Arriving in Antigua...
- Lois Butler-Kettle
- Dec 23, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 23, 2020
After saying a sad goodbye to Lake Atitlan, we moved on to Antigua, a small city a couple of hours away. We arrived in the dark, but the streets were lit up a mass of people carrying candles and multi coloured lights down the middle of the street for a funeral procession. Something I have learnt while living in Honduras is that Central Americans never do things by halves and this was a perfect example. We eventually escaped from the traffic generated by the parade and were dropped off at our hostel, Somos where we met a friend and went out in search of Dominoes. Being back in a busy city felt strange and slightly overwhelming, but had welcome perks of restaurants we recognised and I was soon introduced to the joys of Uber Eats which was very handy later on that week when I was too ill to leave the hostel :)) Antigua is renowned for its Spanish Baroque-influenced architecture from the times of Spanish colonialism, until the 1773 called an end to that. However most of the city's buildings were restored in the same style and even new businesses, such as the Dominoes, can be found within these old colonial-style properties.
Antigua is full of wonderful hostels with excellent reviews, Somos is no exceptiong. It is lovely with a very laid back atmosphere and lovely staff, but its best asset has got to be the huge flat-screen TV in the lounge where you can find everyone cosied up on the sofas watching Netflix. Esther hadn't been feeling so great recently so it was a perfect place to relax and take time to recoup. While in Antigua, we met up with some of the other volunteers who we hadn't seen since Belize as they had gone up to Mexico while we had gone down into Guatemala. It was great to catch up with them as I'd missed them a lot, and exchanging funny travel stories was very entertaining plus we celebrated Alexander's birthday (whoop whoop feliz cumpleanosss!!).
One of the main reasons people come to Antigua is to climb the volcano which towers over the city, Volcan de Acatenango. While staying in Somos, we witnessed other travellers leave for and come back from the two-day hike absolutely ravished, telling tales of attitude sickness and the intense cold at the summit. However, their photos were incredible and they all described it as an experience of a lifetime so if you get a chance to do it, I'd say go for it. Unfortunately, Esther and I really weren't very well during our time in Antigua, so we had to give the volcano hike a pass, but it is definitely something I would come back and do. Instead, while the other volunteers went off, we ambled through the uneven streets and found our way to the famous Santa Catalina Arc which sits proudly in all its bright yellow glory above the street its as originally it connected the Santa Catalina convent to a school which meant the nuns had no need to cross the streets below.
The rest of the day we wandered around, exploring the various jewellery stores and supermarkets where we collected ingredients to make a killer cheesy pasta as we had realised it had been way too long since the last time we made our own food..so much for our travel budgeting...And then, yes I know we were not feeling our best, but that didn't mean we were going to miss out on Ladies' Night so off we went with our newly made friends for yet another eventful night...
Antigua has so much to offer and in the little time we had there, we really tried to make the most of it. One day we walked up to the 'Cerro de la Cruz', the viewpoint on the hillside with a giant stone cross - constructed in the 1930s - where you can look down over the city with an unobstructed view of the volcano in the background. It is beautiful, and we were able to spot all of the city's famous landmarks from above, such as the Santa Catalina arc and central park.
Another afternoon we ventured further out of the city to find the market which was crazily busy so we didn't last long there, and also discovered the well-known indoors Maya market which was full of different fabrics and painted wooden masks and woven bags. The colours are stunning, and something I admire is the way Guatemala is determined to preserve and share it's Maya culture by making sure the Maya people are supported and able to sell the wonderful things they make just alongside the other vendors of more commercial goods.
One of the highlights of Antigua for me was our visit to Hobbitenango (as you have probably guessed, its a play on the words Hobbiton and Acatenango). Established in 2015, Hobbitenango was originally intended to be a small-eco village however it soon became a tourist favourite and has become somewhere that can be visited by anyone. It is adorable, with several hobbit-style houses and faire games such as archery and horse-riding available. While it sounds a little wacky, it fits the Panchoy valley surroundings perfectly, and next to the erupting volcanoes, nestled in the mountainside, it seems as though it has been there all along.
As well as all of these wonderful places the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Antigua has to offer, there is also the renowned Antigua Mansion party which only occurs once a month and as fate would have it, it was happening that weekend. So, after our friend James glittered us up and we restocked on Quetzaltecas, we hopped in the mini bus and headed to an abandoned mansion on the edge of the city. And guess who was there as head of security - Carlos, the captain of the party boat at Lake Atitlan! He recognised me and gave me a big hug, although he did then go on to call me Helen but we'll let that slide...
The next day the whole hostel was in recovery after getting back at 5:30am, so we all spent most of it crowded onto the sofas, ordering pizzas in and working our way through the 'Don't F*ck with Cats' Netflix documentary which left us all slightly mentally scarred...so we tried to solve that by wasting the what was left of the afternoon away with pirates of the Caribbean instead :))
After allowing us to gather our strength and introducing us to all of its secret spots, Antigua has served its purpose well and has prepared us for our next journey, which is gonna be a long one; we are taking a shuttle bus all the way from Antigua in Guatemala to the island of Utila which is located just off the northern coast of Honduras. Yup. Wish us luck, because we are really going to need it…
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