I saw lava!

Well, folks, I had the privilege of seeing two different volcanoes erupt in the span of two days. Sunday it was Santiaguito and yesterday it was Fuego. And last night I saw lava!

Three volcanoes surround Antigua: Agua (the one I can see from my room), Fuego, and Acatenango. Fuego translates to "fire" in English, and it's an active volcano. I had heard that you can see it erupting from Antigua, but I didn't expect to see it since it's the rainy season and the volcano peaks are usually covered by clouds. Here's a photo of Fuego that I took yesterday morning. It's near the middle of the photo and mostly hiding behind the clouds.
Well, last night I saw the peaks of Agua and Fuego. Here's the peak of Agua.
After dinner I went up to the rooftop terrace because there was a thunderstorm going on behind Agua. It was really cool because the lightning occurred behind and beside the volcano and lit up the outline of the volcano in the sky. Another tourist named Ken was also up on the roof. He works in the IT department at Yale University. (Tamara--that made me think of you.) We enjoyed a highly intellectual conversation about tourism, the environment, and intercultural interaction.

About 10-15 minutes into our conversation, I looked over at Fuego and I saw a red glow at the peak. I told Ken to look at it and then we both got a little giddy--we were looking at lava! Fuego put on quite a show for us over the next 30 minutes. It's pretty far away, so often we just saw the red glow, but a couple times we actually saw the lava shooting out from the crater. Very, very cool.

This morning I woke up to quite a bit of sunshine. Good morning, Agua!
Today I went on a walking tour of Antigua. When I'm in Central America, organized tours like that always feel a little like a gringo parade. :) But this tour was highly informative, so I enjoyed it. Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala (and most of Central America), so there's a lot of history in the city. We visited the city government building, the old Catholic church, a jade factory and store, a park, and some archeological and art museums. Many of the buildings are from the 1600 and 1700's! Here are a few random photos.
And, Misty, if you liked the last photo yesterday, you'll love this one. I just happened to be by the arch when Agua showed its peak.
Tomorrow morning I leave to return to the U.S. If you're not sitting down right now, you might want to before you continue reading... I think I'm actually ready to go home. This trip has been fun (and very volcano-filled!), but I'm missing home a bit. See you all soon!