Antigua, Goodbyes, dissapointment & reaquainting with friends and Nicaragua

17Jan
I arrived in aitigua and got a hostel fairly quickly. I wandered around town. At first it struck me how many tourists and most especially tour buses are here, compared to other places I have been. I found it distasteful. However walking around I escaped the hoards and found rather a beautiful city, well restored and maintained. I looked for hiking boots, none to be found.

I found a cheap place for tacos and all was well. I met this Guatemalan who had lived in America for some time but had now come back to Antigua. He was a tour guide and told me that the lava at the volcano I wanted to go to, had stopped flowing 3 days earlier and the flow had moved to a further location. He did recommend some places to find boots though.

18Jan Next day, I took the early bus to Guatemala city. Had to get a rather expensive taxi to a shopping mall but no go. After searching a few malls and the area in Guatemala centre, I gave up and tried to do a few tourist things. There wasnt a lot to see in Guatemala city but it wasnt as ferocious as many people had indicated. But the museums cost a fortune and as I didnt have much time I skipped them. Then it was the bus back to Antigua.

19Jan I wandered around town looking for a tour to take me up the volcano and a bus to take me to Nicaragua. There were conflicting stories about possible buses. Anyway, I found a bus and a tour company.

That afternoon I waited for the bus to take me to Pacaya Volcano and hopefully some lava. It took a few hours to get to the spot where we started to climb. The views were pretty spectacular and the path to the volcano was over previous lava flows that had now cooled to a brittle black. Some of it warm.

Our guide threw some leaves into a crack in the lava with a little steam coming from it. We could see and hear the leaves crackling and eventually they went on fire with the heat from the lava underneath. Some people even had marshmallows to roast over some of the hotter cracks. I could feel my soles softening with the heat. So we wandered around aimlessly. The guide didnt try very hard to do anything and we were not walking to anywhere else in search of flowing lava. I was gutted. I asked the guide about it moving but he claimed to know nothing and was completely disinterested. It was somewhat a of a waste of money and I would have skipped Antigua if I had known the lava had stopped. Balls.

Anyway later I went to a nice restaurant, owned by a piano playing El Salvadorean and had a wonderful vegetarian Thai Curry. Ah bliss. He was a chatty owner and liked the fact I was Irish. He studied and lived in England for some years and had some Irish friends there. He liked the accent. Later he was asking me how long I was around. The way he was asking, I was not sure if he was going to offer me a job or ask me out. Anyway I was leaving the next day so it was a mute point. I went to bed early as I had to be up for 2am.

20Jan. At 2.45am I was in a taxi on the way to the bus to Nicaragua. At 5am I was in the bus. I was saying goodbye to Guatemala.

It was a long day and traffic was not good, so arrived in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua at 7,30. It was late! I missed the collectivos so had to take a taxi to the bus station. A place you are advised not go to after dark. I had no choice. Luckily the taxi brought me to the bus I needed but it was not leaving for over an hour.

I chatted to the driver for a while but it was a long hour and a half. 2 other passengers came in and engaged the driver in a chat as well. I saw this guy come in selling orange juice, then he came again about 10 minutes later. It was odd, then I heard the others on the bus say he was a bad man. Then the converstation changed and turned to this robbery where some guy had a machete held to him and had his rucksack taken from him. They all looked at me and decided it was better if my rucksack was on the ground out of sight. Great!. I slunk down even further into the seat, I occupied, to obcure myself from view and wished we were on our way. But then we were off and all was good until I got to Grenada station. Deserted. I was the only passenger left. I ran to a taxi outside but the driver was absent. But I figured it was safer to stand next to it so people would think I was getting into it. However, when I tried to flag down other taxis they wouldnt stop as they thougth I had a taxi. Oh fab! So I had to move and eventually, a taxi stopped and took me to the hotel where a friend Matt from Xela was staying. Matt was no where to be found. It was 10pm. I was chatting to my new roomates though and then Matt came in. He was glad to see I had arrived safely. We arranged to meet tomorrow evening, as he was off on one of his hikes the next day.

I met some interesting people in the hostel and talked about all sorts of things from reincarnation to previous relationships. It was that wide a conversation spectrum. By the time Matt had rested after his hike, there wasnt many restaurants to choose from but we found one and then went for delicious icecreams after. Matt brought me to a bar/club he had found and funnily it was one of the few I had been to the first time I was here.

I said my goodbyes as I was off early.