Thursday was our free day (our day to be tourists). We met with our AG missionaries who are in Guatemala City for breakfast. They are kinda the reason we decided to go to Guatemala in the first place, but we couldn’t bring the kids if we went with them so that is why we ended up with CFCI. We also gave them all the bilingual books that we had collected for their schools.
After that we headed to the Pacaya Volcano Park. That volcano has been continuously erupting since 1985 (slow flow). The hike was medium level hike and there was a swarm of guides there with horses to help us get to the top. They were disappointed in our group as only one of us used their services. We made it up the mail trail and toasted marshmallows in the thermal vents. Our guide told us there was a trail that went farther up where we might be able to see the lava, but our group wasn’t up for it. It was also very foggy/misty that day and we didn’t have very good views of the valleys. Joel kept asking when the volcano was going to blow up!
More volcano photos
We ate sandwich lunch on the hike and headed back down for Antigua (the tourist trap). Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala until it was destroyed by a volcano. Now it has been revived as a shopping center. We strolled the square, avoided the peddlers, saw the cathedral, and shopped with one of our guide’s friends. She gave us fair prices and was able to get us everything we were looking for, of course.
This is the famous arch of Antigua, we didn’t get the story, just a photo. 😉
More Antigua photos
While we were in Guatemala, they were in the middle of election season with all sorts of banners, signs, parades, and people blaring promises down the streets. We happened to get stuck behind an election march on our way out of Antigua (seemed like thousands of people with handmade torches were marching) which slowed us down a little but we made it home to a good dinner and a promise of an early morning to make our flight.