Seems that Antigua has run out of Quetsales (local currency!), so while Pete is in one of the queues to try and get some form of cash - I thought that I would take the chance to get some of my thoughts about Antigua and Guatemala up here!
We arrived in Guatemala on 1 Feb. The airport at Guatemala city is pretty interesting. My favourite thing was the fact that the arrivals hall is an empty area which has plastic garden furniture as seats! What a contrast to the Sydney and San Francisco! We took a taxi from Guatemala airport to Antigua - the 45km trip took about 1 hour! I must confess that I have not got many memories of the trip - at that point we were just trying to stay awake! But one thing that does stand out are the 'chicken busses'. This is the local transport which are old US yellow school busses that have been painted a multitutde of colours. They are pretty cool, and for me are such an indication of the country - vibrant and colourful.
Antigua is a beautiful place - cobbled streets framed by tall walls which contain huge doors and windows. Behind each of these doors we are always amazed to see the different internal worlds that the walls contain-many contain tranquil courtyards with water features, a real juxtaposition with the hustle and bustle of the streets. All the houses are painted different shades of yellow, ochre, white and blue.
The town is surrounded by three incredible volcanoes - one of which still has smoke coming out of it - but apparently none are active.
An anecdote that sums up Guatemala so well for me is - we walked into a place to have breakfast one morning, and a young guatemalan who was already in the resaurant looked up and said 'buenas dias'. Apparently it is polite to greet everyone in a place when you enter.
I have pictures up - but am not comuter literate enought to figure out how to put them into the text. It doesn't help that everytime I load photo's all the instructions appear in Spanish! So, please check out our pic's - I will add comments to the photos so that they are in some context!
