Antiguan Adventures

We’re dropped off from our epic volcano hike around midday in the colourful and rustic city of Antigua. First thing on the agenda… find somewhere to eat. We’ve been up since 4am and have only had a light breakfast so far. I quickly find a nearby restaurant serving Mexican inspired food. Alex has a burrito while I have something called ‘gringas’.

Alex and her famous T-Rex pose:

Having been on the go so much the last few days, we need to spend an afternoon doing life admin. Not much to report here but I will give a shout out to Alex for making a tasty and colourful vegetable omelette for our evening meal 👩‍🍳

Oompah Lumpa Didgerie Doo

In the midst of the admin session, I manage to convince Alex she should do the chocolate making class. It’s the same company that offers highly rated experiences across latin america. It feels like it’s now or never, so she books the last remaining spot through their website. Though I initially think it’s a fruitless endeavour, Alex suggests I come with her in case an extra space opens up on the tour… Indeed it does and I’m able to join the class!

I won’t go into much detail on the history of chocolate, we wanted to enjoy the moment without worrying about remembering it all for the blog. I’m sure Google will help if you want to know more, but essentially it started with the Mayans using cacao and over time the process was altered and refined to give us all of the ways we love eating or drinking chocolate today. The first task is to create our chocolate bar masterpieces so they’ll have time to cool and set for the end of the session. I have three sections on mine, chilli and salt; marshmallows, nuts and sprinkles; coffee and cranberry. Alex uses cacao nibs, coffee, cranberry, macademia, and marshmallows.

The class is really fun and interactive, much more practical than theory, with a bit of history thrown in now and then. We’re educated on the five stages of cacao, often eating the cacao bean to witness how the taste changes during the process. The initial raw bean is slimy, sour and bitter. As the stages progress, it becomes sweeter and richer, starting to taste more like chocolate. At one stage we are required to roast the beans while talking about ourselves for 90 seconds. An ice-breaker I was unprepared for but everyone says a little bit about themselves and their travels. Including a woman from Levenshume who also ran her first marathon (Manchester) last year.

After roasting the beans, we need to peel off the outer husk. We use these skins to make a tea by just adding water and honey and leaving it for a while. Whilst that steeps, we need to bash and grind the un-skinned beans up into a paste. It’s competition time and with a prize promised for the winners, Alex insists with a serious tone that we must be the winners! After thirty seconds of grinding cocao beans like my life depends on it, we win! Our reward is a delicious chunk of white chocolate, yum yum.

In the next round of games. We must guess what the secret Mayan ingredient is to make choco-hah. As suggestions of “ginger”, “cinnamon”, “pepper” and various others are batted away, I joke to Alex it must be a child sacrifice. Turns out I was not far off! The secret ingredient is human blood, often from a sacrifice of the mightiest warrior in the community. It seems there is a price to pay for our earlier triumph, as the strongest team, we are on the chopping block. They only need one of us though so I bravely nominate Alex. She gracefully donates her left arm to blood letting. Not really! She adds a few drops of a red cochineal (the small cactus beetle we learnt about in Arequipa five months ago!) liquid, cloves, sugar, cinnamon and pepper, and the mix is ready to be shaken. In traditional Mayan style, this involves pouring the liquid from a jar at eye level to another jar at waist level to make as much froth as possible. Alex expertly pours from jug to jug without spilling a drop…

The final round involves the infamous “Bate, bate, chocolate” song that has haunted us since Granada. It translates to “stir, stir the chocolate” and that’s exactly what various members of our group have to do while performing a questionable dance while the rest of us sing along manically. I’m very happy to sit out this round!

At the end of our lesson our chocolate masterpieces are cooled and set, ready to eat. We say goodbye to our wonderful group and just have time to pop back to the hostel for lunch. Of course making time for a taste of our sweet creations before heading out for our next activity, a walking tour of the city.

A brief history of Antigua

• Antigua was the main capital during Colonial times, covering territory from Mexico, all the way down to Costa Rica, called Guatemala City
• The name Guatemala is a Mexican name, meaning place of many trees
• The country flag is a white column sandwiched between two blue columns representing the sea. The emblem has a resplendent quetzal (also the name of their currency, quetzales) and a scroll bearing the date of independence from Spain along with rifles, a crown and swords
• The local flag, green to represent the jungle with a white center. On the emblem here is Santiago (Saint James) on horseback and 3 volcanoes underneath: Agua, Acatenango and Fuego
• Agua volcano is named due to a lake within the crater
• This crater collapsed and the water flooded the Spanish capital meaning they had to move the city to where Antigua now lies
• A 1773 earthquake destroyed the city again
• They started anew in Guatemala where the new capital exists Guatemala City and thankfully remains to this day
• Antigua means ‘old’ and so refers to the old Guatemala City
• There are 20 million people in Guatemala, 4 million in the new capital while only 60k in Antigua
• On the edge of the town square is a Catholic Cathedral. Most of it was destroyed by an earthquake and now sits in ruin
• The site (along with other ruins in the city) are protected by Unesco and therefore cannot be restored even if they wanted to
• They apparently provide beautiful wedding locations though!
• Opposite the cathedral is a University, in the style of a Spanish courtyard with moorish influence. This courtyard is featured on the 100 quetzal bank note
• There is a hospital with free / volunteer health care staffed by Medicine Sans Frontier as health care is expensive for local people so they rely on the help of volunteers
• We move onto Plaza de San Pedro where there is a water fountain for locals to wash clothes and plates, however this is rarely practised these days
• Finally, a Church and a convent either side of the road this is most unusual as they are normally joined, so they built an arch to physically link them

Hazy Days

After the tour has finished, we take a bit of time to wander the streets and take in the atmosphere. We deduce that if we want to see the sunset, we best find a good spot to do so sooner rather than later, as the volcanoes are starting to block the sun far before the official sunset time. We’ve been recommended the Antigua Brewing Co by various people so we head there and grab a table on the roof. We order our drinks and watch the sun disappear behind the shadows of Fuego and Acatenango, looking up to where we stood and watched the sunrise just yesterday morning, it’s unbelievable really.

By this point I’m quite a hangry bear. I convince Alex we should try the Guatemalan version of KFC, a rare chance to have some fast food. A giant basket of fried chicken, chips and bread fills us up nicely. That T-Rex is back…

With a quick pop back to the hostel to get changed, we head out once more for drinks at a garden brewery on the other side of town. I enjoy a beautiful hazy IPA while Alex goes for her for new favorite, a strong stout. We sit by the glorious fire and reminisce about our trip so far. Returning to the hostel we try in vain to catch a final glimpse of Fuego roaring lava into the night sky but it’s either obscured by clouds or simply isn’t playing ball. After trying a couple more streets we give up and head home, we’ll need our rest ahead of another day in a minibus tomorrow.

Super Market Sweep

Not much to report from our final morning as it’s a mad dash around town stocking up on supplies for the lake. Here’s a few pictures from the market though, this time we weren’t too scared to buy anything!

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Adventure – Exploring the colourful streets of Antigua. Watching the sunset with delicious beers in hand.

Excitement – Meeting some lovely folks from Manchester who were not complete nutters this time. Making and tasting our own chocolate concoctions. Winning a chocolate prize.

Trauma – The loud fireworks/explosions that went off almost every hour of the night for a local harvest festival. Other noises keeping us awake that are inappropriate to mention on this family-friendly blog.