Cosmic Guatemala

Arriving in Antigua, Guatemala was a bit odd. On the surface it is one of the most charming large towns in central america. Wide cobbled streets, safe, easily walkable, every restaurant with a lovely courtyard, interesting museums, good shopping, sensible prices, loads of excursion options, and those amazing volcanos that you can see rising from the end of every street, that help you orientate.

Unfortunately, Antigua is also gringo city. There is fast food (bad), a good guitar shop (good), long queues with tourists for the ATMs (bad), good food (good), loud obnoxious hostels (bad), language schools (good) - but why would anyone try to learn immersive spanish in a town where everyone is from Maine, Malmo or Manchester?

So we stayed a night and then shipped out to Earth Lodge. Perched on a hillside 20 minutes outside of Antigua, in a village accessed by 2 daily buses, requiring a final 2km walk along the hillside where vehicles can no longer pass in the rainy season; Earth Lodge is a US owned avocado farm with accom for 15 in stilted apex rooved cabins. Oh and every cabin has a view across the valley beside Antigua of three towering volcanos. We saw ´Fuego´ erupt two night running - it was awesome. We did nothing but eat resident Israeli chef Adi´s wonderful veggie food, help ourselves to the open bar, and start a backgammon school. I did also have to day trip to Antigua to fix my nut*

But it was 2 weeks before avocado harvest. Like the dolphins that are waiting for us somewhere, we will still have to wait for those fresh avos that we adorned; the prime reason anna wanted to go there! There were also four great cats; the ginger fell off the tin roof with delight as we tickled him and Baby purred. Anna had acupuncture. I spent 3 hours filing my new nut and fitting it and it works - hoorah - a first for me. I was helped by a lift into town from a comedy German withe most messed up VW camper I have ever been in. We discussed music (his touring with Captain Sensible), religion, politics and the vintage VW yard on the edge of town. He had been mugged walking there once so I didn´t go. He took frequent calls from his ex-language students as he had just been sacked. We drank coffee in the sun and talked nuts. And just as was about to start wandering around aimlessly I bumped into fellow San Blas Social Club members, Greg and Elise, for the first time since San Blas. They insisted we start afternoon drinking. We laughed a lot. They showed my photos, including Greg accidentally showing me one of his ´art´ pics that featured an unknowing Elise. We laughed a lot more. It was a good day.

Just part of the awesome view from Earth Lodge
The Earth Lodge cabins