Antigua

Left Panajachel at 8 in the morning with the swiss girl to go to Antigua. We arrived in three hours after a pretty trecherous journey on tracks winding round these mountains. The suspension was terrible so I spent most of the time with my head in the roof. We arrived in Antigua after 3 hours and I checked in to my hostel. I did some exploring in these huge markets which are easy to get lost in. The hostel im staying at has a bar so I met a good bunch of people up there. We went to this other hostel where we met more people. I chatted to a German from Frankfurt who had just come from Utila, a place im going diving at in a few days. He convinced me I need to stay there longer so Im now going to do my my PADI diving course and my Advanced diving course.

The following day I had organised a trip to go up the volcano at 2. I met this good bunch of people namely Adrian a very relaxed Aussie who also told me that Utila is amazing. We reached the base of the volcano and were harrased by 8 year old children who were desperately trying to sell you walking sticks or horses. As much as I love horse riding I feared those skiny horses would not be able to take my weight up the volcano. As I thought this I watched a very large American get pushed onto the saddle of the horse. You could see that horse was dreading the climb. Despite it being cold and misty the climb was very tiring and I was relieved I didnt put any jeans on. There was a big group of us so we all chatted about where we were from and where we were going. When you get to the top you see a huge mass of black molten rock which had rolled down from the previous eruption. It felt like we were in Mordor it was misty and everything was grey. We had a walk around and a chance to take some pictures. The tour guide then whacked out some marshamallows and we roasted them on the hotspots. After that we found a cave and all of us had to crawl out of this hole. As we were begining the walk down I asked the tour guide whether there had been any accidents. He told me that when it erupted 2 years ago the volcanic rock that erupted into the air struck and killed a women as they were fleeing the volcano. A couple years before that two guides were walking and stood on a hotspot and melted on the spot. This was probably routine for him to not tell us the dangers before we start. That evening we met up with the English girls and Americans at this restuarant and had the biggest plate of nachos I have ever had.

The following day I had a lazy start skyping the family. Spoke to Rob for 2 hours, probably the longest conversation I have ever had with a family member on skype. That afternoon I found a spanish teacher that would teach me 1:1. He was called Fernando and he was a great teacher. I was there for 2 hours but booked more for tomorrow. That night the hostel went out drinking, was a great night one I can´t remember though after 11 o clock.

Feeling pretty fragile the next morning I had a 5 hour lesson with Fernando, he figured out I was not feeling great so taught me how to say hungover and rum is bad. I learnt alot though and feel a little more confident. It was a pretty lazy day after that, went to bed early as I had a bus that would take me to Copan at 4 in the morning.
Sadly I got the dates muddled up so the bus was scheduled to pick me up tomorrow so woke up at 4 for nothing. Have booked another bus for Copan to leave here in a few hours. Im only staying in Copan one night and then I´m off to Utila for the diving. Cant wait.