Antigua and Volcano Pacaya

We spent our last nights enjoying Antigua. Had a nice dinner accompanied by some Andean pan flute music (the guy on the congas was especially entertaining).


Next stop after dinner was the Cuban cigar shop.



The next day we climbed up Volcano Pacaya about 1.5 hours outside of Antigua. Unfortunately the view was quite foggy.


As we got nearer to the top, you could tell the rocks we were climbing over had been formed by flowing lava.

Hot Lava at the Top!

Chris decided to roast some marshmallows over the lava. If only we had had chocolate and graham crackers it would have been just like campfire s'mores.





Baby Chickens!

Canopy Tour and Earth Lodge

Here are some pictures from the canopy tour in Apaneca, El Salvador. We went on about 15 zip lines down the mountain. The highest being 125 meters above ground.







The last few days we've spent enoying the view at Earth Lodge overlooking the city of Antigua and surrounding volcanoes.

Ruta de las Flores

We traveled inland from the coast of El Salvador to Ruta de las Flores, a road through the mountains and volcanoes with several cute, little towns and plenty of hikes, lakes, waterfalls, and hotsprings. Yesterday we went on a ¨Buggie¨tour through the mountains to a couple of lakes.


Today we went to check out the hot springs around Ahauchapan. They´ve made the water from the natural geysers flow into a series of pools to swim in. Unfortunately many of them were much too hot to get in.


Tomorrow we are hoping to do a Canopy tour in Apeneca and then head back to Guatemala to stay in and around Antigua for the rest of the trip.

Here´s a few pics from Antigua... a really nice town in Guatemala which we will return to before we leave.



We headed south from Antigua to El Salvador, and after a day of buses were on the coast.



It´s mostly black sand beaches and offers world class surfing. We spent a night in La Perla, then headed to El Tunco which had a better offering of hotels and restaurants. While there we did a bit of surfing, ate lots of pizza and hired a scooter for the day to see some beaches.


From El Tunco we went to Los Cobanos which was a bit of a disappointment as the place was too busy with local tourists, the accomodation was over priced and nasty and there seemed to be alot of rubbish floating about. Today we headed inland and up the Ruta de Flores. We´re now at a very nice hostel and spent the day at some waterfalls where we swam through underground tunnels.

Tikal and Poptun

After Belize we crossed back into Guatemala and spent a couple days in Flores before heading to Tikal, one of the largest sites of Mayan ruins. By arriving in the afternoon, we were able to go into the park in the evening to see the sunset, camp right outside, and then reenter in the morning to explore more of the temples and pyramids.

We climbed the highest temple to see the sunset; however, the west side was blocked off and covered in scaffolding. Soon one of the many guards carrying guns walking around the park came up and offered to let us climb over to see the sunset for the small fee of 25Q each. We agreed to go and then he told us to explain the deal to everyone else. We got a group of 6 or so of us together and jumped over the ropes and bars.


The next day we got to see the rest of the temples; about 6 large temples and many other monuments and other ruins.


We found an American couple behind a tree with a guide taking pictures and they beckoned us over to see the huge tarantula. Chris´ first question was ¨Can I pick it up?¨


There were also many animals around the park. We saw spider and howler monkeys and tons of these things. I think they look kind of like anteaters mixed with raccoons.
From there we went to Finca Ixobel, a hostel/resort complete with treehouses, a swimming hole, cave trips, and horseback riding.




And two Macaw parrots!
Now we´re spending a few days in Antigua and trying to find a doctor to fix Caroline´s ear infection, which seems to have flared up again. Next we plan to head down to El Salvador and try out the surfing.