Antigua
By Jaimy de Vries
Antigua is an old Spanish colonial town with many beautiful buildings and old ruins. It’s surrounded by many volcano’s. Antigua was our “base camp” for almost two weeks. Due to bad weather and cancellations we stayed here longer than we wanted. But at the end it all turned out for the best!
It was a great site seeing Guatemala city from the airplane with a big volcano on the background. It gave me a new energy. This would be a new adventure. We arranged a shuttle to a smaller town close by: Antigua. The traffic was crazy. It was very busy and we saw lots of motors pushing through. We were a bit surprised: the city itself and the cars and people looked quite modern. Not so poor as we expected.
Once we entered Antigua we were somewhere completely else: a small romantic town with many old colonial buildings that are well maintained. We decided to stay here, because first it’s a beautiful city with many sightseeings, but also because staying in Guatemala city is unsafe and not a good place for tourists. Well we felt really safe in Antigua. It’s Tranquillo here. Everybody is relax and super friendly. One thing we didn’t liked is that it’s very touristic. What means tourist prices. After one day paying tourist prices we were done, we don’t like these scams. We checked some blogs and found some local restaurants with local prices. Instead of paying 20 euro for a simple dinner for two, we paid 5 euro. A big difference!
We were quite surprised by the weather even though we knew it was rain season. Here the rain season is different than in Florida and Mexico. Maybe because we’re higher in the mountains…and therefore colder temperatures. Here it’s 20 degrees instead of 30-35 degrees in Mexico. And it was really cloudy with lots of rain showers and thunderstorms. We knew we were surrounded by volcanos, but because of the clouds we couldn’t see any the first days.
Hobbitenago
On our second day we explored the city and went to a hobbit village close by. Hobbits in Guatemala? Yes a hobbit village. It was amazing, we liked it so much! We bought a transfer and entrance ticket at their office in Antigua. It was a steep ride on small road to the top of a mountain. The village was quite big, you can stroll around for hours. There were quite some hobbit houses you can enter. The inside was usually a restaurant or place to sit down. They had some fun outdoor games, like Jenga with bricks or you could practice shooting arrows. And they had an amazing viewpoint with a giant sticking out his hand in the sky. And you can stand on that hand for some cool pictures. First it was really cloudy, but we stayed long and made several attempts in the hope the clouds would clear.
Cute little hobbit houses
Knock knock
On the swing
Practicing shooting an arrow
Oeh nice beard
Viewpoint
Take my hand
We were lucky: the view cleared up
The volcano curse - part 1
Guatemala and Antigua are known for the volcano’s and volcano tours. There are two active volcano’s close by: Fuego and Pacaya. You can visit Pacaya on a day trip twice a day. To see the active volcano Fuego you can go on a 2-day trip with an overnight stay on top of the volcano Acatenango. How cool is that? Of course I wanted the 2-day trip. But once we arrived in Antigua it was raining every day and there were many clouds.
We heard from our host that people still went on the trip, climbed the volcano – what is not an easy hike (elevation of 1300 meters) – and at the top they couldn’t even see the volcano. Well that would really suck. We checked the weather during our whole stay and hoped for better weather. We booked it the first week, but the weather was so bad that we canceled it the day before and made a new planning for Guatemala. When we woke up that day it turned out to be a perfect day: the sun was shinning, the skies were blue and we could even see a volcano from the terrace of our hotel. We felt bumped we cancelled it, but our host reassured us that it would be raining a lot that night (and that’s what happend). We decided to cross our fingers that the weather will clear up the week after that. Now we just enjoyed a day of good weather in Antigua.
View from our terrace
Old Antigua
We decided to explore the old town of Antigua, it’s more fun with nice weather. First we went to the Ruins of la Recoleccion, an old monastery. We were the first ones who visited that day. We paid 20Q per person (like 2,50 euro). It was a ruin I’ve never seen before. It’s just exactly how it was after it got damaged. A huge earthquake bought it to the ground and two more after that. It’s quite a big ruin and we were allowed to go almost everywhere and climb on top of damaged structures. Not something you’ll see in Europe where everything is protected and you could only see it behind a line.
We also went to the Santa Catalina Arch, the symbol of Antigua. It’s an iconic picturesque Arch that you can see on many pictures of Antigua. It is a beautiful landmark from the Spanish colonial time with Agua Volcano on the background. It was beautiful, but what I didn’t like is that it was so touristy. While standing there lots of sellers came to us if we wanted to buy something and there are people everywhere making selfies. It’s hard to get a good picture.
After that we just strolled around the cobble stone streets, visited some boutiques and the market, watched pigeons at the main plaza and saw many tuk-tuk’s and scooters driving by. The charm of Antigua.
Tourist talking selfies at the Arch
Mother & daughter selling food
The market
Chicken busses everywhere
Cobble stone streets
Lots of Tuk Tuk taxi’s
Semuc Champey
We left our stuff in Antigua and went on a 3-day trip to Lanquin, a city close to Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey is located in central Guatemala in the middle of nowhere and was about a 7 hour drive away from Antigua, but it was worth the long drive. We had an amazing time there. On a full day trip we drove through small farms, explored the natural pools, went into a cave with only a candle light and jumped off a swing. It was one of the most fun days we had during our long trip. It was beautiful, adventurous and fun at the same time.
If you want to read more, check my blog post.
The volcano curse - part 2
Back in Antigua we wanted to do the 2 day volcano tour and then head out to Nicaragua. How good the weather was in Semuc Champey… Unfortunately the weather in Antigua did not got better. It was raining a lot! We were quite sad because it won’t not be a good idea to go on the 2 day volcano trip to Acatenango, but we didn’t want to stay much longer in the hope the weather will get better. We decided to go on a day trip to another active volcano: Pacaya. This trip starts early in the morning and you’re back in the afternoon. Most of the days in Antigua the weather in the morning is good, but later in the afternoon it will be raining with thunderstorms. So a morning tour would be a good idea. The next morning we woke up at 5 am. I didn’t feel well and it got worse once I got out of bed. I had diarrhea, vomited and was extremely tired. Not a good idea to go on a fysical active tour. We canceled our trip right away, and we were on time. But the tour company said they’re coming anyway and if we don’t step in the bus we need to pay. So rude! I was quite mad, because I was really sick. We laid in bed the whole day, we only went out to eat something… well for me to try to eat something. We felt like we were stuck in Antigua. Again we weren’t able to go on a volcano tour. Maybe the universe is telling us not to go? We decided to let the volcano tours go and book a shuttle to Nicaragua. We had another rest day and I started to feel better.
On our “last day” we packed all our stuff, spend all our last quetzals and wanted to go to bed. But suddenly I got an email from the shuttle company: the shuttle for tomorrow is cancelled due to trouble on the road. “No!!!” I said out loud. We were quiet for a while and very very frustrated. Again stuck in Antigua. It’s like a curse. It’s a problem because we spend all our money, and getting cash out of the ATM cost us around 8 dollars each time. I took a shower to wipe up all the frustration, so I can think clearly what to do. Trouble on the road is maybe not fixed in one day, so the chance of getting on the shuttle the next day was not 100%. We didn’t want to have another day in Antigua with nothing to do. I checked the weather: perfect weather tomorrow. Hmm…I was considering maybe this is the time to go on the 2 day volcano tour. But it would be a risk, I was not 100% recovered yet and the weather is so unpredictable. Plus it was already 10 pm and we don’t have the cash to book the tour. But our amazing host Alex fixed it all for us, and we could pay him later!! The next morning we went on the tour!
Acatenango volcano
So we finally were able to go on the 2-day volcano tour what we hoped for, but eventually gave up on. At the end we were lucky the shuttle to Nicaragua was cancelled. Maybe the Universe was telling us to wait a bit longer. Well it was good it did! The trip was amazing! It was a tough hike to climb up to volcano, a 1350 m elevation on a height of more than 3000 meter above sea level, but for us easy manageable. Ones we were at the top we had an amazing view over the Fuego volcano. And it was a miracle: we didn’t had any rain!
If you want to read more, check my blog post.
My guide for your Antigua trip
Antigua was our “base camp” for almost two weeks. Due to bad weather and cancellations we stayed here longer than we wanted. But at the end it all turned out for the best!
- Recommended duration visit: 5-6 days
- Best places to eat: Lax Mixtas for cheap lunch, Picadilly for good Italian food, Delicia Capinas for a cheap dinner and Fat Coffee house for good coffee & wifi.
- Highlighted things to do: Explore the ruins of Old Antigua, visit the Hobbit village: Hobbitenango, go on a daytrip to the market of Chichicastenango, go on a tour to an active volcano.
- Our accommodation: Landivar hotel
- My favorite activity: Hobbitenango, trip to Semuc Champey and the 2-day trip to Acatenango volcano