Day 8: The Chocolate Museum and Absinthe

     Today we went to the Chocolate Museum. Sound boring? It's not. We signed up for a workshop called From Bean to Bar. It was incredible. First we learned all about how chocolate is made today, starting with how to cut the cacao pods off of the trees. We then went through the entire history of chocolate, where it originated, how it got it's name, and the different forms it has taken over the years. Originally, chocolate was a drink! We drank it how the Mayans did, the Aztecs did, the Aztec royalty did, how the Spaniards did, and we even made our own chocolate! The workshop took about 3 hours and we both loved it. My only regret is that we chose to make dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. Normally chocolate that you buy in America, unless it's expensive or specifically says the amount of cacao that is in it, has between 5 and 30%. Dark chocolate has between 40 and 50% (or more if you get more expensive specifically darker chocolate.) The dark chocolate we made was 70%. I know. I roasted the cacao beans myself. It was too dark for me though. I could barely eat it. I think I managed to eat two pieces today. But it was so fun.I highly recommend it to anyone going to Antigua, or anywhere there's a chocolate museum. Do the workshop.

     So the workshop was incredible and I took a bunch of pictures. But that wasn't the whole day! We booked a tour to head up Acatenango tomorrow! We also went to an absinthe bar we happened to stumble upon yesterday. That was fun because absinthe is illegal in the United States! Not for any real reason, but it used to be believed that absinthe was a hallucinogen and would make you act crazy! It's since been proved that is not the case and it's just liquor made from wormwood but it was still fun. Plus, they pour it in a really cool way! It's a process to drink it. You need a shot glass, an absinthe spoon (just a small spoon with holes in it), a sugar cube, a lighter and a little water. The first step our bartender took was to pour the absinthe through the spoon into the shot glass. Absinthe can be either clear or green, ours was clear in this case. He then wet a sugar cube with more absinthe and lit it on fire. After it went out, he poured water through the sugar cube. And the coolest part, the absinthe turned milky white! It totally changed color! I didn't think it tasted that great, really strongly like anise. But Austin liked it. So we finished our shared shot (took a picture, unfortunately it's a little dark but I posted it anyway) and then headed back to the hostel for the night.

Day 7: Exploring and The Market

     Today we explored Antigua. We were both feeling great and decided to see what it had to offer. We decided to hike up to a large cross on one of the hills there. Going through this path I really wanted to watch George of the Jungle, or some other jungle-located movie. I felt almost like I should have a machete in hand because we were surrounded on all sides by such lush foliage. It was beautiful. When we got to the top, we had a great view, overlooking the whole city. We sat for a while, took pictures, I wished for a while that I had brought a picnic and then we headed back down, ready to see more of Antigua.

     We had heard of the market in Antigua so we decided to head there first. We had a small map and after asking a few people directions, we found it. It was an enormous open-air marketplace. Walking through, we saw people selling everything from octopus tentacles to televisions to hammocks. The outer edges of the marketplace were much more tourist oriented, similar to the food festival day in Juayua. But we walked in deeper and this market became much more interesting and crazy. This was the market that the locals shopped at. There was in the middle of the market a huge food court surrounded by people selling all kinds of unprepared food. I saw a table filled with raw seafood, including an octopus tentacle with suckers as big as nickels. Many people surprisingly sold raw meat. Stacked in piles, they simply fanned away (as best they could) the flies. There were also many people selling fruits and vegetables. Some stands being more sketchy than others. We wandered through the market, taking in the sights, the people, the atmosphere, and, sometimes unfortunately, the smells.

     By the time we were done at the market it was about dinnertime so we decided to head out. Walking around Antigua, taking in the sights, we stumbled across a McDonald's. Austin, as I found out on our last trip to El Salvador, loves to eat McDonald's in different countries. So we went in and he tried their most interesting looking burger, the Pollo a La Parmesana. It had mozzarella cheese and spaghetti sauce on it, as well as a piece of fried chicken. He didn't really like it, but the experience was fun. As for the sights in Antigua, it's filled with old, crumbling churches and cathedrals. They were really cool to look at though. Parts of the city (well town really) were pretty crumbly and run down too but overall it was very pretty. The buildings were mostly brightly colored and very welcoming. One interesting thing is that they were all touching. There wasn't a single alley in the whole place. Houses were against hostels and laundromats and clothing stores. There didn't seem to be any organization to it. Eventually, it started to get dark and we headed back to our hostel for the night.

    Our hostel is an interesting topic. We stayed in a private room, with a private bathroom which was really nice after Jungle Party where we had a dorm and shared bathrooms and showers. And one thing we've found about every place we've stayed so far is that their showers all work the same way, different than in the States. Instead of having a water heater, each shower has an individual, in-stream heater that heats your water right before it comes out of the spout. They work really well. Our room was small, just enough space for the bed, a small end table, and a pathway to the bathroom. But for the price (and the complimentary breakfast), we were very satisfied.

    

Day 6: Still Sick in Antigua

     We didn’t feel better in the morning. Although we did manage to make it downstairs for free breakfast: pancakes, bananas, and hot coffee. Yum! We stayed in bed again for most of the day, watching movies and Austin staying near the bathroom. By dinner time though we were both feeling a bit better, me almost entirely, and we went to the grocery store again, this time buying food to make dinner. Dinner was a delicious paste of rice, beans, onions, peppers, and a pound of cheese. We seasoned it like crazy too. The original plan was to put it in our tortillas, but something happened along the way and they were no good. I suspected that they were infected by the soap when it leaked in my bag. But the dish was plenty delicious without the tortillas. We ate dinner and went to bed early again, hoping to be better in the morning.

Day 5: Sick in Antigua

     We woke up around 9:30. Late for us, but we were up late and just needed to pack up our things to check out of Jungle Party before noon. We wanted to find a different hostel for tonight. So we asked around and found a hostel called La Quinta. For the same price as a dorm at Jungle Party, they would give us a private room with a private bathroom. Plus, they had a kitchen we could use. We told them we’d probably stay three nights and they gave us a key. We went back to Jungle Party, got our things, checked out, and headed back to La Quinta. But not before I ran into Alex. He told me that things got a little crazy after we left but in the end, no one was hurt and it worked out fine. It also turns out that the crashing I heard was a fight of some sort happening in the hostel. No one knew exactly what had happened but one of the doors to the bathroom stall was missing. So we headed to La Quinta. We settled in and that’s where we stayed almost the entire day. Austin was feeling very sick. He had come down with a case of traveler’s diarrhea, presumably from that spaghetti, as it was the only meal we hadn’t shared. I wasn’t feeling too hot either so we lay in bed, eventually making it across the street to the grocery store for some sprite, chex mix, shampoo and body wash. The soap that we had, apparently sometime during our trip from Jungle Party to La Quinta leaked all over the “Shower Stuff” bag. It even leaked out of my bag and into my pack and on my clothes and everything else. I emptied it with plans to clean it tomorrow and went to bed early, hoping to feel better in the morning.

Day 4: Antigua and Jungle Party

     We woke up bright and early today and brought our things downstairs to the terminal where we gave our tickets to the receptionist and waited for the bus to arrive. I had no problems sleeping the night before but Austin told me the ceiling leaked and it kept dripping on him. I’m happy I wasn’t sleeping on his side of the bed! Soon the bus came. It was nice, a lot like an especial but less crowded with people. Crossing the border into Guatemala was interesting. We all had to get out of the bus and show our passports to immigration. After looking at my passport and then back at me, my immigration officer eyed me suspiciously and then went over to a computer for a few minutes. (I have long hair in my passport picture). But he came back and wrote in my passport that I was good to go.

     There were men outside the immigration office and around the buses who would change your money for you into Guatemalan Quetzales. The exchange rate is 7.8 quetzales to a dollar. Well these men would give us an exchange rate of 7 quetzales for a dollar so we decided that we should just change a little bit of money with them just in case we needed it to get to a bank or something. Better safe than sorry. So we changed $20 with them and then got on our bus. 

     We drove the rest of the way to Guatemala City with no problems. When we got off of the bus, there were shuttles right there, run through Tica, that would give us a ride to Antigua (our next destination) for $10 each. This was a perfect scenario. Those prices were very good and we knew it was a safe and reliable shuttle. We got on and within a few hours we were in Antigua. 

     By the time we arrived, we were pretty exhausted. We had heard of one very popular hostel and decided to stay there. If we didn’t like it we could always change the next day. So we asked the shuttle to drop us off in front of Jungle Party Hostel. We booked 2 beds in a dorm room for that night and set our things down. There was still a fair amount of daylight though so we set out to explore Antigua a bit before settling in for the night. 

     Antigua was beautiful. And much larger than I had expected. There was a central park right in the middle of town with a huge fountain, lots of benches and grass all around. We stopped at the first restaurant we came to because it was well past lunch time and Austin was starving. I wasn’t hungry yet though so only he ate. Just a quick plate of spaghetti at a fairly nice restaurant. The prices were a bit better than El Salvador, assuming you don’t eat papusas for every meal there. There were lots of tourist shops too, all selling the bright embroidered bags or purses or shirts or anything you can think of. There were also many people walking the streets selling Jade and Coral jewelry (if you can believe it’s legitimate) or fresh cut fruit, drums, wooden flutes, and all sorts of different souvenirs. We stopped by a bank and they exchanged out money for the exact 7.8 exchange rate. So we swapped out the rest of our money and continued on our way. We saw a pizza place with awesome prices so we stopped there, picked up a pizza and headed back to our hostel. We decided that we would see what Jungle Party had to offer. We talked to our dorm-mates some. Two of the girls were leaving and they had bought more than they could take home. They were reorganizing their things so they could mail what they couldn’t carry. They couldn’t fit a few things in their bags though so I ended up walking away with the first three Harry Potter books. They were the Brittish versions so it’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and the covers are all very different. 

     We then went out into the bar portion of our hostel. We had a few drinks and started talking to people. I sat down with these two men. They were born in Guatemala but had dual citizenship in Switzerland and had been living there the last 5 years. They were both brilliant and it was very fun to talk to them. Alex was the first one I spoke to and he told me all about Switzerland and how different it is than Guatemala and even from the United States. It was intriguing. Eventually we decided to go for a walk around town. Antigua is considered to be very safe at night and so none of us thought too much of it. Alex, his friend, Austin and I set out and I guess others thought it was a good idea too because by the time we were out the door, there were a couple more people tagging along.

     Walking down the street, we passed a man who was selling cocaine. I was a little shocked as no one had ever tried to sell me cocaine before but we all just said no gracias and he moved on. He asked everybody individually though if they wanted cocaine and I don’t know if it was that, or what happened but one of the people who tagged along, an apparently very hot-headed guy, punched the cocaine dealer. Hard. I didn’t see it but Austin did and we took off right then. We went back to the hostel and I stayed up in the dorm, listening for Alex, hoping everyone made it back alright. While I was waiting, I heard a lot of banging and shouting coming from inside the hostel but I wasn’t going to involve myself. I’d had quite enough adventure for one night so I just waited. Eventually I heard Alex’s voice, talking and laughing and so I went to sleep, relieved and very tired after a long, exciting, somewhat scary day.

Day 3: Juayua back to San Salvador

     Today we woke up early, packed up the rest of our things, ate some of our sausage-rice for breakfast and then headed down to the bus stop. Walking down there, we saw what I thought was an incredible statue of a man chiseling himself out of rock (picture below). We were heading back to San Salvador to hopefully book our tickets to Guatemala City for tomorrow. But the Tica bus website said they were closed, so we weren’t sure if it would work out. But, worst case scenario, we would spend one extra day in San Salvador. So we hopped on the bus to Sonsonate and crossed our fingers the Tica office would be open.

     When we arrived at the bus terminal in Sonsonate we saw a sign that said 205 SAN SALVADOR. We figured that was where we needed to be so we sat down on a curb and waited. After about twenty minutes with no bus 205, we wondered if we were really in the right spot. Austin walked over to a young woman sitting on a bench near us to find out. As it turns out, behind us across a parking lot and across a street was a separate terminal just for the 205 bus to San Salvador. So we headed over there and waited for a good looking bus. We found an especial and jumped on. My plan was to sleep on the bus but they started playing a movie (and we had great seats for it) and even though it was in Spanish, it drew both of us in. So I’ll definitely need to look up that movie in English and watch it sometime. Well, eventually our bus pulled into the terminal in San Salvador. We knew that we needed to get a taxi and get to the Tika bus station, but we didn’t know how to get a taxi without a phone. Thankfully, we saw a few parked across the street. So we started walking over there. We got into a taxi with the first man who asked us if we needed one. It was definitely the dingiest taxi I’ve been in yet but he took us to the terminal no problem and we paid the price that we agreed on beforehand. We decided to just try the door to the Tica Bus office in the hopes that maybe it was open. And it was! We went in and talked to a man at the counter and reserved our seats for the bus the next day. Leaving San Salvador at 5 and arriving in Guatemala City at 2. We then walked upstairs to see if the hotel had any rooms left. They did. It was a little more than we wanted to pay, but we decided it was worth it to be right at the station and if you consider the cost of taxi rides, we weren’t really paying anything extra. Plus, the room had air conditioning.

     We still had a little bit of sunlight so we decided to walk around El Salvador. We knew we weren’t in a bad part of it and we asked a security guard how to get to the Art Museum. He directed us but we didn’t see it. However we happened to stumble upon the Anthropological Museum. Having already seen the Art Museum, this was an even better find. We went in and looked all through it until closing time. It was very interesting. There was so much information all about the history of El Salvador starting way back with the Mayans and Aztecs. Also each sign was written in both English and Spanish so we were really able to enjoy the museum fully. (And enjoy some of the worse translations). We were still walking and when a guard politely informed us that the museum was closed. We had no idea. So we left and thought about what we were going to do for food on the bus the next day. Our hotel was right next to a few fast food places so we eventually decided to grab a couple overpriced Wendy’s hamburgers and just be done with it. It was starting to get dark anyway.

     The Wendy’s was weird, as most of the American restaurants are in El Salvador. It had a foosball table and a playland. They were also playing American hip-hop dance music. It looked much more like a sit-down restaurant than other Wendy’s and that’s how the customers seemed to be using it. We got our food and went back to our hotel, packed our bags, and tried to get to bed early.

Day 2: Juayua Food Festival

     We woke up early today, wanting to visit Los Chorros first thing and hopefully before all the (other) tourists got there. We got directions from the hostel and started walking, a local woman pointing us in the right direction at one point when we were a little unsure which way to go. The walk took about half an hour and it was a lot steeper and more difficult than either of us had expected. But it was well worth twice the walk. When we arrived, we saw gushing waterfalls, spread out and pouring over a huge area of rock wall. There was moss growing on some of the rocks and tropical plants all around. We kept walking and reached another waterfall, this one with a crystal clear pool at the bottom. I was tempted to go swimming and actually walked down to the waterfalls dressed in my swim clothes, but after touching the freezing water, I decided I'd only dip my toes in instead. Austin and I then spent some time stretching and doing yoga in front of this exquisite and peaceful background. It was incredibly relaxing. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera! I was very tempted to go back to the hostel, get it, and come right back just to take pictures. The sights were so beautiful. But I was in a bit of a hurry and decided that a better idea was to come back the next morning if I decided I wanted them.

     We then walked back to the hostel, changed out of our swimming clothes and walked into town to check out the food festival. It was awesome! And far more than just food! There were vendors all over selling everything from bracelets to umbrellas to jade knives and of course so much food! We wandered for well over an hour through all of the food stalls until we decided on what we wanted. We started with a plate of rabbit meat. Neither of us had eaten rabbit before but I loved it! There was also on the plate thick tortilla pieces (almost like pita bread), beans, rice, avocado, and tomatoes. Enough to make yourself little delicious quesadillas. The meal was fantastic and Austin couldn't wait to try out next dish, but I needed some time to let the food settle. I was very full. So we walked around, admiring all of the clothing, purses, jewelry, and other souvenirs that were for sale. One wonderful thing about the vendors is that they weren't pushy at all. You could walk past and look and they were attentive and would answer any questions you had but they didn't try to force their products on you as I've had other street vendors do.

     Eventually, I decided my stomach could fit a little bit more food in it so we went down to our other food stall, this time buying a surf and turf plate. The steak was delicious and seasoned really well. The surf part was prawns. I didn't know what those were at first but I learned. They're enormous shrimp. Colossal. They have distinct faces. But they were delicious. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of that plate but it was fantastic. We finished out our food festival with a piece of Tres Leches cake. Also wonderful. But before we went back to the hostel, there was one more thing we wanted to do: The Reptile Museum. We found it pretty easily and walked in, a teenage boy meeting us at the entrance to collect the admission fee. We went in and saw iguanas, snakes, fish, lizards, spiders and all sorts of animals. What was really incredible though was how enormous some of his snakes were. I doubt they could be fed anything smaller than rabbits. If you wanted, you could, for a dollar, take a picture with his biggest snake. I did. I held this snake on my shoulders and felt it slowly coiling around me. It was a little bit scary and very exciting.

     When we finished the reptile museum we walked back to our hostel and I showered, wanting to get all the snake germs off of me. We packed up our bags and then stayed up for a while, meeting some of the other people in our hostel and trying to figure out where we were going to stay tomorrow. It looked like our best prospect is the hotel right above the Tica office. Hopefully they’ll have rooms. We’ll see tomorrow.