Antigua, day one

Sunday 29th July 2012

I woke up quite early this morning; before my 7:30am alarm. Must be the jet lag. I was awake a little through the night, too. I battled against the language barrier again to get some tea and toast from the hotel, and then headed out to explore.

Parque central

I went to the Parque Central first, Antigua's main square. At 10:15am there were already quite a few locals there, sitting on benches around the fountain. Musicians were setting up to play, and horses and carriages waited around the edge to give peope rides. A few street peddlers approached me trying to sell textiles, jewellery and flutes, but none of them were pushy about it. There was a service going on at the Catedral de San Jose, which takes up one side of the square. Apparently there are ruins round the back of it that you can explore, as most of the catedral was destroyed in 1773 when it was only a little over 100 years old. Will have to go back tomorrow.

All of the streets here are cobbled, and the buildings are painted different colours. It was easy not to get lost because everything's built on a grid system. The city is surrounded by three volcanes: Agua, Acatenana and Fuego. (I briefly wondered if one of them was errupting this morning when I heard loud banging outside, but it must've been some fireworks. Haha.)

After wandering round quite a while, past a handicraft market, the Arch of Santa Catalina and the church of La Mercad, I decided to change some money at the bank. Even though most tourist places will (according to the guide book) accept US dollars, all of the prices are in the Guatemalan quetzal.

 

I walked back to the hotel to drop of some stuff and collect my netbook, then went to a cool little place called the Bagel Barn - mostly because of the free wifi. I realised that the wifi means I can message people through What's App on my phone too, yay. Gorgeous bagel - called guate guate, with egg, cheese and black beans and a bit of guacamole. It also came with a strawberry smoothie and a cup of tea - perfect. While I updated my blog I got chatting to an American called Corey; a really friendly guy who's been travelling for months and to most of the places I'm going to be visiting, so he was telling me lots about it and showing me some of his photos.
We decided to go up to Cerro de la Cruz together, via my hotel to drop off my netbook. (Thankfully it was on the way.) While I was there I briefly met two of the girls from my group, Rose and Una (from Australia and Ireland respectively) and my tour guide for Guatemala, Ernesto.

I headed back out and walked up the hill with Corey at a leisurely pace. The weather has been just perfect today - sunny and warm (shorts and t shirt weather) but not too hot for me. It was nice chatting on the way up, and when we got to the top the view was beautiful. There were lots of Guatemalan families there as well as some tourists, and a few of the locals wanted their picture taken with Corey just because he's black and over six feet tall.

We said bye after walking back down the hill, and I went back to my hotel as I only had an hour or so before my group meeting. I saw Ernesto and Rose again and also met Jeremy, another Aussie, before having a quick shower - my feet were so dusty from Cerro de la Cruz. We had the group meeting, where I also met Natasha, another Aussie who will be my roommate from tomorrow. There was also a German couple - don't know their names yet or if they're travelling with us for very long. Ernesto's really funny, and everyone seems really nice. We went out for tea together - I had yummy spinach and cheese quesadillas - and then a few drinks at an Irish bar before some of us went home for the night.