Guatemala - Antigua

More mini van ride and we arrived in Antigua. It seems there are always construction on the roads in Guatemala. We would stop in the middle of the road for an hour at a time. At first, cars lined up would honk and be generally impatient. Then people would turn their engines off and street vendors would start going from car to car selling food and newspaper.

Antigua is a colonial city with cobble stone streets - kind of like San Cristobal, Mexico but perhaps slightly more run-down looking. It feels like every fifth person we pass on the street is an American college kid (Spanish schools are very good and cheap here). Our first day here, we had bagel and cream cheese for breakfast at ´Bagel Barn´, went to an English used book store and went to ´Cafe 2000´ showing ´Music and Lyrics´ (starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant) on a projector screen.

Hoping pigtails would make me look younger:

Can´t post the close-up because Bill has the black-socks-with-sneakers look:

Cafe 2000:

Volcan Pacaya:

Around Antigua is an active volcano - Volcan Pacaya. It is an hour and a half uphill hike after some dirt roading in the car. We were hoping our tour group would consist of middle aged tourists, but alas, they were all young, healthy Scandinavian kids. They practically ran up the hill, talking loudly. We, on the other hand, crawled up sweating profusely, silent the whole way up so as not to waste precious energy on talking. We got REALLY close to the active lava - in fact, rather too close for comfort. We poured water on the rocks (or in Bill´s case, spat on the rocks) and it sizzled and evaporated instantly - very cool.

Dang young healthy kids and me:

Jeeheon´s quest for Korean food:

Finally, after long three weeks, I found a Korean restaurant inside a Spanish school in Antigua. I was too impatient to take a picture before eating, but here´s an after-shot: