thursday night ryan took me to LAX and waited for me until the kings express guy came to give me my ticket. after having my boarding pass checked at the gate, the stewardess told me that i held a first class ticket, and directed me to the ¨red carpet lounge¨ to spend my remaining hour before the flight. there, i sipped free cappucinos and teas while watching other travelers gorge themselves on chips and pretzels. fun fun.

i arrived in guatemala city at 430am, and was picked up by tram and her cousin. we chatted for a while, napped, and around 10am set off for Antigua. The entrance to Antigua was lined with heavily armed guards– we would later see the parade of cars that brought in the king and queen of spain to visit. henry and yi ma brought us to a typical guatemalan restaurant, where we tried all sorts of meats, rice, frijoles, and two drinks- an eggy flan-like crema and a sweet red jamaica flower drink. afterwards, i exchanged some dollars for quetzales and scored some cheap polaroid film for my camera. as it is holy week, there were huge processions in the street. little boys dressed in all purple carried gigantic (and heavy!) floats down the street while being followed by a band playing somber music. other boys carried balls full of incense and filled the air with smoke. little girls followed, wearing white dresses and carrying their own heavy float. inside the church at the parque centrale, gigantic sawdust designs were made on the floor and surrounded by fruit. outside in the park, vendors sold fresh mangos cut to look like flowers and fried up all sorts of goodies– churros, potatoes, plantains….

on the way home from antigua, we stopped by paiz, a giant supermarket that is famous in guatemala and was recently bought out by walmart. we grabbed some fresh fruits and went home to relax.

the next day henry took us to the mall. i bought a cell phone and a card with extra minutes for Q300. tram got a SIM card and some minutes for the phone that she´s borrowing. the mall is very modern, lacoste, puma, and other high end stores abound, while the bakery san martin is everywhere. that night, yi ma threw a party for us, and we spent the evening talking to regan´s family.

we had hoped to catch the 830am bus to xela sunday morning, but it was full by the time we got there. instead, we had a leisurly breakfast at the san martin cafe and caught the 11am bus. 4 very bumpy, crowded, painful hours up a windy mountain road later, we were in xela. luckily, the school was right around the corner from the galgos bus station, so we found it quickly and were escorted off to our new host families. tram and i were initially separated into two families, but when i saw my gigantic room with two beds, i asked my host mom if tram could come stay with me. i´m in love with my host mom, a 75 year old tiny guatemalan lady who is always smiling.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 4:33 pm by mi and is filed under guatemala. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.