The plane ride was uneventful. Other then the fact that we didn't really get to sleep at all on Saturday night. Not too abnormal an amount of turbulance. When we arrived in Houston we went in the United lounge and I found a corner, put on my eyemask and some ear plugs and sacked out for an hour. The plane ride to Guatemala we both fell asleep for a good portion of it. We were awake for the last 45 minutes or so. I woke up just in time to get a diet coke from the stewardess. Good timing if you ask me!
We drove to Antigua from Guatemala City and promptly got lost looking for our hotel. It's a little hard to find your way around here. Luckily we weren't in a huge hurry and so we just bumped along the cobblestone roads looking for Casa Madeleine on Calle del Espiritu Santo. Needle in a haystack my friends. We did find it though and it was this quaint little house that only had 6 rooms in it. We were the only guests and the staff treated us like royalty.
Our balcony in our room, a good view of downtown Antigua
Me in downtown Antigua, tourist much?
There were lots of ruins like this in the downtown and surrounding areas. Everywhere you look there is something super interesting to look at
The arch leading into a monastery. Yes there are this many people EVERYWHERE.
Our room. super messy, super small, but oh so charming.
We wandered around downtown Antigua for a few hours, and bought plenty of local goods. In fact there was one painting we really wanted to buy from this one guy. But it turned into a battle of wills and he wouldn't come down to our price. We had already over payed for 2 smaller paintings, so we felt we had to stay strong on the smaller price for the large painting. He never went down and we walked away. I'm praying we can find another painting we like as much because Jon regrets the decision a little. Shayla will be thoroughly spoiled with Guatemalan dresses and jewelry and toys by the time we get home. Then we found a little taco restaurant to eat at. The tacos here are much different then the tacos you get in America. They were on soft homemade corn tortillas with your choice of meat on it and then you could top it with pico or a salsa of your choice. So yummy. As we headed back to the hotel we stopped at a little ice cream shop and walked home eating ice cream cones, and crashed. We went to bed at 8 and woke up 12 hours later. I guess we were pretty beat after our red eye! In the little market place there was a lot to see and a street performer who was done up like a clown with a white face and black makeup. He was riding a uni-cycle (quite the feat on cobblestone) and juggling. And making fun of people in the crowd for tips.
It was a fun little stop and when we woke up in the morning we had breakfast at our hotel. It was delicious and there was a woman in the kitchen making the food for us. They also brought out orange juice for us. But the orange juice there is extremely sweet, there was almost no tang to it all. It was different and exotic. I guess that is what the oranges down here taste like. It was fresh squeezed and the most delicious orange juice I've ever tasted.
Once we were ready and all packed up we headed down the road to go to Lake Atitlan. We are currently staying in a little casa. The only way to get here is by boat. When we arrived it started pouring rain and there were a few times as we sped across the choppy lake on a small little boat that I feared for my life. We caught air a few times and the waves were splashing in at us. Our only protection was a metal roof above our heads and some tarps attached to the side of the boat. The driver was getting soaked and would bend down while driving to bail water out of the bottom of the boat.
This is the view from our little patio. You can see the path right down to the lake and the dock.
And this is the casa. The kitchen is outside so tonight I cooked us dinner outside with just a small roof over my head. Such a different experience.
We hiked into the nearest small town called Santa Cruz La Laguna and bought some tortillas for our dinner tonight. We had to cross a little creek (A fairly large creek honestly). Jon made it safely across. But I knew that with my lack of physical prowess it was a disaster waiting to happen. Sure enough I fell in. On the way back I just walked through it. I figured I would get less wet that way. Then we walked across this little make shift boardwalk that you think you will fall through any minute (Luckily that didn't happen) and up a steep hill to Santa Cruz. Earlier that day we had done all our shopping in a little outdoor market. It was a different experience and I'm sure I broke some cultural rule (Jon: Yes, you did) by walking back into a shop and starting to pick up some of the stuff we wanted. The people here are so helpful. I keep asking Jon if we should tip people and he just shrugs and says, I don't think so. Although a little boy did ask us for a thousand dollars on our way back home tonight. I guess we are Americano's and look wealthy? Haha! Jon told him no and to go home.
Everywhere we go we walk and walk and walk. And our appetites are suppressed due to travel and your typical Central America tummy trouble. So I'm thinking this could be the best weight loss plan we've ever had.
I miss Shay like crazy and woke up stressing out because I couldn't remember what I fed Shay yesterday and it stressed me out that I hadn't taken very good care of her. Then I remembered she was in good hands and that it wasn't currently my responsibility (Thanks Laura and Andy). What a trip! More to come... I'll update as long as we have internet access.
Here are some flowers in the garden right outside our casa:
The view to the right of our casa. Yes I took this in our front yard.
And our own personal banana tree. They're green, but if they were yellow we would be picking our very own bananas.
As I write this in our little patio a bat has come to visit me. I'm not in Kansas anymore Toto.
No comments:
Post a Comment