The main reason for us to come to Antigua was that we had planned to do our volunteer work in a small town outside of Antigua. The main challenge for us was to find a suitable camping possibility. We had to settle for renting a room in a small appartment hotel where we could park the camper save inside the compound and right next to our room. It was not cheap but we decided it was worthwile to stay here while we were celebrating Xmas and getting to know the place and our volunteer work hosts. We spent a very relaxed week in Antigua except for Xmas eve. The tradition seems to be to destroy the hearing of people by a combination of loud and persistent fireworks. The firecracker kits that were sold on the market looked rather like machine gun and army amunition than fun fireworks. And that’s the way the sounded too. At midnight on the 24th we were woken up by what sounded guerilla warfare around our camper. When checking we found out it was outside on the street!
The kids produced an amazing Xmas crib out of the modeling wax we had brought along and some moss and other green bits bought on the market (I won’t mention the Xmas present shopping that went on - only that all combinations of four of us had to go out to get something for the remaining family member. I let you calculate how many days of shopping this added up to). In the end we had a lovely Xmas - our hotel room had a fire place - eating selfcooked Lasagne and Xmas cake sitting in front of the fire and opening presents. Just the snow and the tree were missing.
We left to make it towards Antigua our next major stop. We planned two days for the trip and we (in particular I) were pretty keen to get away from the mozzy jungle up into the mountains. An excellent road helped us to make good headway the first day and we stopped in a mosquito park, ... aahh I mean an amusement park at Rio Dulce for the night. I did not leave the camper but still got numerous bite. And off we went the following morning up a river valley towards Guatemala City which we crossed swiftely to arrive an hour later in Antigua. Antigua is the former capital, but after repeated earthquakes (it is surounded by active volcanoes) the capital was moved away. Today it is a small town of 50.000 people and heavily occupied by gringos. Not exactly the local experience we were looking for but on the other hand with all the amenities that one could hope for: cheap telephones, internet cafes, good restaurants, supermarkets, etc. It is a town as well that has managed to keep its beautiful old architecture alive.
The following morning started off with school again after two weeks of holiday. The topic was the Maya for an entire week. I have to admit not only for the children this was much more fun than repeating tables. They spent the entire week drawing maps, learning to decipher hieroglyphes, calculate with the 20-system of the Maya and write short essaies about what they had learned.
