Antigua, Guatemala

Well ,we have now moved on from Mexico and are currently living in Antigua, Guatemala. We had heard great things about Antigua being an excellent place to learn Spanish and also being extremely cheap to live, so we´ve settled here for a month or so. It doesn´t hurt that Antigua is a pretty special place all by itself. It actually used to be the capital of Guatemala a little over 200 years ago before a huge earthquake in 1773 flattened most of the city. The town itself (only 40,000 odd people now) was named a World Heritage site 30 years ago. When you see the beautiful cobbled streets (which would kill most car´s suspension), the magnificent old buildings & churches, the colourful cafes, bars and restaurants, you soon see why.

We arrived here after a grueling 12 hour shuttle bus trip from San Cristobal. The minivans we took were quite nice but we seemed to be constantly held up to change vans (5 in all after being told there would only be one van change at the border). We were also faced with a couple of long delays due to some major roadworks on the main freeway.

We finally got here and have set up camp with our host family - Maria and Salva. We were extremely fortunate that one of our very good friends from Vancouver (Jennie) stayed with the same family 2 years ago and recommended them to us. They have been so hospitable to us from the start. They put us up in their beautiful garden room (just off the main house) and have constantly been helping us with our Spanish. Both have been quick to give us a lot of tips on what to do in and around Antigua which has made our short time all the more rewarding. Their youngest son William (a cheeky 30 year old) and his American girlfriend - Karin, have been around regularly and we´ve had some good laughs with them around the dinner table.

As far as our Spanish is going, our teachers - Julia and Sandra have taught us a lot already. It´s amazing how much you can learn in such a short time....so much so that it´s hard to keep up. Our 4 hours of instruction in the mornings is usually followed by another 4 hours of revision in the afternoon to try and comprehend everything. It´s tough, but we are loving it.

We originally said we´d stay for 4 weeks, but we are probably going to try and stay for an extra week to learn even more. We are aware that our services are needed at the Orphanage in Rio Dulce so we´ll see....

All´s good for now.

Here´s our latest slideshow from our early days in Antigua.



As always, if you can´t see this slideshow, please check out the link here - Week 1 Antigua Pics