Antigua, Guatemala

Hola,

Life continues it's non stop whirlwind of work, visitors and excessive amounts of alcohol and food. Mum leaves on Friday and as I write this Sim's Mum and Dad are in the air from Housten due in about 90 mins.

Spent last weekend in Antigua, Guatemala which is an old Spanish colonial town, not disimilar to Granada in Nicaragura. More tourists in Antigua though and more of all the stuff that more tourists bring. Still a very nice place though with a really nice feel about it. We spent quite a few hours just sitting in the main square watching the world go by. Sim and I will be making another visit in the near future. we'd quite like to climb the live volcano nearby and just spend a bit more time there.

This is the garden of the hotel we stayed in. Very nice.

This is the cathederal in the main square. Interestingly the burial place of the Spanish historian and Conquistador Bernal Diaz. The man who was a member of all three Mexico expeditians, including the one with Hernan Cortes that led to the destruction of the Aztec Empire. 

 

Mum relaxing in the main square.

There were some lovely views almost around every corner.

And again with the volcano.

Antigua was the capital of Guatemala from 1541 until a large earthquake in 1773 destroyed large parts of it. Much of it is now preserved as ruins.

Cobbled streets and a lovely clock tower Tourist heaven.

All the streets pretty much look like this one.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to get any footage of our little gig- ben on the drums and sim singing.

Mum and Adam's first weekend.

Obviously we have been very busy recently, so apologies for the lack of activity. As I mentioned before Adam and Mum have been out visiting and I've just about managed to get some pics of their first weekend onto flicker. I've added the link below so you can browse the pics(the ones entitled Hols part 1) at your leisure. We went off to the lake for the weekend and then on the Sunday visited a couple of towns in the the mountains which offered us some entertainment and the chance to buy some locally made merchandise (crap).

Flickr: Organize your photos & videos

Weekend at the Beach

Hola,

more drivel from me I'm afraid. About to start a v. busy time as various people come and visit over the next 3 months. Mum and Adam arrive later today and Sim's Mum and Dad arrive at the end of the month. Kate and Gav will be here in March and then my Dad arrives just after the Easter weekend, when I could well be going to Belize to play cricket.

Still having a great time here and it's ace to be able to be at the beach on a Friday afternoon after school. This past weekend a big group of us went down to a place called El Zonte. Did some surfing, played some beach cricket and watched some turtles being released along with the usual drinking beer and eating some awesome seafood.  There is video of this but it's on facebook so you need to be on facebook to view it until I can work out a way to put it on here another way. The link is

http://www.facebook.com/video/?of=728551108#/video/video.php?v=306902772222&subj=728551108

More soon,

B & S xxx

surf weather report

El Zonte Surf Report and Forecast

visit to Suchitoto

Hello again,

So while Steve and Tiff were here they went to visit Suchitoto and old Spanish colonial town, north of San Salvador about 90 minutes drive. Simmie and I had never been there before so we decided to go and visit this weekend.

We stayed in a lovely hotel that overloked the square and had a fab time. Very laid back and totally different to San Salvador. It's on the edge of a man made lake which looks fab from a distance but turned out to be a bit of a disappointment close up, but the walk there and back was good exercise. Great place though and well worth the visit I'm sure we'll be going back at some point.

If you can be bothered check out the pics at the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623160898467/

Laters

B& S

First visitors

So we got back from Mexico on the Friday night and on Monday Stephen Keeling (old friend from school, for those who don't know Steve) turned up for a week long long visit from his current home in New York and was joined by his wife on the Wednesday.

Had a great time and it was great to see Steve again, it had been a while. Discovered some cool things while they were here including a really nice restaurant halfway up the volcano and an excellent place to stay on the coast.

We also took them to some, already, old faves including Kamkura the best sushi in town and Cafe Sunzal which has some good food and even better views. Some good stuff to look forward to if you're taking the plunge and coming out to visit at some point.

More news tomorrow.

Xmas and New Year Hols

Sorry dudes, we have been like totally rubbish recently regards updating the blog. So gonna try a major update now.




Had a totally amazing holiday over Xmas. Drove the car up to Mexico through Guatemala and Belize and spent a couple of weeks enjoying the beach and just kicking back and relaxing. For the first couple of weeks we were joined by a couple of friends from school Jo and John and then Jo flew back to El Salvador the day before NYE and John, Simmie and I stayed for another week.



After a visit to Flores in Guatemala on the way up and another night in Corozal in Belize we spent the first part of our time in Mexico in a place called Tulum. The first place we stayed was a little bit basic and after an accident involving John falling drunkenly from the poorly lit path, which resulted in 3 stitches in his knee the following morning, we moved on. We spent the rest of our time there at a place called Hemingway’s and it was awesome. Right on the beach and run by this Italian woman and her family and boy could they cook. It was here that we spent Xmas day. We also visited the Mayan ruins while we were there and although perhaps not the most spectacular in Mexico they were still pretty cool.



We then moved on to a small island called Cozumel where we did a little bit of scuba, quite a bit of drinking, the tequila was very good and lots of eating. It is also cruise ship central and on one day there was no less than nine cruise ships docked. That's a lot of American tourists with a lot of loud voices. Nevertheless, we still had a huge amount of fun and we had a very good New Years Eve here. Started by the hotel we were staying at who put on free food and bubbly to get the evening started.



We then moved on to the small island of Islas Mujeres just off the coast from Cancun, and although it was very nice the weather had taken a turn for the worse and I was suffering from a pretty bad ear infection which meant no diving and no laying on the beach. We still managed to entertain ourselves and even found a little fish and chip shop where we were all able to purchase chips and gravy to warm us up by the seaside.



Our last stop was a small fishing village called Puerto Morales, which is located 30 mins drive south of Cancun. I'm sure it won't be quiet for much longer and chatting to a guy who'd lived there for the past 7 years it would seem that Americans are starting to buy up property in the area. The next Cancun no doubt. Hotel was a bit of a dump, but there were plenty of nice places to eat and drink and the beach was pretty much deserted, there was even a second hand bookstore which was a real treat and we did well to leave without blowing all our money on books.



The drive home was incident free, apart from the news about Eva, and I was quite surprised that our 20 year old car made the trip without any problems at all. Due to the length of time it takes to download photos to this site I'm adding a link that will direct you to all the photos on Flickr.com. Hopefully it'll work, if not I'll put some photos up tomorrow.

Warning people viewing this entire collection of photos in one go may suffer sever boredom.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623157824327/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623281356688/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623281379876/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623285041360/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623157809459/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623282441666/



More news tomorrow,