Antigua

Wow anyone visiting central america much put this place on their list. Antigua is a beautifuly restored town nestled in a valley and surrounded by three active volcanoes.

For a smallish town, there is a lot of hustle and bustle.  The central focus of the town is the plaza, with its huge fountain in the centre.  The plaza is full of tourists and locals, taking in the sites, selling  their handcrafts, trying to clean tourist shoes etc.

I spend some very restful time on one of the park bench watching the world go by and taking pictures, and of course practicing my "no gracias" as the children and women tried to sell you anything from "pot" to potholders.  As our trip was progressing we were beginning to notice that Steve seemed to be the person targeted for "special sales"!! ( he he).  While sitting on the parkbench, one of the boys who wandered the plaza, cleaning shoes, offered to polish the soles of Steve's Teeva's (sandals).  He certainly must have been having a bad day.

This was also the time when the opportunity to partake of the other "tripping" definition arose.  In the two and a half days we spent in Antigua, wandering the streets, Steve was offered "pot" and "weed" on numerous occasions. (Yes sometimes from the shoeshine boys, who looked all of 10 years old).  Maybe they thought he was an old rocker from the 60's!!!

Antigua was one of my favourite towns on our visit, eventhough it was a bit touristy.  We took lots of photos and managed to spend a little of our savings on some very nice local handicrafts.

In Antigua we also had to say goodbye to a couple of the members of our group, and welcome a couple of new members.  So it was in order to all have a welcome, farewell dinner.  Following the dinner a group of us ventured out to find a local night spot for a couple of drinks.  Acutally we found this quite difficult.  It seems that everything in Antigua closes down quite early.  We eventually found a small restuarant/bar  and had a few quite ones to celebrate our time in a beautiful little town.