 Welcome to Blue Ocean Studios  Around the World Antigua, Guatemala Our trip is off to a great start after arriving in Antigua, Guatemala. After a short 2 1/2 hour flight from Miami, we landed at the Guatemala City airport and breezed through immigration and customs. It was a nice landing - the initial area was sectioned to only arriving passengers, so we had some space to breath and retrieve money from the ATM (granted the ATM wouldn't give us a reasonable amount of cash, and then when we got a few bills - it wouldn't print a reciept! Dios Mio!). At least we weren't being overcrowded by people - a good start. We had originally reserved a shuttle bus, but didn't see them. No problema! - We were immediately greeted by another company offering shuttles for $10pp. We decided to go with them and soon got in the van. The ride to Antigua was about 45 minutes and fairly scenic driving through the outskirts of Guatemala City, where we saw policemen with shotguns patrolling the streets. That seems to be common here in Antigua as well, which provides some safety. We checked into our hotel, Casa Florencia, which is $42 per night. We have a very cute little room with no complaints so far. There is an amazing view of the Volcan Agua from our door. We had our first sip of filtered water (see pic). The water smells like sulfur but, with our water bottles, tastes fine.
Had an interesting dinner (see pics in the gallery). Several unidentified items on the "vegetarian" dish. We also had our first gato sighting. The cat was acting crazy and then came over to our table - Jaimie was very scared, since I told her to stay away frm all animals due to rabies. The dinner took 40 minutes to get our appetizers! We returned to our hotel room at 9:50pm for a quick shower and our daily journaling. Tomorrow we are signed up to hike Volcan Pacaya (one of the active volcanoes) starting at 6am and returning to Antigua around 1pm. We're exchausted from the travel shock - we're excited for a first sleep.
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Antigua is a small town - it used to be the capital of Guatemala until damaged from a large earthquake in 1773. It's surrounded by 4 volcanoes - at least 1 is very active. There was an enormous eruption this morning (before we arrived) from volcano fuego - take a look at an incredible view of one of the volcanos (Volcano Agua). We walked around the town for the remaining daylight hours and saw some of the sights including The Cathedral, La Merced, the Parque Central and the Arch. 
