El Salvador..The Mainland

#8
On day 36 of my year of travelling I entered El Salvador, the fifth country on my trip.

The first stop in El Salvador was Santa Ana. It is the second largest city in El Salvador and is in the north of the country. The hostel we stayed in here was definitely the best so far and will be difficult to top! Casa Verde is like a self contained little fortress in Santa Ana. It is run by Carlos who is from Santa Ana but was a backpacker himself and decided to turn the family home he grew up in into the ultimate hostel. His friends and family are always around chilling out and the place just feels like a home. It has everything: bikes, small swimming pool, roof terrace overlooking Santa Ana, two well equipped kitchens, BBQ, hammocks, film room, private and dorm rooms, book exchange and a soundproof room and it spotlessly clean. It also works on an 'honesty' policy for alcohol so if you take one of the beers or really nice bottles of wine available you just jot it down on the whiteboard and settle up on check out. You don't even need to leave the hostel and it was the first time I really got into cooking since being away (I promise I'm not working for Casa verde)! I also met some really great people here and we had a few days discovering Santa Ana, mostly where we were the only backpackers/'gringos' around.

Courtyard in Casa Verde

The afternoon we arrived in Santa Ana, we went for a wander around to the parque central. It was buzzing with street vendors selling mostly chips, hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream. There were two beautiful buildings in particular that got my attention. The first being a massive gothic church towering over the park called the 'Catedral de Santa Ana' and the second the 'Teatro Nacional'. What struck me about Santa Ana was the lack of other backpackers around.

Catedral Santa Ana

Teatro Nacional

Papusas and curtido

I had heard a bit about the El Salvordian delicacy called 'papusas', corn dough tortillas stuffed with delights like cheese, beans and pork and topped with pickled vegetables called 'curtido'. They cost about $0.50 and lived up to my expectations. I also tried some sweet corn pancakes called 'riguas'. Three cost $1. They were very sweet and quite dry....nothing some Nutella wouldn't sort out.

The next day we had planned to hike the famous volcán Santa Ana in the Parque Nacional los volcanos.  It turned  out that three couples from our hostel were also doing it. The chicken bus was due to leave at 7.30am, the eight of us were standing at the side of the road where we thought the bus would stop at. By 7.40am we were beginning to think we might have been in the wrong place. Sure enough a local lady came up to us and asked us if we were looking to go to the volcano (we must have had that look about us..maybe the hiking boots and bewildered looks gave us away). The lady marched us into the bus terminal a few minutes away and told us the bus would leave from there and to buy tickets there. Thankfully the bus hadn't left yet and we just made it. The bus cost $0.90 and took just less than two hours. It was a very windy road all the way up but we got great views of the Lago de Coatepeque. We paid a total of $10 for the hike ($3 park entry, $1 for the tour guide and $6 for security). Apparently there have been quite a few muggings on the hikes and now it's advised that you pay for a tour guide and security guard. The eight of us were the only backpackers in the group, the rest seemed to be mainly from the capital San Salvador. The hike was easy enough, especially when comparing it to the overnight volcano hike in Guatemala. It took about two hours up of steady incline and clear trails. When we got to the top of the crater the vivid turquoise lagoon below was mesmerising and surpassed my expectations from the photographs I had seen beforehand. The guide told us the water below was about 90 degrees Celsius and had  last erupted in 2005.

Blue lagoon of Volcán Santa Ana

That evening six of us decided to cook together, Mira and Gerke from Germany made a potato, cheese and vegetable gratin, Angela and Samuel from Switzerland made a Swiss carbonara and fried plantains. I made a lime and coconut Dahl....a very random mix of food but all tasted great! Antonio, Carlos' brother also joined us for dinner.

Casa Verde family dinner 

The next day Angela, Samuel, Rex and I decided to visit natural swimming pools called 'Sapuapa'. Thy also had the little fish that nibble away on your feet so we knew a free pedicure was in store! We decided to walk there from town which looked like it would take about twenty minutes. We asked a few of the locals and a delivery man for one of the restaurants kindly drew us a map on the back of
a napkin. After getting slightly lost and asking numerous people on the way we finally found it, in the corner tucked away behind a dirt track. The sign for the pool was barely legible after years of wear on the white wall. There was a make shift barrier with two teenagers and an elderly man standing at the gate. We asked hesitantly it it was the swimming pool, they nodded and charged us $1 each. When we paid they actually presented us with a pretty formal looking ticket. We walked down the dirt track and saw on the right a huge natural pool with some people swimming, a make sift 'slide' and lots of people sitting in the shade drinking huuuugeeee bottles of vodka. The minute the four of us walked down it felt like the majority of people stopped to look around. It didn't feel intimidating though and when a table of about 8 older people called us over to ask us our names we realised we were the first western tourists that had been here in a while. They were keen to ask us our names and where we were from which was swiftly followed by offerings of vodka (straight).  Angela, Rex and I quickly jumped in the water...it was so cool and refreshing after walking around in the thirty degree heat.  We spent the afternoon getting our feet nibbled by little fishes, playing with some of the local kids, getting fed crab soup (caught that day in the swimming pool), having some drinks and chatting to the locals. Everyone was very friendly all day but when we thought about leaving we were warned to be careful leaving the pool as it was a rough neighbourhood and we could have been mugged, we didn't really have anything on us to take though and walked back to town with no problems. We also got fresh coconuts on the side of the road for $1 each...perfect post swim hydration!

Natural swimming pool at Sapuapa

Next Stop: Haven't decided yet
Food: Pupusas - Salvadorian delicacy!
Drink: Nice wine and cheap beers in the hostel
Bars/restaurants: 'Simmer down' as recommended to me, specialising in pizzas but found it a bit expensive compared to other places.
Stayed: Casa Verde - $9 for a dorm. Really recommend it!
Lesson 9: there are great second hand clothes shops in Santa Ana, we spent a dew hours wandering around them and getting a few bargains!

Ruta De Las Flores, El Salvador
The next day we decided to go to another part of mainland El Salvador. We took a chicken bus to Juayua in Ruta De Las Flores. Juayua is famous for its food market which happens every weekend attracting a lot of locals and Salvadorians visiting for the day or the weekend. It is also in the area known as Ruta De Las Flores due to all the wild and white coffee flowers that grow everywhere. It is also known for it's local art, coffee shops, restaurants and friendly locals. Seeing as it was Saturday we decided to go there for our next stop. The bus cost $0.90 and took about an hour and a half from Santa Ana. We arrived in a small town on a busy morning and found our way to a hostel that Carlos in Casa verde had recommended. It was very homely and quiet. We headed straight for the famous food market to see what was on offer. There was a great buzz around the parque central with lots of food stands, Spanish singers, craft stalls and the general daily food market. What struck me is that again, we seemed to be the only backpackers there. I had read that the market attracts a lot of San Salvadorians leaving the city for the weekend or for the day. The main dishes being prepared consisted of pork/seafood skewers/giant prawns. The seafood looked good so I got a king prawn dish with tortillas, rice, vegetables and spicy pickled cabbage. All the dishes cost $5-6, by no means expensive for what you get but compared to general meals in El Salvadorian markets it is quite pricey. It was however worth it.

Later that day I took a chicken bus to a nearby town called Ataco which is known to have detailed street murals and lots of local artists and crafts. The town was lovely with nice coffee shops and of course beautiful murals on the walls and a nice place to wander around. The buses ran regularly from Juayua and cost $0.50.

Street art in Juayua 

We also did a 'seven waterfall' hike while we were in Juayua with a couple Chelsea and Aaron who we bumped into in the hostel that had also been staying In Casa verde in Santa Ana. We had a great day with our tour guide Carlos and a couple of the dogs from the hostel walking through coffee plantations, repelling down a waterfall , exploring all the waterfalls in the jungle and swimming. We booked the tour through the hostel and it cost $17 each for four with lunch included.

The seventh waterfall and swimming spot 

What has really surprised me about El Salvador is how genuinely friendly the locals are. I know I also said this about Guatemala but it feels slightly different here. I have found that wherever you go, people want to talk to you and find out where you are from and what you think of El Salvador, a lot of them having lived in America or having family in America, they really want to practice their English. They also really want tourism to pick up and I would urge people to go to El Salvador. The violent past seems mostly in the past and where there is still gang presence and violence they are not bothered with tourists. Lots of backpackers and tourists tend to head straight to the Pacific beaches in El Salvador for the surfing but there is so much to see around El Salvador with cheap food, accommodation and really friendly people.

Next stop: The Pacific beaches (of course)
Food: The seafood at the food market in Juayua
Drink: A piña colada in a whole pineapple with rum for $3 after the waterfall hike
Bars/restaurants: none, just the food fair and cooked in the hostel
Stayed: Hostel Casa Mazete - $9 a night in the 6 bedded dorm. Small hostel and homely but the dogs are a bit mental.
Lesson 10: Papusas are life

Jess

Honduras, the whole two days of it!

#7
I am now just over my first month travelling in Central America. On day 33 I visited my fourth country, Honduras.

After nearly four weeks in Guatemala, I decided to break away from lovely Antigua to go to Honduras. I hadn't initially thought/planned on going to Honduras but we decided to head to Copán Ruinas town just over the border with Guatemala for a couple of days. The small town is most famous for the Mayan Ruins, also called Copán. The ruins are famous for detail in the structures that are still present. The other part of Honduras that tourists tend to visit are the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras, it is well known for really good (and cheap) diving. However I have just over five weeks to make it down to Colombia so I decided to stick to heading down to El Salvador after Copán.

We had arranged to get a shuttle from our hostel in Antigua to Copán, collecting us at 4am the morning after we got back from our volcano hike. After a good nights sleep in hostel Matiox, my alarm went off at the sickening time of 3.30am. The bus journey there was pretty easy and there were only six of us on the small shuttle bus. It was pretty hard to sleep though as the roads were so bumpy and there was a lot of erratic overtaking and accidents along the way. We got to the border at about 10am and I was really surprised with how easy the crossing was. We left all our bags on the bus, got our exit stamp from Guatemala then walked a few metres up to Honduras immigration where there was no queue and we got our entry stamp and tourist slip for Honduras after paying $3 USD entry fee or the equivalent in Guatemalan quetzals or our new currency, the Honduran Limpura (L) (too many currencies to keep track of)! We were also able to change our remaining quetzals with one of the many money changers at the border for local currency. We had a rough idea of the rate so made sure we knew what we should be getting back. We were then working on €1 to 25L. Copán Ruinas town was only about ten minutes drive from the border and we got dropped off right at our hostel which I'd booked on hostel world the day before. The six hour shuttle bus journey cost about €14...after a little bit of haggling in Antigua.

When we stopped for breakfast I got chatting to a guy that was on the bus, called Felipe, he knew some of the same people we had been on the volcano hike with in Antigua and was also heading to Copán for a couple of days. The three of us chatted most of the way to Copán. Felipe decided to come stay in the hostel we had booked into as we all had roughly the same plans of what we wanted to do in Copán, the main being the Mayan ruins. We got dropped off at Barekah hostel, the hostel was basic but had big lockers and fans...no AC but it was never too hot in the room. There was also a decent breakfast included in the morning. A dorm room was about €11 for the night. I think there are better hostels in Copán overall.

We spent the day wandering around the small town and had a great lunch in the local market for less than €1.60 which consisted of chicken, rice, avocado, carrots, broccoli and of course tortilla. We also sampled some extremely hot sauce and chilli seeds. We got some local beers in the shop after for less than €0.65 each. Honduras is even cheaper than Guatemala!

Market food

We planned to get up early and head to the ruins ourselves. There were shuttle buses and tours but these were overpriced and seeing as the ruins were only 1.5km away we decided to walk and I brought my guidebook to be the tour guide for the day! Entry to the ruins was 345L (€16). I found the ruins beautiful. The detail in the remaining structures was so impressive considering how old the ruins are (dating from 700AD). We wandered around for a few hours and even got a personal tour from one of the maintenance men working there (again thanks to Felipe's Spanish).

Personal tour from a local worker st the ruins

One of the many macaws being rehabilitated in the ruins

Later that day Felipe and I decided to go to some hot springs about 20km from Copán. The hostel and tour companies were priced at $22 for shuttle and entry (tad bit overpriced considering entry to the hot spring pools was only €2.40. We ended up grabbing a mini bus with the locals that runs like a public bus to and from town. We paid 40L (€1.60) for the thirty minute journey. It was also a great
way to get to know some of the locals who were so friendly chatting away in Spanish and rough
English.

It was 60L (less than €2.40) entry to the hot springs. We opted out of paying an additional 300L (€12) into the Luna Jaguar spa as it was a bit pricey but I have heard it is worth it paying in for a few hours. Our entry gave us use of the two natural swimming pools, one quite hot and the other warm. We were the only people there for the first hour. There are options to camp there and areas to BBQ. There also a hot waterfall behind the pools, flowing into the river. We stumbled across to the waterfall and quickly realised that it was far too hot to even put your toe under. There were some local kids bathing a bit down from the waterfall. After laughing at Felipe and I squealing with the heat of the water they called us down to where they were which was lovely and warm. Felipe started chatting to two of them I'm Spanish. He found out that they were eighteen and lived in the village up the mountain. There was a little girl with them who was staring at my GoPro and was laughing her head off when I took a photo of her and showed it to her, she proceeded to take it and be the photographer for the next few minutes. They told us that the waterfall reached a temperature of 110 degrees Celsius during the
day (we had to clarify if it was indeed celsius)! It drops to about seventy in the evenings. They said that the three of them, including the little girl who must have only been about ten worked in the coffee plantations and they had just finished work. They told us they made 100L (€4) for every gallon of coffee beans picked.

Getting to know the locals 

Natural hot spring waterfall

We hung out at the pools for a while, we had decided to try and hitch back to town as there was only one bus back at 5pm for 100L. As Felipe was fluent in Spanish I felt it would be easier to grab a lift back with some locals and he was happy to abuse this skill/benefit. I wouldn't usually hitch (promise)! However again Felipe got talking to a couple (and the only other people at the pools, they said they were heading back to Copán later that evening and could give us a lift. It turned out that the guy who owned the car was an evangelical pastor in Guatemala but was from Copán. He must have only been in his early forties but told Felipe that for six years he worked with the local villages around Copán providing them with health education and enabling them to help build houses, providing them with water filters and how to implement appropriate hygiene with the increases in water pollution and new diseases becoming more prevalent. He was so interesting and we were overwhelmed when he asked us to join him, his wife and their two friends for dinner. A BBQ his wife had made under one of the shelters by the pool. We sat down to an amazing feed of BBQ'd pork, tortillas, cheese, leeks, sweet peppers with lime and black beans. It tasted amazing! I also had BBQ'd plantain after which was gooey, warm and so sweet that it tasted great just by itself. They chatted about all the typical cuisines and dishes from Copán and Guatemala with Felipe telling us about the local dishes in Bogota and me trying to make Irish stew and bacon and cabbage sounds as exotic as the fried plantain stuffed with rice and cheese that the others were talking about. Unfortunately my Spanish is not good enough to jazz up the sound of Irish stew. We also chatted about football and where we had travelled before. They dropped us back to the hostel later that night and we couldn't thank them enough. Every day I have been taken aback with the genuine warmth and generosity of the local people in the countries I have visited.

The next morning we said goodbye to Felipe as he travelled up to the Bay islands and we grabbed a shuttle to Santa Ana in El Salvador with a lovely German couple we had met in our hostel. This was a slight cop out as we had planned on going the cheaper (and longer) way of using the local chicken buses.  I had thought the best way would be to go the route of:

Copán Ruinas - Santa Rosa de Copán - Neuvo Ocotepeque - El Poy (the border into El Salvador) - San Salvador - Santa Ana. Roughly 12 hours in total but costing about €15.

However some people had mentioned that it was quicker travelling from Copán Ruinas - Santa Rosa de Copán - Chiquimula in Guatemala then back over the border into El Salvador.

As the shuttle was going to be half the price of $40 that it usually was and it was working out only slightly more expensive (and a lot quicker) than the chicken buses we opted to take the 4 hour shuttle. We got the bus at 8am from our hostel and indeed it crossed back over the border from Honduras to Guatemala and down to El Salvador. Three borders and countries in one morning. Again the borders were generally easy. With the C-4 agreement between Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua you can spend up to ninety days in these four countries and generally crossing borders should be straight forward as long as you have your passport date stamped with the 90 days written in the stamp and have not exceeded this. It is however easy to renew this ninety days by passing back in Belize or another bordering country and re-enter for another ninety days. However I was slightly concerned when we reached the El Salvador border, we didn't get our passport stamped and the border security disappeared with my passport for a minute. He came back asking when I had been in Mexico. I told him I was there for two nights last month, he seemed happy enough and passed me back my passport. I didn't ask any more questions. That was it....we were now into El Salvador, the murder capital of the world with a violent history of civil war ending in the 1990's and current gang culture. Despite all this I was looking forward to discovering what El Salvador is really like now.

Next Stop: Santa Ana, El Salvador
Food: Healthy, market food of chicken, rice, beans, avocado, vegetables and tortillas with a fresh juice for €2 in one of the 'comidors'. It feels like you're actually eating in a local woman's kitchen.
Drinks: some local beer called 'Salva Vida'
Bars/restaurants: nil! Only the hostel and the market
Stayed: Hostel Berakah, basic hostel but the dorm was very small.
Lesson 8: Back packing is one of the only times since my childhood where it is socially acceptable to approach a complete stranger and basically ask them to be your friend....a few hours later you're sleeping in bunk beds and planning fun activities to do. It's great!

Jess

Antigua ended with a bang...or multiple eruptions

#6 Antigua, Guatemala

I've spent nearly three weeks in Guatemala, two of which I have been learning Spanish in one of the many Spanish schools. Like I said in my last post, Antigua is a pretty colonial town about 40 minutes from Guatemala City. I have really enjoyed spending a few weeks here, it's such an easy town to walk around (apart from every street consisting of uneven cobbles), it has lots of little coffee shops, restaurants, cool bars and lots to do around the city.

On one of the days after our tour ended, myself and two others from the tour decided to visit a Macademia nut farm called 'Valhalla' farm just outside of Antigua. It had come recommended and I had heard that their Macademia nut pancakes were famous! We decided to take a chicken bus. We walked to the main bus 'terminal' behind the big market and managed to find the bus for San Miguel Dueñas, the town where the farm was close to. As there are no official bus stops we asked the conductor on the bus to let us know when we were there. The bus again was absolutely packed with three to a seat and lots of people standing. The bus dropped us straight outside the farm with the locals helping us climb over everyone to get off the bus.

There are no scheduled tours at the farm so you just arrive and one of the workers there will give you a fifteen minute tour of the small farm. Our tour guide was Guatemalan and from the village nearby, he explained that a Californian man had come and set up the farm about 40 years ago and he still owns it. They donate the majority of their trees to indigenous villages so that the voyagers have a source of income. They do not use any chemicals on the trees and the machines they use can be made easily in the villages and do not require electricity. It was impressive how simple the farm was yet how much they gave to the community. We had to try out the pancakes which were well worth the visit to the farm for...as well as the beautiful bathroom.

Macademia nut pancakes for €5.00

Nice place for A tropical wee

The farm staff joked that it is the most photographed toilet in Guatemala! After the farm we decided to walk about ten minutes down the road to the local village of San Miguel Dueñas where we heard there was a local fiesta on that evening. As we walked into the town it was clear we were the only tourists that had been around in a while, we got lots of looks however most people would say hello.
It did however feel a bit uneasy, it was a pretty run down town. Once we got into the main square of
the town there were food stalls, games and a big stage by the church. People were dressed in a mix of
the traditional Mayan and standard clothes. We grabbed food from the vendors, a mix or tortillas,
tacos and gringas (a type of taco). They cost just over a euro each. We also just got some local beers
from the shop and sat in the square like all the locals were doing. There was a local band playing salsa music and the men in the band were dancing non stop with some people salsa dancing in front of the stage. It was a great atmosphere and good to experience a local fiesta.

The weekend before I was due to start Spanish lessons I had arranged to go to a place about 8km out of Antigua up the mountains called Earth Lodge. It is run by an American/Canadian couple. It has a large avocado farm, hiking trails, tree house cabins, stunning views, home cooked food, board games and hammocks! I spent two days and one night indulging in what they had on offer (including their own infused gins). In the morning when I was having breakfast, Fuego volcano was erupting, it was a surreal view to have while eating granola, fruit and homemade yoghurt. Which was delish. I also met some cool people both volunteers and tourists up there some who were also heading back to Antigua on Sunday evening.

When I got back to Antigua I picked up my bags from the hostel I had stayed at the week before and walked the five minutes round the corner to where I would be staying for the next two weeks. I had decided that while I was learning Spanish I'd stay with a local family that was organised through my Spanish school. The front of the home was a little shop/diner with a house at the back on the edge of town opposite a beautiful church called 'Iglesia de San Francisco'. I met the family, mum Violetta, dad Raphael and their four sons, who are all in their late twenties/early thirties. They were all so
friendly and even though they spoke English they said that they will mainly be speaking Spanish in the house.....at this stage my Spanish consisted of being able to order a beer, say yes/no and 'no entiendo lo siento'. I could also count to six........great. They made me feel welcome straight away though and it was nice to have my own room and actually be able to unpack for the first time since I left. The whole family had a really good sense of humour and the mum Violetta always made sure we were very well fed! The food in the house was basic and traditional, quite carb heavy with little
protein but lots of beans, tortilla, some chicken and pancakes and fruit for breakfast. Violetta also helped me bake a vegan cake one afternoon for one of the guys birthdays the next day! He got sung
happy birthday in seven different languages in school. Raphael, the dad was always joking and laughing, he was a taxi driver now but told us he used to be a narcotics drug officer in Guatemala City, he had so many hilarious and interesting stories as I'm sure you can imagine!

I learnt Spanish for two weeks in Antigua Plaza Spanish school. It is one of the smaller schools in Antigua with maximum seven students each wth a teacher. In Antigua the Spanish schools mostly offer one to one lessons. A friend from the group tour who I'll be travelling with for a while also started lessons in the school too. I signed up to do four hours a day from 8am to 12pm. My teacher Aura and I got on pretty well from the beginning, we had a lot in common. She was a great teacher and we also had a good laugh throughout the mornings chatting about everything (her mostly in Spanish and me in a mix of English and bad Spanish). I could not speak higher of the school, the owner Ana and all the teachers were great.  The evenings after Spanish classes were spent doing HOMEWORK!!...taking up free salsa lessons and sampling out the cool bars around Antigua.

I also joined a gym while I was there.....gym fabrica for about ten euro per week.
One evening I had arranged to come to a gym that Aura, my teacher said she had set up in her town, a suburb of Antigua where she ran classes five evening a week. She told me that when women in Guatemala get married it is common that they aren't really allowed leave the home to meet friends or go out. However since starting the classes in the gym some of these women have been allowed my their husbands to come to the classes, mainly as it the classes are only for women. The gym was just
a space in a backyard that she rented. I came to do tae bo and the class killed me! At the end she instructed the class (myself and three other Guatemalan women) to get mats to do abs...the mats were cutting from carpets. I was dying after the class and it just goes to show that you don't need fancy equipment or gym memberships to exercise. It was also really impressive that Aura had set this all up and how much the women who came looked forward to it and benefitted from it.

After my last day of Spanish, One of the guys staying in my home stay and I decided to go to a coffee plantation and music museum. It was just outside Antigua and in the same town where I had been for the Tae Bo so we grabbed the chicken buses there and back quite easily. It was called 'La Azotea centro cultural'. It cost about €5.50 for the music and coffee plantation tour. The first tour was about the traditional Mayan musical instruments and the tour guide only spoke Spanish, it was a bit underwhelming but the highlight was the coffee tour. It was really interesting and included two free cups of coffee. The coffee plantation was also accredited as fair trade and employed the same local families each harvest.

The highlight of the whole Antigua trip and the best possible way to round up my stay in Guatemala was an overnight volcano hike up the third highest volcanoes in Guatemala called Acatenango. There was four of us who booked on to do it but a total of 15 in our hike group. We had heard that it was pretty tough and freezing on the top. We got picked up at 9am and got to the volcano at about 11am, although that was a lot of driving on cobble stones picking other people up for the tour. It cost about €21 for the hike including tents, sleeping bags, mats, food and two tour guides. We did however hear that dinner was pot noodle and lunch was a grim sounding sandwich. Thankfully our Guatemalan mum made the three of us two massive sandwiches to take with us, we also snacked up and brought 4 litres of water and plenty of layers.....that with all our camping gear made our backpacks very heavy.
The six hour hike up was so steep and really tough with the heat. We made it to 'basecamp' at about 5pm and got the tents up. It was pretty cold up the top and seeing as we were about 3,600ft up, the air was also thinner and we were above the clouds but the views were astounding. The actively erupting volcano Fuego was just to the right of us and we were hoping to see it erupt that night but it can be quite unpredictable.

After us all laughing at the thought of pot noodles for dinner. By the time it came to actually eat them, I've never seen a group of people get so excited about dehydrated peas and instant noodles before. Our tour guides also had some wine and hot chocolate for us and our group shared some local tamarind liquor around the camp fire. The sunset was stunning and we were admiring the full moon when Fuego started erupting bright red lava! Unfortunately the photos just don't do it justice and my GoPro decided to die not too long after we got to basecamp. It continued erupting through the out the evening! I felt so lucky that we got to experience it

We all headed for our tents early enough as we still had to hike up to the summit!
At 3.30am we woke up....although I'm not quite sure how much sleep I actually got. It.was.freezing! Even with five layers on In a sleeping bag. In the pitch black with torches we literally pulled ourselves up over the volcanic sand with our trusty walking sticks (mine called rick) to the summit which is a total of 3976m high! It took about an hour and a half and it made basecamp feel like the tropics. The wind was icy and strong.

We finally made it up to see the sunrise and after nearly losing some fingers to frostbite we almost ran/slide back down to basecamp where we had crap coffee that tasted amazing and pastries. We packed up camp and made it back down in just over three hours! Enjoying the sunshine as we got further down the volcano. My legs were in agony by the time we made it back to Antigua but was happy knowing that the hostel we were in for our last night in Antigua has a beaut hot tub and cheap beer!

Next stop: Copan, Hondurus
Food: home stay meals, lots of rice, tortillas, fruit and some chicken
Drinks: Gallo (local beer), local tamarind liquor
Bars/restaurants: Toku Baru - really cheap curries, falafel and lentils. San Simon for really good cocktails and live music. Cafe sky for more expensive drinks but amazing views of Antigua. Samsara for the best vegetarian/vegan breakfasts.
Stayed: home stay for two weeks ($90USD)  for a week including three meals daily mon-fri), hostel Matiox is great, has a hot tub, nice crowd of people for about €8.50 a night.
Lesson 7: flip flops, alcohol and uneven cobbles will result in a nasty grazed knee #imhard

The end of the first adventure is nigh!

#5
My next blog post on the last few days of our non-stop group tour in covering Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

Antigua, Guatemala.
We spent two nights in Antigua after Río Dulce. An eight hour bus journey turned into a nice twelve hour journey due to numerous accidents we came across on the Guatemalan roads. These are quite frequent and the driving is erratic with tuk tuks, cars and even Lorries just choosing to use the other side of the road to over take the traffic jams making things even worse. We finally made it to Antigua at about nine that night. Antigua is a colonial city of cobbled streets, it is set higher up and therefore tends to get quite cold at night. It is set between three volcanoes, all of which are Guatemalas only active volcanoes, Fuego, Pacaya and Agua volcanoes. I have planned to stay for a further two weeks after the group tour ends to learn Spanish in one of the many schools they have here so was glad the Antigua lived up to what I had heard about it. It has lots of nice restaurants, bars and cafes and is filled with tourists as well as locals. I've fallen in love with place already.

 

The next day a few of us went on a four hour hike up Pacaya volcano. Entry to the volcano with a tour guide cost about €6. The volcano last erupted in 2014 and destroyed some of the villages around it. The hike up was manageable but steep although there were plenty of locals following us up offering 'taxis' to the top AKA: horses. Most of us managed to make it up easily enough in foot. A section below the mouth of the volcano where the lava had poured into was still steaming and we were able to toast marshmallows! There was also a small 'Lava store' where the Mayan villagers nearby use the volcanic rock to make jewellery and sell. The jewellery was beautiful and of course it was too good not to buy something.

Later that day the rain came....for hours. Seeing as it is rainy season it's to be expected I guess. There
is a huge local market in Antigua so we went for a look. It was manic, with narrow paths between the
stalls selling everything from clothes, wallets, pots, pans, Tupperware and lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and animals. Lots of offal, including hearts, livers and kidneys on display (a vegetarians worst nightmare). They also had live chickens in baskets...whose fate I did not have much hope for.

We found a small street cafe in the market full of locals and ordered 'pollo' (chicken) from one of the elderly women preparing the food. We got a chicken stew, rice, salad and tortillas (tortillas come with EVERY main meal here) and a fresh fruit juice for €2 each. Bargain. It was also a good way to practice my embarrassingly bad Spanish.

Later that night we had a salsa lesson which was hilarious but really good fun. Our teacher Martine
was an absolute pro. We had dinner in a place called Rainbow café after stepping on each others toes.
 Followed by a big night out in Antigua consisting of an Irish bar, bad salsa dancing, giant jenga
complete with dares and lots of tequila. The next day with a sore head I packed a bag for two nights and we headed for Lago De Atitlán.

Next stop: Lago De Atitlán, Guatemala
Food: chicken stew, rice and pickled salad, tortillas for €2 at the market
Drinks: copious amounts of tequila and lemonade
Bars/restaurants: Reillys (obviously an Irish bar), Rainbow cafe for our salsa lesson and good nachos! The lucky rabbit for dancing, lots of fellow backpackers, beer pong, giant jenga and table tennis
Lesson 5: Marshmallows taste better toasted on top of a volcano

Lago De Atitlán (lake Atitlán) Guatemala
A three hour bus journey took us to Panajachel on Lake Atitlán. Lake Atitlán is a very popular destination with both tourists and holidaying Guatemalans. Apparently it has been described as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world! It has thirteen Mayan villages dotted around the lake. Panajachel is the main hub for accessing the rest of the villages around the lake. It has plenty of stalls selling colourful Mayan woven crafts including scarves, rugs, bags, clothing and shoes. We spent most of the day wandering around looking at what was on offer. As it is low season there were not as many tourists around as usual. There were lots of Mayan women and children walking around trying to sell us souvenirs even when we were sitting having lunch. After a while it got quite annoying as they wouldn't go away even when you said no thanks to them in Spanish. The next day we had a long day planned, visiting the Mayan villages around the lake ending in a nights stay with a local family in
a small village called San Juan. I was happy enough to leave Panajachel, I wasn't overly impressed with it but it is a useful starti point for exploring the rest of the lake with plenty of water taxis and tour complaines.

Views from Casa Del Mundo

We got a taxi boat the next morning and stopped off at a 5 star hotel called La Casa del Mundo which was set on the side of the lake. It had lots of little terraces with hammocks, chairs and tables all with views of the beautiful lake. We had a couple of hours to hang around there and could swim in the lake. It's definitely a place to stay if you aren't in a backpacking budget.

We then got a boat to the Mayan village of Santiago Atitlán. We were lucky enough to have a local guide to take us around the village. He was a local Mayan man in the local dress. The villages all have their own Mayan dialect which is their first language, Spanish being their second. He was

explaining to us that there is a 7:1 ratio of women in the village and it is common for men to have multiple wives although he said for the younger men it isn't as common, the reason being that having more than one wife is too expensive these days! The guys in the group seemed to agree with him......

He brought us to a beautiful church from the 1500's that was built when the Spanish invaded. They have incorporated the many Mayan gods with the Christian saints, he showed us some people praying and explained that they were praying to the Mayan gods and not the Christian gods. The village was a mix of Mayan religion, Catholic and Mayan Christians.

We then walked up the narrow cobbled streets, behind people's houses to visit a Mayan Saint......I didn't really know what to expect. The Saint is called 'Maximón' who we were told is an evil Saint. He moves house every May which is historical. He was previously moved to avoid the Spanish finding him. We entered a small room to see three men eating their lunch, flashing lights all around the room like Christmas. In the middle of the room was a four foot wooden statue with a top hat on, a suit jacket and lots of ties around his neck. The best bit......he was smoking a cigarette.....so surreal! This was their Saint. The men that were in the room are called 'shaman' and are apparently chosen at birth by the midwives! They basically seemed to sit there lighting cigarettes for Maximón and giving him strong liquor. It all seemed very bizarre seeing as the Saint is Woden statue.... Anyway visitors are expected to come and have a drink with Maximón or make a 'donation' to visit home. We were not allowed to take photos but I have included one I have found just to show how strange the whole thing was.

After a few hours in San Antonio we  got another boat to a small local village called San Juan where we would be spending the night with local families. When we got to the island we had a local lunch of avocados, rice, squash, chicken, carrots and of course tortillas. After lunch we met our host families. Myself and my roommate Ellie were greeted by a lovely lady called Elena. She was dressed in the local Mayan clothing and mainly spoke Mayan with a small bit of Spanish.  We followed her up a massively steep hill to her house. We didn't speak much Spanish and she spoke even less English but we were still able to communicate a small amount. The house was very basic but we had our own room and were greeted by two lovely little dogs and Elenas' granddaughter who was about five, she was desperate to show us her toys and was delighted when we gave her presents of stickers and lollies.

After leaving our bags off Elena brought us to the main square of the small village where we were meeting the rest of our group again. For the rest of the afternoon we were shown around three local co-operatives set up by the local communities. The first was a demonstration of the local weaving, called back strap weaving. It was so impressive to see the various colours that the women got from using all natural, locally sourced products such as avocados, beetroot and different berries and barks. There were hundreds of scarves, bags, hats on show that had all been handmade by the local women. The scarves cost around €12-16 and took roughly 4 days to make!

Local weaving 

Locally made scarves

Homemade lunch in San Juan 

We also visited a local art gallery and natural medicinal shop. It was torrential rain as we were walking around...of course I was not prepared but managed to fashion a hood out of a plastic bag. Slave to fashion. After getting drenched we all headed back to our home stays where we had a quiet night with our local Mayan families, learning about their way of life and culture. Ellie and I offered to help Elena and her daughter (also called Elena) with dinner. We helped them make tortillas, flattening balls of dough out and patting them down in our hands. Needless to say ours were the runts of the batch with one of mine being dropped on the floor, much to the dogs delight. After a long day we ate dinner with the family and spoke a bit about football and where we from but the language barrier did limit the conversation. We had an early night and got ready to head back to Antigua then next day where we had a big last night out in Antigua and reluctantly said our goodbyes as our tour officially ended and our group dispersed the next day.  Very strange get after being family for over two weeks!

On our last day a few of us hiked up a viewpoint on the north side of Antigua called Cerro De La Cruz which overlooks the whole of Antigua including the volcanoes surrounding the city. It was a nice, hot day and a perfect way to end the first part of my adventure.

Cerro De La Cruz 

Next stop: staying in Antigua for another two weeks
Food: beautiful breakfast in Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlán
Drinks: minimal apart from our last night out in Antigua
Bars/restaurants: 'Las sopas' restaurant in Antigua for one of the guys' birthdays which included a vegan cake! A bar called 'La Chimena' owned by a local couple from Antigua.
Lesson 6: Making tortillas is surprisingly hard
Jxxx