High and dry

There's a long way to Antigua from Rio Dulce. Well, not that long in kilometres, but the roads are winding and often in a state of disrepair. Accidents, road works and at one point a landslide kept the queues going for hours, and getting through Guatemala City, the largest city in Central America, was a nightmare. The rush hour traffic there makes the rush hour traffic in Sweden look, you know, rushy.
But eventually, after 12 hours on the road (and to a lesser extent, water) we reached the supposedly cosy town of Antigua. I say supposedly, because we basically just checked in, had dinner, went to sleep, leaving next morning. The little I saw looked nice, with low colonial buildings and cobbled streets, and I did have the possibly best baconless brekkie ever. We'll return to Antigua in a few days for proper exploration, though.
Upwards the journey went, and the surroundings became less tropical and more temperate, with terrace fields of corn, potato and beetroot rather than banana and papaya. The air got thinner and colder, and soon we passed the 2000 m mark.
The goal of the day was to get to San Jorge de Laguna, but not after a stop in Chichicastenango and its huge market. Handicrafts, art, cloths, junk and other of similar lined the stalls along the veritable labyrinth* of peddlers. Hardly a step could be taken before another salesperson started hassling, and it was crowded, and full of smells. Markets such as this can be a continuous source of excitement for those who love shopping, spending hours and money and returning with a need for an extra bag. I am not one of those people. I got in there, bought some bits and bobs for a 2 year old girl, an 8 year old boy and a teenaged girl, and then got out as quickly as possible. Why buying those items, though? Well, in San Jorge de Laguna, where we stayed with different local families in their actual homes. Our host family had exactly that constellation of kids, and we thanked them with gifts for the children and wine for the grownups. Language barriers notwithstanding, we managed to play cards, watch telenovelas and play hangman, in which we ingeniously used the same word in both Spanish and English, thus improving the language skills of hosts and guests alike.
After a home cooked dinner in typical Guatemalan fashion, a night's sleep and an equally home cooked and typical breakfast, we waved goodbye to our host families and set off to the nearby lakeside town of Panajachel.
Unforts, that's when my man cold hit, and I stayed at the hotel and rested while the others went on a tour of lake Atitlan and its surrounding towns and villages.
Back in Antigua, I went on a fruitless search for a laundrette. For reasons probably traced to christian mythology, all laundry places were closed the next day (Sunday) and I had an early start on Monday. Well, seek, and you shall look. No laundry done, but on the other hand we stumbled into a hole-in-the-wall sausage place that served imported beer. American IPA, to be precise.
The next day the nearby volcanoes beckoned. A hike up Pacaya took us through a lush jungle and to the almost extraterrestrial desolate landscape of the lava fields of Pacaya's latest eruption, that of March 2014. The sharp rocks will soon erode to sand, and in a hundred years or so, the mineral rich soil will be host to another jungle, as lush as the one we have now. Until the next eruption. Which might be any day; it was orange alert.
Seen from Pacaya, and from the roof of the hotel in town, is Fuego. Fuego has considerably milder eruptions than its brother, but instead way more often. In fact, it had two eruptions that day and two that night. At daytime a pillar of smoke and ash could be seen, and at night its slopes went orange from the erupting lava. A sight to behold.
As this was the end station for some and the start for others, we partly swapped the people of the group, and wholly the tour leader, and said our goodbyes, both to each other and to Guatemala.
*) or possibly maze