Antigua, June 20-23

Latin America is the very popular in general for learning Spanish; there are schools in almost all decent-sized towns. But Antigua is by far the biggest of them all – there are around 70 schools in a town of around 20.000 people, and the whole town is very dominated by them and their students.

For some people this is great – it is a good way for 18-year old kids to hang around with people from all over the world, and go to school in the mornings and just party and have fun the rest of the time. But if it the genuine Guatemala you want to see, this is definitely not where you want to go. Having said that, I did enjoy the more western-style feeling that you get here. Many people spoke English (weirdly enough...), there were plenty of bars, restaurants and discos, and I had a great time with some of the kids that stayed at my hostel.

The waterpipe is ALWAYS a good way to start your clubbing.

Also, the town is really beautiful, in a distinctly colonial style that you don’t see much down here, where the towns generally are VERY ugly regardless of size.

But the reason I came were the volcano hikes. Unfortunately, with the combination of low season and the soccer world championships on TV, no one else was interested in that, so the 2-day hike I wanted to do to Acatenango (4000 meter high, more than 2000 verticals on the hike) wasn’t possible (3 people minimum). It still irritates me somewhat, but a nice thing about being in these parts of the world is that you get very tolerant about how things work out. I hope that the same feeling sticks when I get back home, because I really like how I’m much less irritable now than when I left home.

Bonus picture for all my fans :-): the world’s ugliest and fattest dog lives(?) in Antigua!