So I decided to take a trip to the Antigua Gym Wednesday afternoon to see what it was all about! It only costs Q25 for a day pass, which is only $3.27 in the U.S. The gym looks pretty cool inside. It’s not exactly “indoors”; if you were to look up, it kind of looks like there is a big circus tent overhead. There are rooms surrounding this open area where there is a small fountain and a wooden floor (which I’m guessing is used for their aerobics, pilates, tae-bo, and karate classes). The “circus tent” is over the open area. Anyways, I arrived around 4:40 PM and saw that they were going to be having their “Spinning” class at 5:30PM. I figured a spinning class in Spanish would be well worth my time so I hung out and did the elliptical until it was time. The elliptical machine was exactly like the one at Gold’s Gym so I already knew how to work it!!! So 5:15 rolls around and I decide to go set up on one of the bikes in the second row. I was glad I set up when I did because all 14 bikes were all filled up by 5:25PM. There were a few people who spoke English, 2 that spoke German, and the rest spoke Spanish. The class, like I said, was suppose to start at 5:30, but the instructor didn’t show up until 5:40PM. She then had technical difficulties with the stereo equipment and finally decided to have the music played over the gym’s sound system. However, we could barely hear the music from where we were at. So we finally began around 5:45PM. We began the class up out of our seats, as if we were climbing a mountain....and we stayed their for the entire first song! I couldn’t really understand anything that the instructor was saying- only a few words here and there. She kept yelling out numbers, like “Noventa” or “Seisenta”, which I’m guessing meant we were suppose to be giving that much percent…but I really don’t know. At the end of the first song, one of the gym’s workers finally came over and fixed the stereo for our instructor. So on our second song, we could actually hear the music; however, the CD began to skip after a few seconds. The instructor realized it, but kept on going for one more song. She finally changed CDS, which solved the skipping problem. Oh and this instructor wasn’t even on her bike half the time. She would just get off whenever she wanted to and walk around, get water, etc…..it was kind of weird and pretty unfair…I mean, she was making us “climb a mountain” for like 10 minutes straight while she was just chillin’ out. Thank goodness the class only lasted 30 minutes. :) I have to say that Gold’s Gym and their instructors (and the music) are 5 billion times better, but I am glad that I got to experience the Antigua Gym! Oh yeah, and this gym didn’t have AC since it is open to the outside so I was sweating up a storm. I do want to go back, but I don’t think I’ll do the spinning class again. I kind of want to try the pilates or aerobics classes. So Kelsey, even though I won’t get a chance to go to the Gold’s here in Guatemala, I still got to experience “gym life” here!!
