GUATEMALA - Antigua - June 2015 - Chapter 1A, Narrative with Pix

Previously, I posted several pictures of my recent trip to Antigua Guatemala; this post will be contain my narrative and some new pix.

First let’s do a quick recap of what I wrote in “Chapter 1”.

-          Our trip started with three people, Amanda, Kathy, and myself.  We departed Tampa Florida for Guatemala City Guatemala. After an uneventful arrival we rented a car and drove to Antigua for a two day excursion before heading to the Lake Atitlan area.

-          When we reached the road to our AirBnB rental, it was blocked with protestors and police.  As we later found out there was a meeting of Latin American politicians taking place past our rental.

-          We walked the final ¼ to our rental, dropped our luggage, and drove in to Antigua for lunch and sightseeing.

Now we’ll get into what the late Paul Harvey called “The rest of the story”.

Over the next couple of days, we explored the streets, markets, and historical churches. 

The streets of Antigua are old cobblestone.  Although well maintained, they’re still stone and not easy to walk on.  With narrow sidewalks, that are not so well maintained, I choose walking on the cobblestone.

Walking through the markets, there were plenty of crafts, trinkets, local produce, and street entertainers.

Road leading to the town arch

The town arch

The inside of one of the many churches

Same church, just another shot

Pacaya Volcano (Antigua volcano)

The cobblestone streets

On Saturday afternoon, Amanda and I went to the nearby town of Jocotenango, only to find the place we wanted to see closed at 1400; 15 minutes after our arrival.  We did find the local church, but it too was locked so all we got to see is the outside and a neighboring park.

So what do explores do, climb aboard your means of transportation and find something else.

Looking at a guidebook, Amanda suggested we go to a nearby Valhalla Macadamia Nut farm, outside the town of San Miguel Duenas.

The toilet; it's an open air garden

Another shot of the toilet; talk about almost natural

Fresh macadamia nuts

This separates the macadamias by size

Sunday, we departed Antigua about 1330 and make our way to San Pedro, a small town on the banks of Lake Atitlan.  Check out that posting for more narrative and pix.