A Trip to Planet Earth: Guat's Up?

Antigua is a beautiful colonial old town, once the capital of Guatemala but who sadly lost it's title because of the amount of natural disasters that it endured. It's bursting at the seams with colour and culture and you can easily lose yourself meandering through it's cobbled streets.

Vikki and I woke up early (Emma sadly bound to her room due to a nasty bout of food poisoning that is slowly creeping it's way around the group) and headed out as the city was waking up from it's slumber. Street vendors slowly began to set up shop, the sun gently forced it's way through the clouds and locals could be seen getting children ready for school and sweeping their front porches.

Iced coffee and 'desayuno tipico' at Y Tu Piña Tambien (eggs, guacamole, beans, plantain and salsa) did not disappoint. In fact the guide book was right on the money - 'fantastic breakfasts' and 'amazing coffee'.

We walked aimlessly for a little while, happily losing ourselves and our bearings. It's strenuous work and of course it wasn't long before another refreshment was in order -iced coffee round two and gluten free granola and fruit. We also needed to load up marathon style as we were going to be tackling the mighty Pakaya a mere hour later.

Pakaya is one of the active volcanoes left in Guatemala so it was quite a unique opportunity to be able to trek it. Having been told it was 'easy going', we were midly surprised to be faced with having to drag our feet up pretty steep slopes and over volcanic terrain which had absolutely no grip whatsoever. I don't think I'll trust people from now on when it comes to describing the exertion level of these hikes -I'm only ever left disappointed..!

We were joined up the volcano by a tired looking bunch of horses ("señorita, necesitas un taxi?". "No, los caballos estan cansado) and dogs begging for affection and a bite of marshmallow (those marshmallows roasted by the heat emanating from a volcano).