Toasting Marshmallows

Semuc Champey proves that travelling around on a tight budget has massive rewards but on some days the reality is a little different. Everyone was heading off to their next destination in the morning but we were told not to go anywhere. It turned out that the agent who'd booked our accommodation had not paid the hostel owners who politely described him as a 'bad man', so we had to sit there until 3pm until he paid or we would have to pay double. Finally he paid up so we were free to go but all the buses had departed by then so we had to jump on the back of a truck with a couple of Belgian guys, two French guys and a bunch of Guatemalans to the small town of Lanquin, about 10kms away. It felt like 100kms with two of us sat on the wheelarch and the mountainous road having more potholes than the winning road in the ‘Most Potholed Road Competition’.



Antigua's streets

We checked into a horribly damp room then immediately jumped into a tuk-tuk down a road that clearly wasn't designed for any vehicles let alone a tuk-tuk, to the Bat Cave. A slippery climb over the guano to a ledge where our guide told us to sit and wait whilst he disappeared to turn the lights off. In total darkness we could suddenly feel a breeze around us as hundreds of thousands of bats swooped past our heads.

Back to the room for a bad nights sleep as we didn’t realise that bed bugs with Vanessa's name on were included in the price, plus the smell of guano on our shoes and damp clothing and then up at 5am for the 8 hour minibus journey south to the town of Antigua where we checked into the wonderfully named hostel called Umma Gumma which translates as ‘free bed bugs for Vanessa and no running water’.



Vanessa toasting marshmallows up Pacaya volcano

However, Antigua is Guatemala’s showpiece and a beautiful place to visit. Cobbled streets with pastel houses, plazas, old colonial buildings, fine dining, busy markets, bougainvillea sprouting from crumbled ruins which are the remnants of hundreds of years of earthquakes and volcanic activity but situated in a magnificent valley setting surrounded by three volcanoes. Even MacDonald’s is a lovely building plus you get a complimentary 5.5 magnitude earthquake with your coffee!!! Seriously!!

The following morning, having changed accommodation pretty rapidly, we ventured off to make the steep climb up Pacaya volcano. In clear blue skies, the views across the valley to the conical Feugo volcano and Antigua below were stunning. Pacaya erupted just two years ago and steam still emerges from cracks and the heat intense in places, just perfect for toasting a few marshmallows.