A week in Antigua

So after almost going back to Guatemala City we get off the bus in Antigua in the middle of a parking lot that serves as the bus terminal. We´re not sure where we want to go and it´s already pretty late, around 9pm. As we´re looking for a place to stay, we end up meeting a guy named Pablo who speaks decent English. Him and is buddy Eddie ¨apparently¨ work for the city tourism board and are being extremely helpful. Of course as a traveler Cramer and I are both aprehensive about anyone helping too much. There´s usually always a catch, but both guys are genuinely good guys. They are pretty hilarious too and we end up getting a couple of beers with them, while practicing our baby like Spanish. They do know a cheap hotel nearby and they can get us set up for some Spanish classes if we want them. We decide to think it over and let them know in the morning. After thinking it over we decide it might be a good idea to get a few hours of Spanish lessons to make it easier to communicate.

The next day Eddy and Pablo take us to a house that serves as both a boarding house/hostel and the place where will be getting tutored in Spanish. The house is off one of the main streets on a side street and has about 7 rooms for rent. The family lives in the front part of the house where there is living room, dining room, a small kitchen, and a room where they sleep. If we stay in the house we also get 3 meal a day included. So basically we get 20 hours of Spanish lessons and five nights of room and board for about $180. Which sounds great since we´ve been burning through about $100/day for awhile. We accept the offer and get a pretty large room with two nice size beds. The rest of the house is populated by a rather strange cast of characters. Some have been living in the house for months, others just like us have stayed for only a week or so. Antigua is a hot bed for people all over the world to come to learn Spanish and also do volunteer work. Many of the people staying in the house are college kids from the states doing some kind of volunteer work for the summer that relates to their majors. Others are Europeans traveling, learning Spanish, or volunteering as well. It´s a pretty international mix in the house with people from Germany, USA, Switzerland, France, England, and the family from Guatemala. The guys we meet from the States are all pretty young and seem to be having a great time. It seems like a pretty cool and adventurous thing to do for a college kid to spend their summer volunteering in a foreign country. With so many college kids down here it´s a pretty big party for them almost any night of the week. Breakfast is served at 7:30am, lunch is at 1pm, and dinner is at 7:30pm. If we can´t make one of the meals we need to tell Mama, the lady of the house, so she knows not to prepare food for us. It´s pretty fun sitting down with a bunch of strangers at the dinner table for multiple meals hearing their tales of travel, sordid love affairs, and misadventures. Through out the week we hang out with various people in the house.
We begin our first lesson that very afternoon at 2pm. We´re suppose to do 5 hours of Spanish each day for 4 days. This seems like a good idea until we actually start. Now I have a little background is Spanish, taking 4 years in high school, but Cramer has no prior knowledge. My teacher is named Juan Buruillo and he´s about 57 or so. He doesn´t speak much English, but is really funny and patient. Cramer´s teacher is named Mario and he´s about 59, and was on the Guatemalan national soccer team for 15 years. Both of our teachers are excellent, but they don´t have much to work with between the two of us. Our brain´s start to melt down at about the 3 hour mark. We tell them we´re going to have to switch to 4 hours for 5 days instead. Which really turns out to be about 3 and half hours a day, because that´s all we can handle. They give us about a semester´s worth of Spanish in 18 hours or so, which is overwhelming. But they want to give us enough so we can continue studying it as we travel. The first few days Cramer and I study a little in the morning and then come back to the house for lunch at one, then do our class from 2 to about 5:30. Eat dinner at 7:30, then go roam around town for awhile before coming back and passing out fairly early to do it all over again.

Antigua is often considered one of the best cities in Guatemala if not all of Central America. It is definitely the main tourist city in Guatemala. But while there are many tourists the city stays true to its colonial and Guatemalan roots. It is fairly small, yet has a lively energetic feel. The city retains the wonderful colorful Spanish architeture complete with many old crumbling colonial churches. Many of the churches were partially destroyed during the many earthquakes that have occured over the last few hundred years there. Many volcanoes surround the city, with volcanoes Agua and Fuego, the two biggest, towering over the city. The city has cobblestone roads, wonderful restaurants, and an incredible central park. The area around central park is where most of the action takes place. People hang out here during the day and night and there are many Mayan women selling their goods, while tourists, locals, and others come and go. I can´t believe the number of awesome and cool looking restaurants and bars. Everything retains that traditional feel, yet with an updated twist. Compared to much of the other parts of Guatemala, Antigua seems to be very prosperous and foreign investors are pouring money into the bars and restaurants around town.

While we´re here people keep telling us about the festival that is taking place. The city is celebrating their patron saint, St. James, over the weekend and there will be music, dancing, food, and partying. As we walk through the streets at various times over the weekend there are student groups marching and dancing, people dressed up in costumes dancing, marching bands playing in the street, fireworks, and small parades. At night the festivities focus around the Central Parque, where food vendors are out and music is being played by a full band.

After getting burnt out a little by the Spanish we´re trying to learn, Cramer and I decide to climb one of the nearby volcanoes, Pacaya, the next day (Sunday). Our Spanish class is in the morning and then we´ll head off to the volcano around 2pm. It is about an hour away by mini van and there is a whole crew again packed in. Just about every tour we meet people from all over the world, this time is no exception. When we get to the base of the volcano there are guys trying to get us to take a horse up, I may be out of shape, but not that out of shape yet. Other kids are trying to rent us walking sticks. Cramer rents one for 3 quetzales (50 cents). We walk up with little problems other than profuse sweating, but that´s normal. The guide tells us that Pacaya exploded last year and killed a journalist. The top was blown off in a similar fashion to Mt. St. Helens, but not nearly as devastating. When we get to the highest point we can go, we begin cutting across the side of the volcano. The ground is quite treacherous, because we are walking in loose gravelly volcanic rock. After walking across the wasteland with steam pouring out of vents, similar to Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings, we stop. One of the people on the tour brought marshmellows and we will be roasting them in the vents. Immense heat is coming off certain spots on the volcano and our group enjoys the brown gooey toasty treat as a result. We head back down, not with out a little drama, as an elderly man on the tour can´t make it down. We wait until a guy on a horse rides up to bring him down. A little tired and dirty we head back to town for the night.

It´s Monday and it´s our last Spanish class. Before class we hike up to a place called Cerro de a Cruz. Which is a big hill overlooking the whole town that has a big cross up on it. It has a great view of the entire city. We finally head back down and get ready for our class. After about an hour of tutoring Cramer says it´s time to go to a restaurant or bar. We had planned on taking our teachers out for a few drinks and food, so we all say let´s do it. We end up going to a Chinese restaurant that my teacher likes. We all order a bunch of food and some liters of Gallo. (Gautemala´s #1 beer) We practice our Spanish the best we can and have a great time with our teachers. Both of us have defintely improved and we´re happy with our experience. After a few more beers and food we say farewell. Later that night we walk down by the Central Parque where we´re treated to some more great music and street food. It´s a great way to cap off the week. The next day we´re going to Lake Atitlan about 3 hours way in the highlands. The next morning at 7am we say farewell to Mama and thank her for the food and hospitality and grab the next chicken bus to Lake Atitlan.