Losing a Bet, Winning an Afternoon...

So Pablo and I had a very intense bet about the movie Saw V. We bet a piece of pie about the distance the man and woman had to cut their arms in the saw-box. He won. So yesterday we went to Antigua for pie, travel booking, and more convent ruins.

First, we went to Cafe Condesa, which had excellent desserts and coffee. Here's Pablo with his giant tea and lemon pie:


And I had my first brownie a la mode in almost 2 years... Yum!

ps - the actual name of this in the menu was "La Revancha de Mayordomo" or "The Butler's Revenge." Ha!

This is the fountain in Cafe Condesa, similar to the one in El Parque Central:


Next we went to the travel agency so I could book a weekend trip to visit some Mayan ruins, cruise on the Rio Dulce and the Caribbean Bay, and sleep in the jungle :) Expect photos!
My itinerary:


Afterwards, we went to another old convent... Las Capuchinas, I believe. This was even more beautiful than the last one. And we took lots of silly pictures:





The garden was beautiful:


Apparently this building was (depending on who you ask) either the showers for the nuns or a form of punishment (think water torture) when they did something wrong:


I choose to believe it's a shower :)


Pablo, part monkey, shown here rocking the MegaDeth hand:


These were actually the tiny bedrooms:


They even had a couple of them done up so you could see what life was like for the nuns:


Pablo and I are very pious:




This is the fountain in the center of the main building:


This is a fountain that made me laugh:


I believe this is where they used to hold services... According to Pablo, they now hold fashion shows here:


All in all, it was a fantastic afternoon. Even though I lost the bet, I was happy to finally have some company to explore the city.

Love you all!

El Volcan Pacaya!

I just got back from my night on the volcano... It was amazing! I went with another student in my school - an Dutch man named Peet (I call him SoloPeet because every time he introduces himself in Spanish, he emphasizes that his name is just Peet.)

Here's SoloPeet and I ready to tackle the trail:




The hike was a bit tough with a huge, overstuffed backpack, but I made it without taking advantage of the dozens of "Horse Taxis" available up the trail :)

When we reached the top the view was fantastic. Here's the peak of the volcano - it looks farther away than it actually is:

Can you see the old lava directly in front? That's from a 2004 eruption!

We could also see el Volcan Agua (the one I can see from Antigua) from there:


We set up camp with the rented tents. I had to help SoloPeet because apparently he's not too experienced with tent-building. When I got around to mine, I learned that one of my tent poles didn't have the elastic string in the middle... so it was basically 10 pieces of tent pole... anyways, it made it MUCH more difficult to pitch my tent, but I rocked it! I was really proud :)

Then our guide, Leonel, set about starting a fire. It took a little time, my packing list, and SoloPeet's copy of his passport, but he got it going strong!


We stood around the fire for a while, eating sandwiches, having a beer, and waiting for all the other groups to leave the volcano so we could walk over and see some lava! The whole time we were there, we could hear the "boom boom" from the volcano, about every 20 minutes or so... When it got dark, we could see the fire at the top (sorry, terrible quality):


Finally, we walked over to see the big lava rivers flowing down the side of the volcano. It was like nothing I've ever seen before.





The sound was wild, too - it had this almost watery, but thicker sort of noise... just amazing.

Afterwards, we all went to bed. It got extremely cold, windy, and wet during the night, and I kept hearing things scampering around my tent. So I maybe got an hour or two of sleep :)

The next morning, Pacaya was still gorgeous:


After breaking camp, we were all set to hike up right next to the lava flow... unfortunately, I was in bad shape - Terrible cough, upset stomach, etc. - so I couldn't make it up the trail :( However, SoloPeet took my camera and got the pictures I couldn't!

Here I am watching them hike up:


SoloPeet did great capturing the lava!





I was sad to have missed being that close, but I still had one of the most incredible experiences of my life :)

The view of Volcan Agua on the way down was amazing, too:


By the time we finally got back to Antigua, we were POOPED! Then, because of the Holy Week Processions today, our bus had to drop us off on the outskirts of the city. I then had to walk clear to the other side in order to catch a tuc-tuc back to Jocotenango.

My view in the tuc-tuc:


Tired and filthy Emily ready for sleep and shower!


I hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed doing it! Love you all!

Casa de Waffle, y Casa de Corea?!?!?!

Sunday morning, shortly after I woke up, Claudia came to my room and asked if I wanted to go into Guatemala City for breakfast with the whole family. Of course I did, but when I asked her when we were leaving, she told me "Oh, 10 minutes." I knew I couldn't shower and be ready by then, so when I told her I'd need about 30 minutes she gave me a sad, "I don't think we can do that" look.

About 5 minutes later, Pablo came to my door and said "Emily, I need to shower, too. You can still come with us!" So I said, "Ok, we'll race... uno, dos, tres, VAMOS!"

By the time I had showered, blow dried, lotioned, and dressed, Pablo still had one sock and one shoe off. I WON!!! (PS - It only took 10 minutes, haha!)

Anyways, we hopped in the car and went to Guatemala City for a morning of eating, shopping, shopping, and driving! Since you can't actually be here with me, I took photos which, if you enlarge them on your computer and sit VERY close to the screen, might enable you to pretend you're here :)

Road to Guatemala - The twists!


The turns!


The... Waffle House??

PS - I kid you not, I also saw a place called Denny's, specializing in breakfast (desayuno), which was basically three picnic tables and a tent!

Claudia!


Pablo!


y Yo, tambien!


We went to a really delicious place for breakfast - I had a Mediterranean omelet and some weird black bean loaf. It was great!

Guillermo and Titi (ps - I had to go look up his name just now... shows how much I see Titi's husband, haha)


After breakfast we went to Guatemalan Sam's Club - PriceSmart!

Pablo and I had fun eating and drinking EVERY free sample we came across. We also had a swordfight with whiffle-ball bats. This family probably thinks when I said I was 27 years old, I meant 17. Or 12.

Today I got a pedicure. Titi's sister owns a salon, and did an excellent job, in spite of the fact that I haven't had a pedicure in more than 2 years (probably more like 4 or 5) and kept giggling and wincing like a baby :) (ps - I know the ladies are wondering.... it was about $11)

On the way to the bus, I finally passed the Korean restaurant!


The menu seems like it was taken straight from in front of a restaurant in Korea, except for the funny spellings and prices in Quetzales :)

I definitely need to eat there before I leave!

Love you all! Leave comments!

Coffee!

So today started out a bit rotten. Last night, I was invited by Julio to go with him and Carina (his girlfriend) and some friends to the beach. I was very excited, even when he said we'd leave at 6 am. So at 5:45 this morning I rolled out of bed, packed a bag, and was ready to go. And I waited. And waited. Then I laid back down (with the light on and the door open) and must have fallen back to sleep. And they left without me.

I was disappointed, as I really wanted to see the ocean here. But then Claudia invited me to walk up to the coffee plantation near the house and have a cuppa and read a while. So I did, and it was great!













The coffee was fantastic, and they have a lot of tours you can do. Sometime this week I think I'll go back and do the canopy tour - where you take 7 different ziplines through the trees!

Then we came back to the house for lunch, which was delicious - I love how much guacamole we eat here! Now I'm just sitting - I was going to go into Antigua today, but I'm getting a pedicure there Monday, so I'll just wait to explore more until then :)

I forgot to include the photos of Antigua's Parque Central in my last post... It's very famous here, and many people go there just to hang out. And it's pretty. And has a naughty fountain.









That's the excitement for the weekend, folks. Hope you're enjoying the pictures and updates!

Love you all!