn't had a chance to talk to Emilio at the other place, and it turned out he was pretty cool guy. He had grown up in Antigua and had worked as a tour guide, his degree being in studies related to tourism and its industry. Presently he was working as an entrepreneur and bartender while freelancing on the web.  He had me thinking positively, for the first time since arriving in Guatemala, about topics related to business, especially vis-a-vis tourism and even Antigua in particular.

Having exhausted quite a bit of my steam in coming to the capital that day, and genuinely buzzed about the fun evening I had had thus far, I decided to head back while it was all still aglow. About that time, Rene pooped out and with him Leah, so I took the chance to duck out with them and head back to the hostel. Back there, the courtyard was full of loudly-singing hippie travelers complete with guitar. Crawling into my bunk I wondered how I was going to fall asleep with them carrying on just below me. Luckily, rain began to fall loudly on the metal roof, eventually drowning them out and lulling me off into dreamland.

Antigua: Resurrection

Antigua can be decidedly glum when you're there the second time and its without your lover. Especially when it's pouring down rain. I cought a bus from San Lucas to Antigua and after skittering through its soggy streets, ducked into the nearest cafe to let the rain die off. It just so happened that this cafe belonged to the place where I was planning to spend the night. Coincidence? After getting a bed and locking up my things I retired to the covered courtyard to read.

Glancing at my watch I was dumbfounded to find it was only about 2:00 in the afternoon. If I so wished, I had an entire ten hours of reading to look forward to. I nearly finished my book and enlivening talk broke it up nicely. My first visit was with a couple of Israeli girls with whom I was sharing the table. They were kind and sweet, even giving me what was left of their challah (about half a loaf!), a kind of bread that told me is eaten at the Shabbat and which seems to melt in one's mouth. They were off to Atitlán, so I bid them "shalom" and continued to read.

After about an hour I found myself chatting with a couple of Seattle-ites, clearly best friends, one of whom was an Oceanography grad at CW. Both of them had done their undergrad at UC and were now out to see more of the hemisphere. I described to them my misadventure outside Patzicía and they were duly impressed. It turned out they were waylaid by the same event.

Visa Rigmarole III

At whatever time some protesting jerks decided to lock up the Inter-American Highway, the traffic had been about the same leaving the capital as it was going in. This meant I had only to walk a little more than half a mile up the road beyond the manifestación before I found buses that were in the same position as the one I was in when it decided to turn around. I found a bus for whom turning around meant going back to Guatemala City. A few minutes later about a busload of people came who had had the same idea and in no time at all I was on my way again to renew my Visa.

A cab ride from the bus stop in Guatemala City, and I was at the immigration office. It went off like butter. There was almost no line for anything but the photocopier and I had all my documents in order. I don't think I was even there an entire hour. I've read that the holdup at Immigration in Guatemala has to do with obtaining a lawyer's stamp. Perhaps the limited traffic into town that morning meant the Immigration lawyers had more time for things like my tourist Visa.

Having set aside an entire two days for the task, I didn't know quite what to do with myself. I stood on the steps of the immigration office pondering my options. I could try to get back to Santa Cruz and save the extra day, but I didn't know how long it would be before buses were running again, or even how to determine whether or not they were, without just hoping the nearest Tecpan or Encuentros bus and seeing how far it took me. Better to run for Antigua and wait to the thing to blow over.

Pacaya

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="401" caption="Approaching Pacaya"][/caption]

The next day we rose early to catch the shuttle with a bunch of other tourist to Volcan de Pacaya, an active volcano about half an hour from Antigua. On the way up we were told that there had been a major eruption in 2004, and then ten days ago there had been a spurt in activity with new flows of lava arising.

The journey to the volcano itself was a little obscene. First there was the bus. It broke down twice costing us what seemed like forever each time. Then there was the dispute about whether or not we would all hike all the way. Apparently the guide wanted us to remain as a group and if some people couldn't make it to the top we would all hang back. People made a big stink of it which turned out to be for nothing because there were enough tour groups coming and going that the guides could sort of share the load.

Children accosted us trying to sell us walking sticks, and on the trail through the woods, men kept appearing out of nowhere with horses in hopes that we would be too weak or lazy to keep hiking and would buy a horse ride. After about twenty minutes of hiking we reached a black, crumbly talus that seemed to want to give way under our every step. Another five hundred yards and the trail turned straight up the slope.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Looking down to the northwest"][/caption]

From this point on, the climb consisted mainly of resting one's weight as delicately as possible on ever-shifting, razor-sharp rocks and darting precariously from one foothold to the next without looking down. The higher we got, the hotter it got until with were standing mere feet from oozing liquid stone that made a sound like squishing mud. It was so hot that it hurt to stand for long in any one place and I found myself playing hot potato with our entire body, bouncing from one foot to the next, shielding myself with one arm and then the other.

Once everyone who made it all the way was satisfied and had taken enough pictures, we all went back down to the edge of vegetation and ate lunch near under the watch of two men with shotguns. After that it was back to the bus where we were told very brazenly to pony up a tip. For one last time, our stalwart bus bit the dust. After switching buses such that some people had to sit in the aisle we took the underwhelming industrial road back to just outside Antigua.

For all the B.S., I would say it was a worthwhile experience. I would recommend that anyone who does it bring sturdy leather gloves and boots that lace up to mid-ankle because otherwise you wind up digging tiny shards of volcanic rock out of your hands and emptying rocks from your shoes repeatedly.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Molten Rock"][/caption]

Antigua

I hope my loyal readers will forgive my half-month hiatus. From August 22 (happy birthday!) to August 31 I was on the road with Lori and, for the last four days with her sister Beth.

Lori arrived around 5:20 a.m. in Guatemala. In order to avoid the roads at night, I had taken a chicken bus (a big, colorful refurbished US school bus that plays chicken with other vehicles in order to pass) to a hostal about five blocks from the airport. After a warm reunion, we were off to Antigua in a shuttle.

I had taken Mike's advice a week prior and booked us a room at "Casa en Familia" a charming, unmarked little hotel toward the North end of town. I proved a good tip. The price is very reasonable, the service is good and the lady in charge is as sweet as can be. They even have a fridge for guest, of which we made ample use.

Apart from strolling the streets and taking in the sights of all the church ruins, Lori and I did little the first day besides catch up on sleep and and book a the following day's trip to Pacaya. Never before has doing so little felt so good.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Lori Stands on a scenic Antigua street"][/caption]