Everything about Antigua is colorful - the Spanish colonial buildings, the skirts and dresses on the women, the gaudy painted buses and I'm TALL here - Amazonian-head-and-shoulders-towering-above people tall!! And they can't even wear heels to compete cos the entire city is cobblestones! This also has the added benefit of slowing the gaudy "chicken" buses as they squeeze past each other threatening to take out towering Amazonian gringas on the pavements designed for teeny tiny Guatemalans..
It's also safer than Guatemala City judging by the speed at which my driver Ligia tore out of there - she only slowed down on the winding mountain pass to show me photos of her favorite local cuisine (plato tipico) on her phone ..(so to add to jetlag I arrive both white-knuckled and starving )..
So Antigua - blindingly bright and picturesque, incredible coffee grown on the surrounding mountains and volcanoes and the best hot chocolate in the world at Cafe Contessa in the Parque National .. Todo Bien!!
