First Weekend!

Our first weekend was amazing - sorry for the delay in blogging! We decided that our blog needs more photos, so I tried to do less writing and more photos for this one. On Saturday we got up early at 6:00am to hike one of the three volcanoes that surround Antigua, called Agua.  We met our guide, Don Filoberto, in San Miguel de Escobar where he then took us to his house for a breakfast of bread and hot chocolate and stories about his family and the history of the town. 

After breakfast, we started hiking. We walked up a small street in the town, which then turned into a dirt path that we followed for the next hour and a half. Don Filoberto led us to his family's coffee farm part way up the volcano.  We didn't hike all the way to the top because it would have been another 5 and half hours to the top, but we still had the chance to take some amazing pictures:

 

When we reached his farm, Don Filoberto's daughter made us an amazing snack of freshly made guacamole, beans, and tortillas:

  After we got back from our hike, we relaxed on the porch in the sun for a couple of hours.  We then met Renato, a man that works at Common Hope and has been to Winnetka multiple times, and his family for dinner.  He has three daughters, Stefani, Seidi, and Sammi, that are all so sweet.  They all go to an international school so they can speak both Spanish and English. 

 Sunday morning, we met Renato's girls after they went to church and took them out for breakfast to a place that is definitely our new favorite restaurant (we went back there today for a snack). It's called Luna de Miel and it is an amazing crepe place where we had nutella crepes with strawberries and bananas. The girls are so much fun and loved taking tons of pictures with our camera.

 Sunday afternoon, we went zip lining in a huge coffee farm called Finca Filadelphia.  Since I am terrified of heights, the whole experience was emotionally draining, but definitely worth it. There were a total of nine segments, two of which were extra long. The longest was 1,700 ft long and 500 feet in the air!

After zip lining, we went back and hung out at our house. For dinner, Hana, Caroline, and I had a girls night and went to a delicious little restaurant called Las Palmas.  The food was amazing and supposedly there is really fun salsa dancing later at night - it is definitely on our list of things to try while in Antigua! Today we went back to work at Common Hope where we did construction in the morning. We put the walls up on the house that we have been working on. It is so cool to see every step of the process, from making concrete to filling in the floor, and finally starting to see a final product.