1st night in guatemala city/2nd night in antigua

We made it to Guatemala city, arriving at 10 pm thanking ourselves for arranging transportation to our hostel our first night. 4 other passangers on our plane were thanking us as well. They ended up coming with us. We stayed at hostel los volcanoes. It was around $30 a night including breakfast and airport pickup. Hopefully the most expensive staywe will have. After we arrived at our hostel we sat around with our new friends . jb, laura, luis, itza. We all shared a few Gallanos which is the local beer monply. JB and laura were from denver traveling around for around a week. luis and his daughter were visiting family for the holidays. It was nice having luis around for his fluency and helpful tips. He made our first night so much easier and more enjoyable. His daughter was very sweet as well we played house for about an hour, she was my mom so she could give me advice and tell me what to do. Guatamela city was hectic, congested, dirty and heavily polluted, and we were happy to leave the next morning. The next day we took a shuttle with jb and laura to Antigua. We got a room at the jungle party hostel with a very cute golden retriever guarding the front door. They have a great atmosphere and great place to meet fellow travelers from just about everywhere, England, Norway, Germany, ireland, canada, israel and even indiana. Since it was jbs birthday jungle house arranged for a party which included cake, pinatas, and games. we walked around with our new friends tom and amy looking for a spanish school to attend for next week. We start on Monday 4 hours a day, staying with host family with 3 meals a day for around $140 a week. We are very excited to be learning some spanish, it will help us communicate more with the locals and will make our trip so much more enjoyable. Tomorrow I think we are going to hike up the pacaya volcano, it will be some good exercise and give us a chance to see some lava and a beautiful view of the guatemalan highlands. Last night we had a real taste of antigua when we had dinner with our new friend amy at the rainbow reading room. live guatemalan music with a little western flavor, some tofu ginger black bean comfort food and the coolest waiter ever who grew up on a small highland coffee plantation but had just returned from studying photography in ch¡cago of all places. all and all everything has been just perfect so far and we´re ready for more. feel free to say hello as often as you like and stacy and i will do our best to post as much as possible.

much love

john and stacy