Hola Antigua!

Antigua and Guatemala is one anticipated destination that we've been wanting to visit. And we're not disappointed, even after the tiring flight with less than 5 hours sleep.

We didn't book our LA-Guatemala-Cuzco-Rio flights until couple of days before departure. As such, we paid a hefty price for those airfares :(

Antigua doesn't have any airport. To get here, one has to fly to Guatemala City and get on one of the shuttle vans available at the airport. The ride is about an hour and cost about $12 per person. Some guesthouses also offer airport pick-up services, which you can ask for when you make your reservations.

Tip: If travelling 2 or more persons, it's cheaper to just get the B&B/hotel to arrange for private shuttle.

For accommodations, blue eyes wanted to rent a flat for privacy and quiet days and I emailed some of the flat owners but did not receive any reply. With just few days leading up to our flight, I was getting anxious and decided to check out some of the B&Bs. LP highly recommended Yellow House and I found on Tripadvisor Chez Daniel, which was on top of its recommended list. I emailed both places and they were prompt in their replies. The two places were available for the dates of our stay (Chez Daniel is full for 2 of the 10 days and suggested we do a short trip outside of Antigua) and I decided on the latter since we've never had a chance to stay on the #1 recommended place on Tripadvisor as they're usually above our budget.

TIP: If pay in cash, one can save a few bucks for lodging. Most places take VISA only (strange but true!).

Chez Daniel charges a single rate of $54 per room per night. Since it's 2 of us, that comes up to about $27 per person, which is way cheaper than renting a flat (it cost between $500 to $600/week for a flat in Antigua!). Chez Daniel could also arranged us the airport pick-up for $35 (about $17.50 per person) so we were all set by the time we left for LA.

Our flight via TACA had a short stopover of about 1.5 hour in El Salvador. The Guatemalan immigration was a smooth process and we were out of the airport with our luggages in just half an hour! It's probably one of the fastest airports I've been! Puts KLIA to shame cos' it usually takes ages for the baggage to arrive.

We were quite tired but our eyes lit up as the driver pulled into the cobbled streets of Antigua. It's such a quaint little place with colourful houses. It has a rustic feel yet it's also homey and friendly. And Chez Daniel is the perfect place to stay as it's in a quiet neighbourhood and the compound itself boasts of a beautiful lawn (lushful trees and blooming flowers), large rooms with attached bathroom, and a well equipped kitchen. There's only 4 rooms in the whole B&B and that gives guests a lot of space and privacy. They could have more rooms but Daniel said they preferred it that way - smaller capacity, easier to manage and operate. "Besides, we get enough income to be contented so we don't need more", the quirky owner says. I like Daniel. I think he's got a wicked sense of humour and he's got such an interesting life (French-American, came to Guatemala in 1975 because of a girl, hehe ...).

Chez Daniel doesn't feel like a B&B because they offer services almost like any hotel - room cleaning daily basis and towel change every 3 days. It comes with Wifi (connection a bit wonky when in the room) and simple breakfast of baguette, croissants, orange juice and coffee/tea. Daniel offers many suggestions on what to do, and his suggestions are genuine ie. he really thinks it's worthwhile rather than just trying to make more money. When I mentioned Chi Chi market, he paused and said, "It used to be interesting but not anymore. I wouldn't recommend it."

Antigua is an easy city to navigate since the directions can be determined by the 3 volcanoes. Towards north is the Hill of Cross and to the south is Agua Volcano while to the west is the twin-peak, Acatenango Volcano. Chez Daniel is about 7 blocks from Central Park and we have taken walks on most days around the city, absorbing the atmosphere around us. We don't speak much Spanish (a pity!) but we've so far managed to communicate when ordering food and even getting our laundry done :) Locals are friendly and most are quite patient when they realised we don't speak Spanish - no hablo Espanol.

One of the things to do in Antigua is to climb one of the volcanoes. We signed up for a hike up Pacaya Volcano on Tuesday (10 Jan) afternoon. We were hoping to catch the sunset but the day was really cloudy and misty so we didn't see much on the way or coming down. It's a pity but the trek was a good exercise since it's about 1.5 hours hike and on the way down, the skies started to clear and we managed to see some good view of the peak (we didn't reach the crater; Daniel says not many ever do). We met some interesting characters in our tour group and blue eyes had a long conversation with Mark, an American undergraduate travelling with his mom and another friend, about Finnish social security system. We were dead tired reaching home but it was an afternoon well spent. Conversations, views and exercise don't always come together but when they do, they're usually quite memorable :)

Tip: Wear comfortable walking/hiking shoes and bring water, energy snacks (ie. bananas, nuts..), torchlights (if going down in the evening) and windbreaker. It can be quite dusty so have a bandana for the face if you don't want your face to be covered in dust.

And today, we decided to take it easy and not do anything except to catch up on reading and researching on our flights to Manila in March. We've learned our lesson. Best to book it when it's still good prices .