Guat's Up?

You're probably like did Thomson really use ANOTHER pun as a title for her blog post? But I'm like guatever. And the jokes on you because I bought a tank top that says Guat's up? on it so the fun never ends! Whitney and I actually bought the matching shirts in Flores but wore them today because they a) SCREAM "tourist" louder than a baby crying at 3 in the morning and b) we were going to be climbing UP a volcano today!!

I'm so punny.

Are you still reading? Because most people have probably thrown whatever electronic device they were using to read this blog across the room because they can't stand anymore of my puns. If you're still here, congratulations! (We don't need them anyways).

Anyways, we booked this trip to Pacaya, an ACTIVE volcano, on the fancy thing called the world wide web a few days ago and got a confirmation email yesterday that Armando would be meeting us at our hostel at 8 today. What we did not know was that we would be Armando's only charges for the day! Yeah, we're so classy that we get private tours! Armando was a character. He was an older gentleman who was very excited when we told him that we were from, as he said it, Bawwwstunn. (His English is 900 times better than our Spanish but is definitely still a work in progress). Apparently he has a friend who owns a taco restauran in West Newton so he knows a lot about the area (and we are going to have to investigate this taco cooking friend of his). Now like I said, Armando's English is not the best, which is why he spent 10 minutes of the ride to Pacaya telling us about how the Catholics here eat only turkey during Lent after Whitney asked if all of the churches in Antigua were Catholic or how he spent 15 minutes of the ride back explaining pet cemeteries, funeral processions and the Guatemalan stance on cremation when Whitney asked if he had any restaurant suggestions for dinner. Now, I did mention that Armando was on the older side so you're probably wondering "how could this old man possibly take these girls on a hike up a volcano?!" And so were we! But that's where Roberto came in! He would be our guide on the mountain and Armando would pick us up again at the bottom.

Being with Roberto increased our Spanish vocabularies by about 100% because we asked him a lot throughout the tour! So now we know 20 words instead of 10! He was actually a very patient guide and very good to us throughout the day.

Now, hiking up a volcano was not very different from hiking anywhere else if you ask me and that was mainly because my entire inner monologue of "Holy crap! I thought I was in shape! When does this end? Why did I do this to myself AGAIN?!" remained the same. The summit is, of course, entirely different because um, it's a volcano! You can't hike to the crater because it's too dangerous but we got pretty close! We then went through all of this ash that was left from previous eruptions (the last big one was in 2010) and let me tell you, volcanic ash is NOT for the uncoordinated. This is code for me. I fell on my butt. Hard. And more than once. I also skinned my hands and elbow. And oh yeah, to add literal insult to injury, Whitney caught it on her GoPro. (I was going but anything but pro-ing at that moment). Whitney fell too but not in the same spectacular fashion that was my performance of the Swan Lake equivalent of falling on your ass.

The bonus of my falls was that I got volcanic ash in my shoes! It became pretty clear that simply walking through this place was going to make anyone a mess but not everyone got to take the mess home with them... in between their toes... (In case the ellipses didn't make it evident, having volanic ash and rocks in your shoes when you're only halfway through your 3+ hour hike is not, in fact, a bonus).

We did take a break in this honest-to-goodness game of The Floor is Lava for a snack. And by that I mean we used volcanic vapors -- coming straight from the earth -- to roast marshmallows. Yup, Roberto brought marshmallows and sticks for us, told us where to set up and then we knew how to do the rest! Roasted marshmallows are a delicious snack to begin with but when Mother Nature is doing the cooking, it is somehow wayyy more satisfying. Whitney took a very good "food in the air" pic with our toasty gelatinous treats in the foreground with the volcano behind. (For those of you who don't know -- like me up until very recently -- "food in the air" photos are when people just hold pretty food in the air to post on social media). Possible Instagram caption: Getting toasty at the top of a volcano. #WhitneyPun

Post-marshmallows (but pre-social media posts), we stopped at the Lava Shop, because why wouldn't a volcano have a gift shop? We bought ourselves a little something and then it was time for the descent. As you can probably imagine, the descent was easier than climbing up was. My internal monologue never involves nearly as much swearing on the way down...

And then we were reunited with Armando. The drive back included the discussion I mentioned earlier along with explaining the KKK and American race relations to him. Whitney slept, although I'm not sure how because his driving got... interesting... as in we've hit some unexpected turbulence and the pilot has turned on fasten seat belt sign so stop getting up to use the bathroom already.

When we got back to Antigua we cleaned up and went to explore the city some more. We didn't take Armando's dinner suggestions (it involved way too many references to dead people instead of dead farm animals) and ended up at a place called Frida's. It wasn't good because it was the first real meal we'd had all day but because it was just really, really good! We went there because Whitney saw people with pretty drinks as we walked past and we ended up splitting a pretty drink of our own! We also split a quesadilla and a burrito and were splitting at the sides by the time we were done!

And now, it's raining so we have taken refuge in our hostel, which isn't great refuge when you consider the fact that the power went out and basically took the WiFi with it (we have power and "WiFi" now but this connection is living up to the hotel's WiFi password: "thereisnowifi"). (In fact, this post was written last night but didn't post until this morning). BUT Whitney made my life when she requested a Hamilton/musical theatre jam session, so we're packing to the sound of Lin-Manuel Miranda (and some Rihanna that they're playing in the bar that we just can't drown out).

On the move to Panajachel tomorrow!

P.S. My Instagram game improved significantly today when I realized that I can sync my camera to my phone. I still can't upload photos to the blog with just my tablet but if you'd like to look at my pictures as well as read my words, my handle is thomson.was.here

P.P.S. How did I not mention that Antigua has geofilters on Snapchat???!!!?! Who am I? They have three and take my word, they're adorable.

P.P.P.S. I don't know why I wrote "take my word" in my previous postscript. Like you're reading my blog, of course you're taking my words! And you must really like my words if you're still reading at this point because seriously, this post is longer than the waitlist for tickets to Hamilton...

P.P.P.P.S. Just testing to see if you're still here. That is all.