After a short bus journey from the capital, we arrived in Antigua, which used to be the capital city, founded by the conquistadors when the invaded. The reason it is no longer the capital is why it’s such a beautiful city- it’s got a ring of volcanoes around it, and there are a lot of earthquakes, causing the population to give up rebuilding their homes and living in fear and relocate to the current capital.

We stayed in a beautiful little hotel, which was nice and quiet, in a great location, with it’s own restaurant set around a little courtyard with a fountain. After a quick lunch we set off to explore the small city, and we spent the afternoon wandering the cobbled streets, eating ice cream and booking our tour up a volcano for the next day.

As we’ve found with the rest of Guatemala, restaurants close early and there’s very little nightlife, not helped by the fact it was low season for tourists. Most nights we’d ate dinner and were in bed by nine, but we’d be up early the next day to do exploring. Antigua proved no exception to the rule.

The volcano we visited was called Pacaya, and it was a 4km hike to the top, and once you were at the top you’d be privy to a very rare sight- molten lava running down the side of the volcano. It’s obviously an incredibly active volcanic region- Pacaya’s last big erruption was a few months ago, and we felt and heard the volcano rubble underneath our feet as we walked up it, which was a bit scary! In the distance we could see Fuego volcano spewing out smoke, and our guide told us that Guatemala has no fewer than 33 active volcanoes. A fact which made it difficult to get to sleep that night, with a vision of the surrounding volcanoes which could be seen from any window in the city!

Once we were back in Antigua we spent the afternoon taking photos and eating great cake! Food in Guatemala was invariably rubbish- very bland, either chicken or beef with rice or potatoes, but the redeeming point is that they know how to make very good cakes!

Another thing Guatemala is famous for is it’s jade. There are a couple of types only found in Guatemala, including purple jade which has the most incredible colour and translucency. The jewellery fanatic came out in me once again and we visited a fair few jade shops!

We spent the evening somewhere we thought we might be able to eat our meal at a leisurely pace, a nice restaurant that had a lovely extensive menu, and most importantly, a well stocked dessert trolley.

As we sat down, the entertainment began- oh my god. There were ten or so dancers in tradditional dress, with traditional hand carved masks on, doing what can only be described as a repetition of a few fairly intricate steps along to live music- a collection of men whose ages rivalled the Buena Vista Social Club’s playing a combination of the double bass, drums and a massive, two layered xylophone type contraption, with quite some skill I must add. The inevitable happened and the collection of coach tour tourists were invited up, little by little- from the embarassing dad dancers to the gyrating grandmothers. It went on for several eternities, and while we couldn’t bear watching, it was impossible to think of moving to one of the tables in the (quieter) courtyard.

Eventually it ended, and our dinner arrived, and the new record of a three course meal with coffee in under 45 minutes was set.

The next morning we slowly packed our things again, went out for a breakfast bagel and enjoyed free wifi (where we found out from the local news website that our building had been on fire, but a quick call to my mum put our minds at rest, as it was a flat on the other side of the building) and then set off over mountains, around volcanoes and up and down valleys on our journey to Panajachel.