Camionetas ready for business

Café Bohème, owned by a young French couple who meant to travel Latin America seven months, ended up staying in Guatemala all seven, and have since opened up this charming café in Antigua. Top-notch sandwiches, smoothies, and coffee.

Parque Central

We headed out to Antigua, Guatemala, the picture-perfect colonial town with cobbled streets, colorful homes, churches in ruins (as well as plenty in operation), tour agencies at every corner, and a steady flow of gringos. As was Santa María the looming figure over Xela, Volcán de Agua towers over Antigua at 3,760 meters (12,336′) making it into the background of all the photos and paintings of the city. Present-day Antigua was founded in 1541 but was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1773 leaving it to be something of an open-air architectural museum. Many of the major structures and monuments have been preserved as ruins, the impressive churches and magnificent buildings dating back to the Spanish empire.

Walled-in wild garden

Santa Rosa

La Merced

Trees in buildings

We were thoroughly impressed with the cooler-on-head balancing.

Iglesia y Convento de la Compañía de Jesús

Iglesia y Convento de la Compañía de Jesús peaking over the wall of the Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española, Volcán de Agua in the background.

Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española

Full moon from our rooftop terrace

We took a ½-day tour to the Filadelfia Coffee Resort just outside Antigua; here we have the coffee nursery.

They explained an interesting practice they have of breeding Arabica and Robusta coffee plants. The idea is to combine the strength and depth the Robusta roots with the finesse of the Arabica flavor. You can see the clear/white bandage that is holding together the implantation.

Taking a ride from the nursery to the more mature coffee plants

The red bean is ready for harvest

We were encouraged to find a few red beans

When you squish the red bean, this glucose-y green bean emerges; this is what is cleaned, fermented, and then dried to prepare for roasting.

Dried and ready for roasting

Bags that hold 150lbs of coffee and the scale

Where the roasting and toasting happen

Bird of Paradise

Statue and pigeon whisperer – Iglesia San Agustin Church

We had a real craving for sushi, having realized we had been without for three months, that was satisfied in Antigua.

We could see the very-active Volcán de Fuego from the rooftop of our hostel. During the day we could see poofs of smoke every 20 minutes or so, and by night you could see lava shooting up before tumbling down the volcano. The silhouette to the right is Acatenango which Julien would climb within three weeks’ time.

The facade of the church San José looks out over the Parque Central. Within are the ruins of San José, an immense cathedral damaged in the earthquakes of 1717 and 1751, ultimately brought down by the earthquake of 1773.

For a short video of our time in Antigua, click here.

And so concludes our second stop through Antigua. Next step, the ruins of Copán, Honduras!