in Guatemala

I arrived here in Guatemala on Wednesday night at 9 in the evening. The flight was torturous, but I was really happy I had finally arrived.

As it happens, I was standing at the baggage claim and before my bag arrived, the band stopped. Usually a bad sign. I went to the desk and they told me that they had a message from KLM in Amsterdam saying that my bag was still in Amsterdam and that it would probably arrive in 2 to 3 days. NICE. I was suprisingly not worried about it, which was probably explained by the fact that I all I wanted was a bed. It was 5 o'clock the morning back home and I was half falling asleep while standing up.

So I went to Antigua with a shuttle I had organized the night before and went to a small hotel where they were expecting me.

Yesterday, having my first day in Antigua, I went to the market to find some essentials (toothbrush, underwear, etc), which brought me back to life. The whole bag story ended with my bag arriving this moring at the backpackers, one day ahead of time! Of course it did cost a few phone calls beforehand...


The market in Antigua is very interesting. They have lots of second hand clothging stalls and lots of incredible fruit. Pineapple, melons, paw paw, litchie, plums, mango and lots more. I tried a few things and they were amazing. The seconbd hand cloths are actually quite nice and so I went to buy a few things, as the clothing I wore for the travels had a distinctive odor to them...

Antigua is an great place. The whole town has cobbeled (spelling?), narrow streets and lots of small restauratns and shops. It sis surrounded by three vulcanoes, which go up to 3975 meters (Antigua is at 1500m). The fact that the vulcanoes are still active makes it quite exciting to climb them... I found an adventure operator, which organises trips up in the afternoon, sundowners on the vulcanoe, a warm meal on top, camping just a few hundred meters down and then hiking down again the next moring. I'll be doing that the next weekend. This weekend the programm is aclimatising...

The plan is now that I'll be doing a spanish course here in Antigua (which I just signed up for) for two weeks and then head on. For the course I'll be staying with a local family to speed up the learning process a bit. For the next few nights I'm staying at a backpackers, which is always an awesome place to get to now people.

Well, that's all I have for now. I'll write some new stuff soon. Hopefully with some pics then. I really wanna get a nice one of the mountains, but they have been in clouds for the last few days...