Antigua Guatemala

Coffee Farm Tour

Ex As Green as It Gets

Learn how to pick, process and roast your own coffee. Spend a day with a coffee farmer, on the base of Volcán Agua, and learn what a day in the life of a small independent coffee farmer is like. The tour will take you up the volcano to pick coffee from their fields. They will then take you to their homes to demonstrate how to separate the coffee fruit by density, husk the fruit, ferment and wash the beans, dry, remove the inner hull, sort by size and grade, roast, and of course taste. Costs Q200 for the day, and includes a pound of coffee as well as English translation and guide services. Tours begin and end at Plaza de San Miguel Escobar in Ciudad Vieja, and must be booked at least 24 hours in advance.

Three-hour tours begin at 09:00 and 13:00

Artisanal workshops

Ex As Green as It Gets

Spend an afternoon with a local artisan specializing in jade, metal work, or textiles. Enjoy a unique cultural experience and come home with a handmade gift.

Semana Santa processions

Every year in the "Holy Week", the time from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, most cities and villages in Guatemala celebrate local processions in which different religious groups carry life-sized, heavy and holy statues through the streets. Antigua is the Guatemalan hotspot and epicenter of these activities. If it happens you are in Antigua during the Holy Week don't miss to watch these processions. Usually there are several a day, organized by different groups or churches on different tracks throughout the streets and during different times of the day. Ask the local tourist information to find the procession that fits best into your plans.; Also visit the churches of Antigua in that time, as every church is proudly decorated and displaying beautiful handmade "carpets". These carpets, made of colorized sawdust, show and form religious symbols and get decorated with fruits and vegetables and is something that Antigua is particularly famous for. Also you find such handmade carpets on the streets as a grounding for the processions to walk over it.; Be aware that prices are rising high during the Holy Week as this is a touristic highlight well-known throughout all Guatemala. Hence, the city is crowded by natives and internationals alike. However, in the week or the two weeks before already there are a lot of processions who "practice" their walk, so it may be advisable to move there in the days before when prices have not yet skyrocketed.