We'd booked a shuttle from Copan to Antigua, and it was actually a shuttle this time! Just 5 passengers including us, we left at 6am and it was meant to take 6 hours. The border crossing was remarkably straightforward - we didn't even have to pay any exit or entrance fees, but we did have to give our fingerprints on leaving Honduras. We were caught in a long traffic jam after a truck caught fire, but were only an hour late arriving in Antigua. The journey was pleasant and passed surprisingly quickly, even though we couldn't nap. Plus we met some lovely Canadians on the bus.

After arriving, Ken did the rounds of about 15 different hostels, whilst Jayna drank coffee . It wasn't a good selection of hostels so the choice took a while. We chose more expensive and professional over cheap and dingy - there was a definite divide in places to stay, and unfortunately for us, staying on a weekend is more expensive than mid week. The hostel turned out to be nice and clean, though we had to pay for internet as theirs was broken, and we were told one price but it turned out to be another, more expensive price. It wasn't until the second day that we discovered the free coffee, which when we drank it, it and the sign saying 'free coffee for our guests' was taken away. And the shower was either scalding steam or freezing cold. Other than that, the place was nice. Later that day, we found a local vegan restaurant and ate the best chilli, ever. It was truly delicious.

Antigua is a colonial city which has been devastated repeatedly by earthquakes. This means that there were lots of atmospheric ruins for us to explore. Antigua has lots of volcanoes in it's vicinity, and we wanted to see flowing lava .

On Saturday 11th, we checked out some of Antigua's charms. We started in Parque Central where we noticed the beautiful traditional dresses worn by the Guatemalan women. The fountain in the park was built in 1738, apparently one of the few things to survive the devastating earthquake of 1773. On the south side of Parque Central is Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, the previous governmental centre of the whole of Central America. We only took in the facade before heading to Catedral de Santiago, or, to be more exact, the ruins of Catedral de Santiago. The facade of the building has been restored, but the interior is a wreck, following the 1773 earthquake. It had been a huge building, so wandering around it's neatly kept ruins was nice and peaceful.

Next we headed a few blocks north, grabbed lunch, spoke to some travel agencies, and went to Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Senora de la Merced. The church had a nice baroque facade and there was a wedding service taking place inside . Next door was the ruins of the convent, containing a fountain 27m in diameter (the Lonely Planet says, "possibly the largest in Central America"). We wandered around that for a little while, volcano spotting the three volcanoes around Antigua in the distance.

Next we headed to Colegio de San Jeronimo. This had a potted history, and was again destroyed in the 1773 earthquake. The interior had been maintained beautifully, and was full of tended plants and a working fountain. It was full of young people on dates. We sat here for some time, soaking in the peaceful atmosphere, and watching Volcan Fuego smoke in the distance.

In the evening, we headed back to the vegan place for more delicious grub. It didn't let us down.

After much research and much discussion, and speaking to several tour agencies, on Sunday 12th, we eventually booked ourselves onto a hike up Volcan Acatenango, to see Volcan Fuego do it's worst . The hike was the following day. As mentioned, we wanted to see flowing lava. This proved to be difficult, more difficult than we were hoping. A volcano about an hour from Antigua, called Pacaya, used to give the package we wanted - an hour's hike, with close proximity to flowing lava. So close you could toast a marshmallow over the heat. Unfortunately for us, Pacaya stopped erupting so regularly about five years ago, meaning it was still hot, but not flowing lava hot, and not great for what we wanted. The closest option was therefore Volcan Acatenango, for a viewpoint over Volcan Fuego. We still wouldn't get close to flowing lava, but it would be the closest we could safely get. When we booked the tour, we were told it was just the two of us, with a guide, and that we could have a tent to ourselves. Bonus.

After booking the tour, and whilst stocking up on provisions, Ken accidentally dropped a torch from height onto Jayna's head, which put her out of action and with a big headache for the rest of the day .

On Monday 13th, we woke up early and went to our tour agency. When we were picked up, it became apparent that we were not the only people on the tour, and that our business had been 'sold' to another company. There were 13 people in total doing the same package as us, though of course we had all paid different prices. The journey to the base of Volcan Acatenango was a 50 minute drive away, and we didn't start walking until 11.30am. The rest of the time was spent waiting and on the faff of giving out equipment. We were expecting a 5 - 6 hour hike and weren't best pleased at the delays, meaning hiking during the heat of the day. We had been told that we would start at 2500 metres, and hike to a little over 4000 metres, camping near the top. What we didn't expect was that the other hikers would come so unprepared, with no way of attaching their sleeping bags or roll mats onto their rucksacks. This meant they simply got away without carrying their stuff! We thought this was pretty unfair .

The hike was hard. We started directly up on loose volcanic scree. Jayna quickly gave her water to Ken as she was finding it hard to carry all the weight, particularly with the difficulty underfoot. After an hour of directly up, then it was zig-zagging up more loose scree for another two hours. The group stopped for a few minutes every twenty minutes or half an hour or so, and whilst we were slow, we weren't the slowest. That honour belonged to an unsmiling Israeli couple, who were evidently also finding it tough. These parts of the hike were hot, unrelentingly upwards, and with not many pretty view points along the way. The next part was some ups and downs around the edge of the volcano. This part was much nicer, cooler with the altitude, easier underfoot, and with some nice viewpoints. At one point we had lost everyone ahead and it was just the two of us. It was utterly silent, no bird song, nothing. Eerie. Soon after, we rounded a corner for our first close up view of the Fuego volcano, and it almost immediately erupted, blowing out a huge cloud of smoke into the air. This was the first of many, as we realised that Fuego is pretty much constantly erupting, it's just that some are bigger eruptions than others.

The hardest part of the hike was the final 5 minutes. We'd lost the group ahead, and saw tents, but didn't know the path. Evidently we took the wrong one, as it was impossible to get any kind of purchase underfoot . We scrambled up some scree until some people in our group formed a human chain and pulled us the last few feet to the safety of the camp. We'd made it! It had been a tough five and a half hours. After putting on layers because it was absolutely freezing, Jayna helped the guide set up the tents, and Ken gathered firewood for the camp fire. All the while, Fuego was erupting every few minutes and we had a great view of this from our camp.

We likened the hike to the second and most difficult day of the Inka Trail. Ascending over 1000 metres over 15 kilometers on a steady uphill, with difficult footing. Except that this time, we didn't have a chance to adjust to the altitude, we had no lead in, and we had no coca leaves to keep us going! In case we hadn't mentioned this, the hike was really hard.

In the evening, we sat around the roaring campfire and had a great (but cold) dinner, brought by the guide. Not long after, Fuego gave out a huge explosion, with lava and hot rocks spewing down the side of the volcano . It was quite a show! After this, it gave out numerous smaller explosions, with small amounts of lava. We all willed it to give out more big explosions but it didn't happen for us. Nature was not playing ball. We were able to watch three separate thunderstorms in the distance, with huge amounts of lightening happening in the distant clouds, and stars shining overhead. We could also see the lights of Guatemala city in the distance. We were the last people awake, waiting for the volcano to blow, before finally retiring for the night.

The tents turned out to be a 2 man, a 4 man, and a 5 man, for 13 people. That didn't add up and luckily for us, somehow or other, we managed to blag the two man tent. One chap who went to bed late found there was no room for him, and so had to sleep in with the guide. We found we couldn't sleep anyway, as it was so cold it was impossible, despite all the layers we were wearing.

Some people voluntarily woke up at 3am to climb the remaining few hundred metres of Acatenango, to watch the sunrise from the top . Naturally, we did not do this! Instead we opted to wake up at 5am to watch the sunrise from our camp. It was beautiful, and we could see Pacaya gently smoking in the distance, as well as Fuego blow every few minutes, giving out varying amounts of smoke and hot rocks.

We packed up and left camp at 7.30am, after a breakfast of cake and fruit and half a cup coffee, and started down the treacherous scree to the bottom again. The first section, the ups and downs of the previous day, was hot and quite hard going. Then we took what appeared to be a service road for horses and 4x4s only down a way, followed by a ridiculously steep and narrow section. Several people fell over. We rejoined the original path for the straight downhill section, finding our knees were very sore by this point. Thankfully, when we reached the bottom, we didn't have to wait too long for our transport back to Antigua, and were back in the city by 12pm. What a day it had turned out to be!

We sorted ourselves out with arranging transport to our next stop, followed by lunch and coffee. We had a couple of hours to kill so went to Iglesia y Convento de la Recoleccion, another massive ruin of a building destroyed by the 1773 earthquake. We wandered around and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings, before taking a power nap under the shade of some trees. We headed to our collection point and waited for our transport to the next stop - Lake Atitlan!