Lake Atitlan, San Pedro Volcano, and Antigua

The past 2 weeks or so have been quite rough. I have been quite sick on and off but have tried to make the best of it. I spent a few days at a hostel called, “Free Cerveza” at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala to catch up with some old travel friends and to see the lake, which was absolutely gorgeous. The only way to get around the lake is by boat as it is all surrounded by tall sharp mountains and volcanoes.

I only stayed at Free Cerveza for 2 nights and on the last day I journeyed to San Pedro, which is another city on the lake where I hiked San Pedro Volcano with 3 other hostel-goers.

The volcano is inactive and the whole interior and exterior now are covered in luscious jungle. I actually found the hike up to be way harder than I was expecting. What I thought was going to be a 1 hour hike turned out to take over 3 hours just to get to the top.

After the hike I took a series of 4 “chicken buses” to get to Antigua, Guatemala. Chicken buses are old school buses that have been souped up to look like a drug dealer’s rolling pad. I’ve never experienced more intense driving in my life. Somehow the locals are able to stay put in their seats but I was never able to sit and relax because I was being thrown out of my seat at every turn.

I got into Antigua quite late, met up with the pals, drank some cuba libres and laid down for the night.

In the morning I woke up to experience the bright beauty of Antigua. It is an old and colorful city that gives off the impression that it is thriving and falling apart at the same time. It’s littered by old churches, street food, and stray dogs.

After getting settled in Antigua for a little bit I decided I would take some Spanish classes. My Spanish teacher was Carmen. This is her trying to teach me Spanish in the middle of telling me I’m her worst student. We connected well as teacher and student and would often spend the whole 4 hour lesson talking about life.

Carmen’s drawing of me

So far Antigua has been a nice relaxing city to focus somewhat on learning Spanish and hiking around. I arrived just after the Fuego catastrophe, and while you could still see the volcanic ash  strewn across the streets, you could never see any lack of determination in the people to accept the ones who were displaced and to rebuild.