Volcano Fever & Marina Moves

At the end of our Guatemala City tour, Eric and I made the last-minute decision to adventured off to the beautiful colonial town of Antigua, which is a short drive about an hour and a half from the capital, an ancient colonial town guarded by 3 magnificent volcanoes,  2 of them are sleeping giants for now and 1 is still a fiery beast and highly active, called Fuego (fire in Spanish) and surely lives up to its name. In fact, Fuego is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, just about 3 weeks ago it fired up international news as an evacuation was called around Fuego due to a major eruption.

We chose to stay at Los Pasos Boutique Hotel, which was gorgeous, with the best spa experience ever, and incredible attention to detail and to guests needs, we will certainly return here in October.

Earth Quakes and Catholicism

We enjoyed a very informative guided walking tour getting to know the small town of Antigua, which boasts many ancient catholic buildings, specifically convents and churches. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer operational. Guatemala, including Antigua are set on 3 tectonic plates which of course is the cause of many earthquakes, and this little town has been destroyed several times, leaving many old and beautiful buildings in ruin, as the timeless witnesses to the catholic faith and the terrifying fault lines. What is wonderful to see though is the fact that large amounts of money and labour is being put into preserving these colonial beauties, they are now completely protected and have earned the rights to being a UNESCO world heritage site.

What does October Have in Store for Us

October is shaping up to be a fiery month……... We came to Antigua to check out the volcano we intend to hike in October named Acetenango,  this is obviously one of the inactive volcanos however by climbing this, we will be almost eye to eye with its fiery neighbour Fuego which is slightly lower and will allow for magnificent views at night. With that in mind this hike is not going to be easy, therefor training has started as it is going to be a very tough hike and we need to work for it. A very steep incline and more than 13 000ft above sea level 🫣We will certainly be giving this our best shot; we still have a few months to go.

We spent most of our time walking and even managed a couple of small hikes, which gave us magnificent city and volcano views. After thousands of steps and many kilometres of walking we are always entitled to some wine. 😀

Celebrating the win

Somehow, we are always lucky enough to meet some of the best people, over a few cocktails we ended up spending 2 days of fun together. A big highlight was watching the football, Guatemala VS Canada World Cup qualifier, the crowd was buzzing, the drinks were flowing, and history was made, Guatemala pulled off a win pushing further into the qualifiers, here we were screaming our heads off like locals. Apologies to my Canadian friends but we had to support Guatemala. 🇬🇹😀 The atmosphere was electric, and we both felt so incredibly proud to be part of this.

To celebrate the glorious underdog victory, we headed to dinner in an Italian restaurant with a real Italian owner, it felt more like you had gate crashed an Italian home, the owner however, is apparently always half a bottle of red past sensible, but man what fantastic home cooked Italian meal. Once again, we will be returning.

Monkey Maneuverers part 2 – The Great Escape

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Another land trip has come to an end, and it is time to take the 6-hour drive back to Monkey Bay Marina and get back to Intle Breeze, we are due to move her in a couple of days to the Marina next door where she will remain until November.

For those of you that read Monkey Maneuverers Part 1, you will recall that the space was rather tiny that we had to get into, but now we must get out and this time in reverse. 😱

We needed do this by 08:00am before the wind picks and adds a chaotic twist.  Meeting with all hands-on deck at 07:45 to discuss how we will do this, thankfully there were many hands ready to help.  Eric has certainly mastered the art of getting our floating home into and out of tight spaces and handled this like an absolute pro.

Thanks to Jens from Dilly Dally who took some drone footage of our exit, I can gladly say it went really smoothly, and we were out of there in no time with no incidents, I think Dilly Dally would have had a lot more clicks on YouTube had there at least been a little drama 😜 Sorry guys not this time………….Stay Tuned