Antigua

At 8ish in the morning we got to a hostel called ´the black cat´at that time in the morning we were too tired to notice, but later it became all too evident that the whole room was covered in mould and damp, it stank too! Katie slept in a bit whilst me and Leggra wandered through the town and into a market where i bought a handbag (did some some hardcore haggling and got the woman down to half price) and Leggra bought some sandles.

At 2ish, Katie joined us and we hopped into a collectivo for a tour of the local coffee plantation. It was really cool- now i know how cooffe is made, from the plant to the cup. Also i interestingly discovered that although espresso tastes stronger, it actually has less caffine in it than normal coffee because espresso beans are roasted longer. After that we also had a tour about traditional Maya instuments and music, then at the end we got free coffee- it tasted amazing!

When we got dropped back we raced off to a free salsa workshop that we´d seen advertised in our hostel- it was so fun. We learnt a few basic steps then all the men who worked in the hostel and had salsaed all their lives danced with us so we could put what we´d learnt into practice.

After dinner we sat in our hostels bar for a bit and saw the salsa instructors their. After chatting for a bit they took us and some others from the hostel to a bar called mono loco (it was ladies night, so our drinks were about 10p each) then on to a salsa bar. The salsa bar was crazy, everyone and i mean EVERYONE was salsaring- being flipped upside down, whizzed around, shimmying, singing, screaming- the atmosphere was electric. I danced with a guy from our dorm, but although i enjoyed myself, it has to be said that the latin women put me to shame.

The next day was amazing. We spent the afternoon treking up an active volcano- 1-2 intensive hours walking practically vertically upwards. The views were breath-taking and just the fact we were walking up an active volcano was too. We´d brought marshmallows from the market that morning because normally you´re allowed to toast them on the lava. When we got to the top however the guide told us it was too unsafe to get that close to the lava and just as i asked why... a massive glowing red rock began to pick up speed as it rolled down the mountain in our directing before veering off- everyone freaked and start running away from it. I nearly got pushed over by this woman trying to run past me. All the same, it was really cool watching the glowing red lava against the dark night sky as well as feeling the heat that all the big rocks were emitting. the rocks around us were way too hot to touch for any amounted off time.

At one point me, Legs and Katie got really scared that the guide had left us because it was getting close to pitch black and we couldn´t find him anywhere. No-one else seemed to know where he was either, so we persuaded this poor guy from our group to walk with us back down the volcano. Unfortunately none of us had a torch, it was freezing cold once you´d moved away from the hot rocks and we were all terrified and kept tripping. Luckiy after a while we had the sense to stop and wait and soon herd voices behind us- one of which was our guides. ´where were you? we thought you´d left us.´i said trying not to sound us upset as i was.
He just shrugged and said 'i´m here now' and then gave me his spare tourch.

Once we were with our guide and surrounded by the rest of our group walking down the volcano in the dark was really fun, except when the guide kept jumping out at me from behind trees and creeping up on me going 'sasha...' in a really scarey voice. I feel for it evrytime but i did see the funny side after the inital shock.