Arriving at a hotel named after the Guatemalan idiom for "pleased to meet you" sets a certain level of expectation. Luckily, the Casa Encantada doesn't fail to deliver. All smiles and enthusiastic gestures, the hotel is run by multilingual staff whose level of service far exceeds the hotel's diminutive size.
Rooms that look like converted barns offer up overhead wooden beams, lush bedding, and wood-burning fireplaces. Shared spaces take on a more social feel where the outdoor pool and welcoming lounge are prime for swapping adventure tales.
Take breakfast on the rooftop-terrace in the morning, and ease into a day of photographing 16th-century homes and crumbling colonial churches. An adventurous day trip to Volcán Pacaya takes you to a bubbling, sulfur smoking volcano in the Escuintla Department, just south of Antigua.