Dec 21

The day didn't start as usual as the gas stove we usually use in the communal kitchen wasn't working. Dr. Basha and Jenny tried to fix it, but in the end, Cristian and Angel had to cook breakfast in the main kitchen, which was a whopping 20 steps further. We all had to be ready and packed by 8AM as our shuttle to Antigua was waiting outside the hostel. We expressed our gratitude toward the hostel owners and then proceeded to the shared shuttle with Bryna and the students of Southern Utah University. It was a quite packed and tight two hour ride down to Antigua. Our beloved Abdullah fell asleep right away.

On our ride down, we saw the way to Comalapa in a new light... literally. When we were driven up about five days ago, all we saw was pitch black as we did arrive at 1AM. Now that we were leaving in the daylight, we saw a lot of scenery that we haven't seen before. It was beautiful!

As we reached Antigua, the streets became pretty bumpy from the cobble stone roads. We first arrived at our new hostel for the day and put down all our stuff in our rooms before proceeding to a tour with Bryna! We first ventured to the church Iglesia de la Merced and walked inside. Afterward, we left to the shop Nim Pot', which is a market with set prices so you cannot haggle for prices. We were given thirty minutes to shop for anything we wanted and they even accepted VISA! After shopping, we passed by the Santa Catalina Arch where we took a few pictures. Here, Bryna explained how Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala. However, due to the frequent earthquakes, they moved the capital to Guatemala City. Due to the frequent earthquakes, there are a lot of ruins around the city and to keep that kind of atmosphere, the streets of Antigua were changed to cobble stone. We then walked to a jade museum where we were given complimentary worry dolls and allowed to walk around to read about the history of jade. This was the end of our tour and we then parted ways with Bryna for the last time at the hostel.

At this point, we were all pretty hungry so Giselle asked the hostel front desk person for some restaurant recommendations as we found that Yelp wasn't a thing in Antigua apparently. He recommended three restaurants that were literally right across the street and we eventually went to the House of Sopas for lunch.

After lunch, we decided to walk around town. We first went to walk around the Central Park, where we found a very interesting fountain. We then ventured to ChocoMuseo, where we tasted cocoa tea, milk and dark chocolate, and coffee. Dr. Basha was beyond excited to be surrounded by so much chocolate! We stopped at a couple shops on the way where Abdullah found a nice shirt and Jenny was searching for her "Bryna pants". We then walked to a market downtown, where we eventually found Jenny's pants and right afterward, we walked to Cerro de la Cruz, which was about a fifteen minute walk up the stairs to get a full view of Antigua! Giselle was not having it in her jeans and her & Jenny were sweating so much, but all was worth at the end as we got there just as the sun was about to set (and we stayed until it was setting). The views were amazing!

After a while, we headed back down to the hostel and we all took a break until 7PM for dinner. We all couldn't settle on one place for dinner, so Dr. Basha went on her own way to find her dinner and the rest of us tried Pollo Campero, a fried chicken chain per Abdi's (SUU student) recommendation. Dr. Basha went back to the hostel for an early night, but the rest of us heard a concert going on in the Central Park (Plaza Mayor). We stayed to listen to the live music and watched Angel and Cristian bust out their dance moves. It was getting close to the hostel curfew (10PM), so we went back to finish the last of our packing. We had to be up at 1:30AM the following day as our shuttle to the airport would leave at 2PM.