Welcome to Antigua

This is just a short post from Antigua. I´ve only been here for a quick night, so no photos yet, but already I´m really liking this place and I´m especially happy to have descended a bit from Xela. Antigua is at about 5000 feet, but the town itself is surrounded by three volcanoes, the tallest of which towers above 9000 feet. It is truly massive. This town has a major seismological history, and used to be the colonial capital of Guatemala, until it was destroyed by earthquakes in the 1700s.

Antigua really is nothing like Xela: It has a lot of charm, it is pretty clean with much better air, it has a lot of colonial buildings of pretty colors, and (bummer) it is quite expensive. Since leaving Xela yesterday I managed to spend about $30 on travel, hostel for the night, dinner, and a night on the town (which did include several drinks and smoking hookah). I´m gonna have to tone that all down a bit since I certainly can´t afford to spend $100 while I´m here. I do have a plan for the next several days though:

I will stay two more nights in Antigua, at the Jungle Party hostel... which is a riot, I like it a lot. It costs about $7 a night there (which is relatively expensive), but includes a pretty sweet breakfast, and they´ve got a flat screen TV for catching the soccer matches (¡GO USA and GO ITALIA!). Tomorrow I´m leaving at 6am for a daytrip to Volcan Picaya, which is the most active volcano in Guatemala, and one of the most active in all of Central America. I will literally be walking over lava and I hear that sometimes the soles of your shoes can get a bit melted. Check back here in a couple of days for some extraordinary photos. I should get back around 1 and have some more time to explore the city. Then, first thing friday morning I´m going to head out of here on a chartered microbus for Monterrico, the charming beachtown on the pacific, very close to El Salvador. Depending on the cost to stay there and how much I like it, I´ll be there for 1-3 nights. It will make a convenient stopover between Antigua and San Salvador, certainly.

That´s all for now. I´m going to snap plenty of pictures from this charming little town and the great volcano so keep checking back!