Lava rocks

I loved Antigua. I spent a couple days just checking out the city. The buildings are awash in saturated colors and the streets are cobbled. Every few blocks is a beautiful cathedral or some ruins of a cathedral or convent (much here was damaged in a series of earthquakes). It´s quite cosmopolitan and teeming with tourists. Get this...Tuesday night I went to a restaurant with another traveller staying at my hostel. About 20 minutes into the meal a friend of mine from college that I haven´t seen in about 6 years walked through the door. It was one of those world shrinking moments. Turns out she´s been living in Antigua for 2 years, I had no idea. We had dinner together the next night and got all caught up.

I took a trek up active Volcano Pacaya. It´s not everyday that you get to roast marshmallows over lava...add that to the top ten food experiences of my life! Hiking up there was like walking through a martian landscape. Everything was lush-as-usual then suddenly completely barren and desolate. All the rocks are holy like sponges with a slight multi-colored, metallic. They sound hollow when you walk on them. At a certain elevation the heat starts radiating from the, you have to be careful because in some spots it´s hot enough to melt shoes. We went up as far as possible and saw the lava between the rocks. Unfortunately she wasn´t flowing, but even a glimpse of lava was good enough for me.