15 Days in Antigua

15 days in Antigua is not enough. Here is a photo journal of my time spent there...

The main reason I back to Guatemala this summer was to take Spanish classes. This is me and Gladys, my Spanish teacher, and the there one is of her and her 2 beautiful boys, Martin and Hipolito. Martin was extremely photogenic, so here is one just of him too.


I found my Spanish school by luck. The second day I was in Antigua, I roamed the town for about 5 hours. I had checked out several schools, but I stumbled upon a little one, northwest of Parque Central, and got a small tour. The people were wonderful, the setting was bright and laid back, and they had a Chow...I started the next day. Here are some of the students and photos from the Thursday fiesta







Every morning, I walked to Cafe Condesa and got a cup of coffee.
On the way to my school, I always got a view of the active volcano, called Fuego. When it was going off, you could see the smoke billowing up and sometimes you could see the lava flowing.
My classes were from 830am-1230 or 130 pm. This left me the afternoons to walk around and take pictures or meet up with people. There is so much beautiful architecture in Antigua, the photos cannot even begin to tell the story. Antigua used to be the capital of all of Central America. It is an old city, full of rubble, always in repair. I sat in a lot of devastated churches, among the ruins, thinking and listening.









I stayed at a place called El Hostal.

It was run by a great couple that made community meals once/week. This is Gaby, who made the feasts.
And this is the resident bird.

Across the street was a place called Cafe No Se, where I studied and learned of Mescal.

I visited a jade museum, where I learned more about the Maya culture.
This statue is depicting the way Mayan women give birth.
This is a worry doll.
One weekend, I went to Coban and Semuc Chempay. We spent from 2 until 10 driving on Friday, and arrived at a woodsy, mountain retreat type hotel. On Saturday morning, our group walked into a town where we had breakfast.
Then we loaded into a 4x4 and braced ourselves for about 45 minutes of climbing even higher up the mountain.


We arrived at a river and a bridge, where some people jumped off.

We climbed on foot for another hour to get a view of Semuc Chempey from the top.
Then we climbed back down to go swim in the pools and falls of water.



We tried real cacao fruit.

And then we went swimming again.



I don't have photos of the best part of the day, which was 2 hours of walking, climbing, wading, and swimming by candlelight in the bat cave. There were waterfalls inside of it that we had to climb using a rope and slide down. It was a little like the Goonies. I do have photos of the ceremonial Mayan cave we visited the next day.







"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue...Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything." -Rilke