McBerkoBlog

I had read about this hike before our trip but was not planning to do it. Overnight backpacking is more up Bill's alley than mine. My typical camping rule is "bathroom required," and there are no bathrooms on a volcano. :) But in the end, Bill got sick, we only had a few days before we flew back home, and it just looked too cool, so I signed myself up for this adventure and hoped for the best. It was a volcano weekend - we'd just visited Volcano Pacaya the day before. View of Volcano Fuego from camp on Acatenango I booked with a tour company called Wicho & Charlie's , liked their social and eco-conscious approach which even included all plant-based food. When I arrived there at 7 a.m., they handed out little juice shots - beet, orange, and ginger - to help with the altitude (not sure if that works but it was delicious), and then we got to "shopping." Temperature at the top of the volcano can get down to 30-40 degrees F, so they recommended everyone c...

Real talk here. Why? Because it's hard to plan trips like this and accurately estimate how much you'll spend, so I always appreciate seeing details about how much it cost other people. Maybe this info will do the same for someone else. Costs of course will vary based on what you value. We wanted to try a lot of local food and experiences so weren't trying to skimp on those, but weren't throwing money around lavishly either. Volcano Pacaya We were gone for 30 days. I won't make you scroll: our total net cost for this trip for our family of 4 was ~$3,050 . That's cheaper than our typical 7-10 day trips, including our prior trips to Germany, Costa Rica, Los Angeles, and Boston/Maine. I'm specifically looking at our net costs to understand how much we spent over  a typical month at home, so am subtracting out any normal monthly costs not incurred to more accurately reflect the true additional cost of being somewhere else for the month. Let's break it down: T...

This is an assignment for my Spanish class, a presentation about a Hispanic food. ¡Vamanos! Nota: Yo no se como escribir acentos en este blog, lo siento. En mi viaje a Antigua, Guatemala, mi familia quierio probar mucha comida nueva. Nosotros probamos platos tradicionales guatemaltecos como pepian y kak'ik, los guisos (stews) con verduras y pollo, pavo, o tofu sobre arroz. Tambien probamos muchos postres: bunuelos, rellenitos, flan, y platanos en mole.  Platanos en mole (mas deliciosos que los otros postres) Bunuelos (tantos ricos como los platanos, y tan grande!) A mis hijas, se gustan mucho los licuados (una bebida con frutas y leche o agua). Todos los restaurantes sirven los licuados. Las frutas populares en licuados aqui son mora (blackberry), fresa, mango, pina, y papaya.  Estan disfrutando los licuados Para ellas, la mejor comida en Antigua no es una comida guatemalteca, es la pupusa. Las pupusas son de El Salvador, pero son muy populares en Guatemala para el almuer...

We have been eating out at least once a day, a mix of places enjoyed by the locals and more expensive touristy places. I was expecting that our food costs here would be about the same as home, and they are close, with the difference being that we're eating out at least once a day here vs. not often at home. It'd be easy to eat very cheaply here by sticking to traditional places or eating at home more, but I'd rather enjoy as many places as we can while we're here! The tourist places are a little less than US pre-pandemic prices, ~$45-50 for dinner for the 4 of us including beer or other drinks for everyone.  Local places are half that or less, breakfast ~$3 and lunch/dinner ~$5. Our best deal was probably this traditional breakfast - coffee, basket of hot tortillas, beans, scrambled eggs, cheese, sweet plantains, and watermelon, all for $2.80 (including tip): One of Ruth's early favorite meals was at a traditional Guatemalan restaurant in the middle of the market wh...