Chicken Buses

We appreciated the benefits of a good night’s sleep today; nine hours last night which made up for a few shorter nights. Tasty breakfast of pitta and hummus, smoothie and coffee, watching hummingbirds feeding on the flowers in the restaurant garden.

8:30 departure back to Antigua – it might take 3, or 4 or 5 hours. We’re stuck behind “chicken” buses for the first fifteen minutes. These buses are old American school buses which are now used as public transport. They are everywhere, they pour out clouds of black smoke, they can go quite quickly when they choose and they appear to rule the roads. They also come in many different colours, they have names painted down the side and they are all slightly different.

The traffic is on our side and we get to Antigua before mid-day and hit the streets to see the sites. The town is busy with visitors, Guatemalan and foreigners, all here to party tonight.

We wander a few random streets, grab a coffee and try Ta’Cools for lunch, share a very good vegetarian taco and a couple of hibiscus juices to cool down. Antigua is 2,000m above sea level so the air is quite cool but the sun is strong so it feels hot. We walk round the bus station to have a close look at some more buses.

Back to the hotel for a quick shower before the big night ahead, by 5pm the central square is already filling up, there’s a band playing outside the cathedral and a strange mixture of people on stilts, people with very large heads and an avocado dancing below them.

We try an ice cream, pineapple and chilli, very nice.

The Galeria de Arte is open until 7pm so we have a look round. The paintings and sculptures are mainly from Central America, they are exuberant and colourful and reflect the personality of the people and the landscapes we’ve seen. It feels like art that has developed away from most European influences, we don’t like it all but it’s refreshing to see so many new styles.

The volcanoes around the town out on a good show for New Year’s Eve, throwing out smoke into the sunset.

Enough culture, it’s time to party – Cafe No Se is one of the coolest bars I’ve ever seen, it’s very dark, candle-lit, there are small doors off the main room leading to little corners to sit in – one has a sign over the door, which is about 4 feet high, saying Mescal bar – minimum 2 shots. There are images of Maximon, the Mayan god we saw yesterday, also a poster saying “Trump eres un pendejo” – ‘Trump is an @***hole’. The soundtrack is a mixture of sixties rock and blues. We have a couple of Mescal Mules and toast the New Year that has just turned in London, very tasty.

Back on the street we head back to the hotel to meet the group for our last night meal, distracted by a ruined, floodlit church, it’s slowly being restored, mass is just beginning so it’s clearly active. The Central Square is now much more active, more music and dancing – a few people appear to be dressed in fireworks which makes some of the crowd move rather quickly.

My ears are ringing from a fire cracker that explodes in the street very close to us.

We have a quick drink with the group then head off to try another bar we spotted earlier – Por Que No? – we can just get to the bar to get a drink but have to drink it on the pavement, the bar is tiny and very atmospheric. We get chatting to a brother and sister from Singapore and get some tips for later, much later, in our trip.

Happy New Year!