Lost and found.

Oh yay another travel day. Despite wanting to get out of Xela, we weren’t looking forward to a day of chicken buses. So we didn’t get to the terminal until noon. Luckily there were regular buses to Panajachel and we were immediately ushered on to one that was leave “now”. Of course this is Central America and time is relative. Now actually means anytime in the next hour. Soon means today. And later means never. But as we waited for departure, we were entertained by a woman who blessed the bus with a 15 minute sermon and recitation of Bible passages. She was so loud that I was glad we were sitting in the back row. Once she was done the bus finally pulled out and headed to Salcaja (photo above) where we got stuck in weekend market traffic for 30 minutes. Then it was back out on the highway which was still being resurfaced and incredibly bumpy. My butt felt every rut and crack in the blacktop. Although the speed bumps were the worst as the driver barely slowed down sending myself and the little boy now sitting beside me flying up into the air. And with every bend and twist in the mountain roads my butt got sorer and sorer.

As we finally cave around the top of the mountains, I was distracted from the pain in my butt by the view. Lake Atitlan is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes having been formed thousands and thousands of years ago when a volcano collapsed. The bus traveled through the pretty town of Solola where I finally got to see what Mayan men wear – a rather funky ensemble of plaid pants and clashing shirts. Then it was all the way down to Panajachel. The bus let us off and we tried to figure out where we were and where the hotel we wanted was. We were approached by what I though was a tout but he was the owner of the hotel we were looking for and he had a room available. For less than twenty bucks we had a big clean room with a private bathroom. Yay privacy and convenience once again.

Now it was time to explore the town and see if we were going to stick around. Well, it was really just one main street full of tourist stalls, hotels, hostels, tour companies, and restaurants. I can see why the locals call the place Gringotenango (place of the gringos). We weren´t bummed. It was actually kind of nice  because we wouldn't feel any guilt for leaving in a day. Afterall, the reason we were here was the promise of an easy shuttle all the way to Honduras. So we went to the tour company only to discover that their website was wrong; there was no shuttle to Copan. We’d have to go back to Antigua and stay overnight then catch another one to Copan. Now I really like Antigua but the price of an unnecessary overnight stay wasn’t so appealing. The agent tried to convince me that it would be the same with all the shuttle companies. And then he tried to sell us on a tour of the volcano or day trip to the other lakeside villages. No thanks, I think we´ll check out our other option.

But first a bank machine. I stepped inside an airconditionned booth and opened my wallet. Where´s my bank card? I took everything out of my wallet. Nope not in my wallet. No need to panic - it must be in the pocket of my pants... I hope. Luckily Adrian had his card. Unluckily, this bank machine was out of money. Grr. However the next machine on the strip did work. Now it was time to find my bank card. Just then it began to pour – I mean really pour so much that the storm drains overflowed and the water ran down the road like a river towards the lake. We stood in the doorway of a store and waited for 30 minutes until it let up just enough for us to cross the street to a restaurant without getting drenched.

Over dinner, I took the opportunity to thoroughly search my hand bag for my bank card. Nope not in there. Adrian then went over it himself doubting my searching abilites but of course he came up empty handed too. As I mentally retraced my steps, I began to get the feeling that I´d left it in the bank machine in Xela. I distracted myself by heading across the street in the now-drizzle to check out another tour company. They had a morning shuttle to Copan that stops in Antigua on the way but arrives in Copan the same evening. One good thing, we´ve found our escape route from Guatemala. Now it was time to find my bank card. Back in the room, Adrian and I began a piece by piece search of all of our belongings. Nope. Nada. Zilch. Zero. We also didn´t discover anything else missing so it was pretty clear that it had not been stolen just lost or more accurately left in that bank machine in Xela.

School's out.

The longer we spent in Spanish class the more I realized that setting aside just a week for lessons was a bit unrealistic. I was able to motor through the lessons but in a week we managed to get to just the past preterite. And Adrian, well, he was still speaking English to his instructor. In fact, Kat and Misha the Estonian and Dutch couple, had both approached me about the fact that Adrian was only speaking English in his class. They were concerned that he had a bad teacher. I had to explain that Adrian was very English. While he had been learning the three regular verb endings (ar, er, ir), he was still trying to get a basic vocabulary. There was no way he would have been able to understand a lesson in Spanish. But it did make me get on his case a little a bit about trying harder to speak Spanish.

With trying to cram so much over the last 2 days, Adrian and I had a lot of homework which didn’t leave much time for any more sightseeing. Luckily, Xela didn’t have a lot of sights to see. Instead, it was hanging around the school and chatting with the other people staying there. And trying to avoid the owner of the school. Of course this was impossible on our last day when we had to have a pot luck meal with the owner, staff and our Spanish teachers. Our contribution to the potluck a typical Canadian cuisine Domino’s pizza (it cost about the same as it would in Canada which made me wonder how the places stay open when wages are so low). The staff had made us tamales and jocon, another chicken curry type of dish.

The awkwardness continued when Adrian decided to steer the conversation to weird things like gross horror movies and why you can’t eat with your left hand in India because it’s used for the toilet. Charming dinner conversation. Good thing the staff understood very little English – although Christian translated some. Thankfully, we were asked about our next stop and future travel plans. The owner gave us some good recommendations about continuing to study Spanish. Ecuador is supposed to be a good place so maybe we’ll do some more there. After all, Adrian still can’t order his own food.

Afterwards I talked to Karina for a bit. She told me how hard it was to find a job in Guatemala and how she was hoping to go somewhere else. She’s trying to learn English, which is about as good(bad?) as my Spanish. I told her she was a good teacher. She told me I was a good student. Yay. She also told me she could make me fluent in 8 weeks. Tempting but we have to keep traveling unfortunately. We exchanged facebook info and said goodbye.

There were a lot of goodbyes over the last 24 hours. It seemed like everyone at the school was clearing out and heading to Lake Atitlan. Kat and Misha were going to climb a volcano overlooking the lake. Jeff was heading to San Pedro where he’d meet up with Kat and Misha. It was tempting to join them but we were only going to Lake Atitlan to get us closer to Honduras. And there was a 4am shuttle minibus but it was leaving from Panajachel about 2 hours away from San Pedro. So we decided to go our separate ways – but that doesn’t mean we won’t bump into each other elsewhere.

Then it was back to researching a place to stay in Panajachel. Our out dated guidebook was proving useless. The only place I could find now charged $40/night. A little luxury would be nice but that was just too much money. Kat and Misha lent me their guidebook which was only a year old and jotted down the cheaper options in Panajachel. I also lined up a room for our first stop in Copan – if we were going to be on a shuttle for 8 hours I didn’t want to be searching for a room in the dark.

So was the week of Spanish worth it. Definitely, but two weeks would have been better. Adrian was just getting some vocabulary down and I was just beginning to get comfortable with my speaking skills. Xela is a good town for studying because there’s not much there to distract from homework and stuff. But it can also be a bit boring. As for the school, our accommodations were rustic but for the rock bottom price they were sufficient. Our teachers were great. But there was a bit of disorganization. For example, I really liked the outings but it would have been good to know what they were before hand and how much things would cost. Now it was time to put my Spanish skills to use in the real world.

¡Buen Provecho!

(Photo courtesy of http://www.perladelasflores.com/ because we ate ours before I could take a picture.)

Over our first dinner at Hotelito Perdido in Rio Dulce, I learned a new phrase. Buen provecho. It’s what Spanish speakers say when they serve food or before eating. The Spanish girls Elena and Belen then asked us how to translate it. Thanks to Jesse and Aska’s amazing Spanish, I learned that translated buen provecho means something like good benefit but that doesn’t make sense in English. So we began to discuss English alternatives. I offered up Bon Appetite but that’s French. How about Dig in? Rub a dub dub thanks for the grub? Not the right sentiment. For Spanish speakers saying Buen Provecho before eating is like saying Hello when answering the phone. It’s a polite greeting as well as a warm invitation to enjoy your food. On my 3rd day of Spanish lessons, I got my first chance to use this phrase.

After 4 hours of verb tenses, vocabulary, reading and speaking, Karina gave me a lesson in Guatemalteca cuisine and how to prepare a dish called Pepian – a sort of chicken curry. But before we could start cooking we had to buy the ingredients. We headed to the market and I watched her pick out the ingredients (many of which I'd never used before), bargaining with the women to get the best price. I was a little worried about how I was going to pay for all the food. Due to our bank machine problems I only had about $3 but it covered all the spices, veg, rice, and chicken. Wow, I think I should try the market more often for shopping.

Then it was back at the school to start cooking. It was fairly easy to make but required a bit of time and thanks to something the owner of the school said to Karina she was stressed and trying to hurry which meant she did most of the cooking. And then when she was done, we laid out three servings which I thought were for her, Adrian and I. But one was for the owner of the school not Karina. Who wished us Bueno Provecho before leaving. And that made me feel weird. I wanted us to sit down and enjoy it together instead I felt like I’d just had a staff member cooking for me. Poor Karina. Thankfully, Adrian and I didn’t have to awkwardly eat with the owner so we got to enjoy it. And it was truly delicious. Better yet, we had enough for left overs.

But once we were done, the uncomfortable feeling came back. Not with Karina or anything to do with the classes – they were great – but with the owner and the way she treated the staff like her personal servants. She left post it notes were left around the school with a to do list and at first I they were complaints about us. And then there was what I can best describe as a shaming chart in the kitchen which listed things that hadn’t been done and who had forgotten to do them. The staff weren’t children in fact they were super nice older women who acted like mom and secondary Spanish teachers to all of us students. The owner however, was a woman in her 20s from a wealthy local family and I think her actions said more about her immaturity than the staff’s. It really bummed me out and made me want to leave the school.

So we decided to get out for the afternoon. Plus we still had no money. So armed with our emergency traveller’s cheques, credit cards and most importantly, a Spanish-english dictionary we headed back to the parque where all the banks were clustered. And if that didn’t work Karina had told me that there was a bank machine just for foreigners up near the bus terminal. But we needed to take a bus there and I only had 25 centavos in my pocket after the market trip. Before we could worry about that we’d try all the bank machines. The first bank machine didn’t work. But at the second bank there was success. Yay, no crappy credit card accepting restaurant food for us tonight.

We rushed out excitedly to celebrate our new solvency by picking up some more groceries and a new notebook for Spanish class. Then we went out for dinner at Royal Paris – a restaurant and jazz bar up near the theatre. Of course there was no band that night but there was some really good food, almost as good as Karina’s Pepian.

And because I know you’ll ask, here’s a link to the recipe with a great instructional video. Give it a try and Buen Provecho. http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/2009/04/guatemalan-pepian-please-try-this-at-home/

Let’s go on a field trip.

I wasn’t crazy about our accommodations but on day two our Spanish lessons took us out of the school for a field trip and just getting out was enough to make me feel better.

Karina and Christian, Adrian’s teacher, took us on the local bus out to the small town of Salcaja. Then helped us navigate the biggest grocery store I have ever seen. Okay so it was the local market and considering you could buy everything and anything there, it was better than a supermarket. And it all looked so good – even the meat hanging in the sun. Everywhere there were Mayan woman balancing huge baskets on their head. Each woman wore a different-coloured blouse, particular to their region – Guatemala, Honduras, even Mexico and El Salvador. Karina explained that these women spend most of their day on the chicken buses just to come to this market and do business. It was amazing but no pictures because I know the Mayans don’t like their picture being taken but also because it was so cramped I didn’t have room to reach into my bag to pull out the camera.

We then went to the home of a man who made some of the traditional cloth that the Mayan women were wearing. I assumed it would be a woman but the cloth, called corte, is so important to Mayan culture that men are honoured to do the work. He explained the colours and patterns are symbolic and then tried to show me how to weave the thousands of threads on the loom. I did three rows before giving up and I’m sure he had to redo them once we left.

Downstairs his wife introduced us to the local homemade liquor. Now that’s my type of field trip. Caldo de frutas or rompopo, is kind of like a fruit punch if fruit punch was made by moonshiners in the deep south. Rather than take a sip I opted to eat some of the cherries and other fruits from the bottom of the bottle. Oops they’re actually stronger than the liquor but super tasty. It packed quite a punch, pun intended. Karina and Christian laughed at us. Adrian liked it so much he bought a little bottle from her.

On our way back to the bus we stopped in at the oldest church in Central American. It was closed but Christian fetched the caretaker who gladly showed us around. It was small but interesting because the inside was built like a boat using old boat timbers that the Spanish brought with them. Karina was very proud of the church and reverent too. It was obvious that her religion was very important to her. We started talking about the difference in relationships between Guatemalan and North American culture. I think she was a little shocked by the fact that so many people in North America live together outside of marriage. Then I blew her mind by telling her it was rare for Quebecers to get married and they’re Catholic.

When it was time to head back to Xela, tiny Karina worked her way through the crowd of women (photo above and that´s Karina in the green jacket ducking under and around the Mayan women) to get on the bus and save us some seats. And good thing because it was soon packed. We continued to talk about beliefs on the way back to Xela and I discovered that Karina believed in ghosts and Bermuda triangle. She tried to convince me but I tried to explain in Spanish that I want to believe but first I need some proof. Tomorrow she said she’d do her best.

In the afternoon, Adrian and I decided to continue our sightseeing by visiting some of the sights of Xela. We started in the Parque Centroamericano and popped into the Municipalidad. There was no museum but a guard motioned us into the council chamber. As we were looking around the head of and assistant manager of public relations popped in and introduced themselves. Good thing they were there because they were able to explain the symbolism in the weird painting depicting the founding of the city. It was the view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. In the middle was Mother Nature accompanied by the moon god and the god of music – two very important gods to the city – and surrounded by the food grown in the area. They told us to check out the museums across the park for more about the history of Xela and then shook our hands and said goodbye. I felt like a visiting dignitary for about three seconds

After such an official invitation, how could we refuse to check out the museum in the Casa de Cultura. The building was once the town jail but now housed two museums both not allowing photos. On the first floor were exhibits relating to the history of the town, including an odd display of ancient office equipment (typewriters, Photostat machines, mimeographs). It was more like an old storage room than a museum. And upstairs it got weirder. This was the natural history museum. It started off with pots and ended with room full of ancient moth-eaten mounted animals, including a 2-headed calf, 8-legged lamb, and a foetus or two for good measure. It was all just a little too creepy and we were happy to get out.

We were starting to run low on cash after paying for half of our Spanish lessons so it was time to visit the bank machine. But the Plus system was down and all 5 of the bank machines denied us any money from both our bank card and visa card. It was too late to get a cash advance or cash travellers’ cheques. This was not good – we had only $3 and were hungry. Time to find a restaurant that accepts credit cards and hope that their machines were still working. We ended up at a Tex Mex place but unlike our great experience with Indian, it was bad. Which just goes to show you that price is no indicator of quality. We probably would have been better off with the stuff from the Salcaja market. Amazing that the most adventurous part of our day wasn’t the field trip to a small town but western dinner around the corner from the hostel.

School’s in.

I am a geek. I love school and learning and all that stuff. I know, I know, what can I say. So you can guess, how excited I was about starting classes. But before that fun could begin I had better get some work done. Yes, that’s right – this blog. So I spent the day at a nice hostel around the corner using their wifi and managed to get a week’s worth of photos uploaded and postings up and which was enough for one day. Of course, spending so much time at the nice hostel made our attic room at the Spanish school look like something from Flowers in the Attic. Adrian replied that for $5 per night our room was good enough and clean enough and it had a kitchen. I suppose.

So off we went to get groceries to put that kitchen to use. Unfortunately the closest grocery store had a rather limited selection. I guess most people buy their fresh goods at the market but after hearing so many tales of amoebas and other unpleasantness we decided to skip the market and loaded up on breakfast and lunch stuff. At least we’ll cut down our eating out to just dinner. And tonight it was Indian food (yes Indian food in Guatemala) which was enough to put me in a food coma despite the crappy room, and chilly night (that’s right it was quite cold in Xela).

Good thing I went to bed early because I got up early and had a shower only to be greeting as I was walking out with my hair in a towel by my Spanish teacher, Karina. Gulp, classes started at 8am. Good of the school to let us know some of these important details. I excused myself for a moment and then ran up the stairs to wake Adrian.

Then it was to work. We started with a test and I did well. Yay, a gold star. But Karina took this as a cue to speak nothing but Spanish with me. And worse yet, forcing me to speak Spanish too. And to make it worse I could hear Adrian speaking in English to his teacher in the other room – no fair. Yikes this is going to be a long 5 hours.

Actually, it wasn’t too bad. And the five hours were full but when class ended at 1, I already felt like I had learned so much.

As we made lunch, we met some of the other folks staying at the school. There was a Dutch and Estonian couple who were here for a month while she learned Spanish and he wrote his dissertation. An American pediatrician about to start a volunteer stint but first trying to learn some Spanish. And another guy from Rochester, who was just finishing up three weeks of advanced study. It will be nice to see the same faces for a little while - maybe I'll even manage to get their names.

It would have been nicer to go out and put some of our Spanish to practice but Adrian was taking his lessons very seriously spent the entire afternoon doing his homework. I hope some of it sticks - maybe then he’ll be able to order his own food or at least read the menu. A girl can dream can’t she?

Then the power went out and not just in Xela but the whole country once again. It was soon dark and after two hours it didn’t look like the power was going to come on soon. So all of us struggled to make dinner in the kitchen using one candle and my headlamp. Of course once we were all done, the power came back on. Seeing what we had managed to make with no light was scary but we all did all right. I hope our classes turn out just as well.

Moving out but not necessarily up.

Almost 10 years ago, Adrian and I went on our first big trip abroad. The destination? Buenos Aires. Way back then I figured growing up on American Sesame Street with it’s basic Spanish lessons and my 10 years of French would be enough to get by. As soon as I got in the cab at the airport I discovered just how wrong I was. Not only are Spanish and French as different as English and French, but Argentina Spanish sounds nothing like Sesame Street Spanish. It’s Spanish pronounced like Portguese by Italians. If you’re confused, you have an idea of just how painful my attempt to communicate with that taxi driver was.

After that trip I resolved never to travel without a basic grasp of the language. Before we went to Peru five years ago, I did a series of language tapes and that helped a bit. At least I could read a menu, order food and buy bus tickets. But I still had no idea what peope were saying to me. So in preparation for this trip I spent the last year teaching myself a first year university textbook. However, I still hadn’t done any speaking classes so now I understood what was being said to me but I had no way to answer. To fix that Adrian and I decided to take some Spanish lessons. We could have stayed in Antigua to do our lessons as many do, but we were ready to move on. Plus, I had read that they were slightly cheaper in Quetzaltenango,(aka Xela, pronounced Shay-la). And since I love a good bargain, Xela it was. But how to choose a school? Easy – only one responded to my email inquiries. For $150 each, Adrian were going to get a weeks accommodation and 25 hours of one on one instruction at the Miguel Cervantes Spanish School. But first we had to get there.

Once again I got up early and was treated to another hot shower. And once again I had the computers to myself. I found a great website that detailed the bus schedules and connections we’d have to make in order to get to the school before it closed at 1pm. It only required two buses and would take about 4 hours to get there. So as soon as breakfast was served we wolfed it down, said goodbye to Jesus and headed out to catch the chicken bus to Chimaltenango. We didn’t have to carry our packs far, as soon as we stepped out of the hostel, an almost empty bus drove by with the ayudante calling “Chimi Chimi, Chimi”. We flagged it down and got on carefully trying not to whack any of the other passengers in the head with our packs.

Chicken buses in Guatemala are similar to buses in Belize – uncomfortable old American school buses. But unlike those Belize, each driver has painted his bus in bright colours and christened it with a religious name. Our bus was called “Gracias a Dio”. I guess they hoped that a little religion let them safely navigate the mountain roads without using their brakes. Luckily, the road to Chimi was relatively flat and it was just over an hour to the Pan- American highway in Chimaltenango where the driver stopped and the ayudante pointing across the street to where we could catch our next bus to Xela. We followed two other gringos who seemed to know where they were going across the bridge and down the road where a slightly nicer bus was waiting. It looked like a regular coach but unfortunately for my bladder there was no toilet on board.

The highway to Xela was being widened or resurfaced making for a rather bumpy ride through the mountains. But at least that meant the driver had to slow down. Sort of. It was still three hours to Xela where we pulled into the main market/bus terminal full of crazy buses, crazy taxis and crazy stalls. Before I could deal with the craziness (photo above), I had to deal with my crazy bladder. I had to go so badly that I didn’t care about using the local market stall which was dark damp and stinky and without toilet seats let alone toilet paper (once again thank goodness for my stash). Then it was into a cab to the language school.

We got to the language school 15 minutes after 1 but the someone was still there to let us in. The school was an old colonial house around the corner from the central park. It had a communal kitchen, shared bathroom and about 9 bedrooms on two floors organized around an open courtyard. We were given the attic room at the top of a very skinny rickety staircase and the air was thick with dust. From one of our favourite hostel so far to this? Good thing it was dirt cheap and had wifi or else, actually I don’t know what else. We could have chosen the homestay but I don’t think staying with a local family would have improved our accommodations much. on to explore our new location and get some dinner.

Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala but it’s only about 150 years old so it was completely different than quaint little Antigua. The architecture was more ornate but still set up like every other Central American city with the central park surrounded by a cathedral, city hall and a couple of other important buildings. As we walked through the park, we were surrounding by a parade of Mayan women dressed in white and carrying signs for churches around the world like cairo and Athens. Oh wait that’s Athens, Georgia and Cairo, Ohio. So I guess they were from all over the US. I still have no clue what the parade was about.

After dinner, it was getting dark. And it was then that we noticed another difference between Xela and Antigua. It was actually cold enough for a sweater or, since I had forgotten to pack anything with long sleeves, a jacket. Oh boy, this was going to be along week. The combination of the cold and the dark, skinny, rickety stairs to and from our room has me worried that I may damage my kidneys from holding it in unless we get a room with a private bath soon.

Fighting the urge.

Antigua is Spanish for old. And the full name of the city is Antigua Ciudad de Guatemala, because until an earthquake wiped out most of the city it was the capital of the country. Now it was home to lots of 20 something backpackers and Antigua had a double meaning for us, as we were beginning to feel old. Antigua’s was not a backpackers heaven so much as it was a procrastinators paradise – although some people would argue they’re the same thing. And I was beginning the pressure to do nothing or fight it and do something.

I started by getting up at 6am. This paid off because despite all the signs saying the best time for hot water was between 9-3, I had the first truly hot shower since we’d arrived. And let me tell you it was glorious. I also got to use the computers uninterrupted so I was able to send out some enquiries to Spanish schools in another town. I tried to share my newfound knowledge with Adrian but Mr. Cranky Pants just wanted to sleep. He was lucky that most of the other guests had been out late the night before and were still sleeping when he eventually got up.

Jesus was up however. I thought he and Stefania were both from Italy but Jesus was from Honduras. And he was a super nice friendly guy. He asked us why Adrian and I hadn’t gone out the night before and I told him that we were too old for that. Nonsense he replied, he was old too but it didn’t stop him. Old is how you feel not how old you actually are. True but old is also when hangovers get so painful that the fear of them stops you from drinking. That he understood, as he was in a lot of pain that morning. And he wished he’d remembered that the night before.

I told him we were off to see the rest of the sights of Antigua. He was off to do laundry but said maybe he’d see us in town if he could get rid of his headache. The other non drinkers from the hostel – the pregnant couple from Quebec appeared so I filled them in on our volcano experience. I told them perhaps might be too strenuous for pregnant woman but they could get a second opinion from some of the other folks who, like the couple, were in much better shape than us. But after talking to us and the tour operator, they’d decided not to risk it.

Finished with being old at the hostel we set out to see the old of Antigua. We started with the ruins of an old church and convent at the end of the street (photo above). They were a lot like the Cathedral, fallen pillars, collapsed roofs, piles of stones – except the admission price was ten times as expensive. The ticket looked like it was good for the other 5 church ruins but when we went to the next place on the map, we discovered nope the 30Q was per ruin per foreigner. Locals paid just a 3Q. It was time to get Adrian some Spanish lessons. With his tan he’d been continually mistaken for a local until he opened his mouth. Too bad, we could save a bundle on entrance fees. Until then we decided to pass on seeing any more ruins.

Instead we walked through the market. It was split in two with one side being the artisans market (i.e. for the tourists) and the other side being the local’s market (i.e. where you could by everything from appliances to zapatos). We ignored all the vendors trying to sell us wooden trinkets and trash and headed for a tiny barber shop so Adrian could get a trim. For $2.50 he got the most thorough haircut of his life, including all the old man hair that grows in places it shouldn’t. If that wasn’t enough to make him feel old, the guy giving the hair cut looked like he had yet to hit puberty, although in Guatemala that probably means he was 45.

By now we were realizing that most of Antigua’s sights were either ruins of churches or restored churches, with the rest of the places like the main museum and colonial house closed for renovations. However, we stumbled upon one old church or convent that had been recently turned into a cultural centre/art gallery and better yet it was free. An exhibition had just opened called “Painting after painting”. I couldn’t tell you what that meant as I didn’t really see a theme and I couldn’t translate the signs – frankly, I can’t understand most art gallery description even when they’re written in English, too much talk about versimilatude, motifs and thematics. But the art was intriguing. Adrian was particularly fond of the anonymous tacky tourist art made more commercial by the addition of sesame street, star wars and other cartoon characters. I really liked the series of paintings of close ups of people biting into pastries. The video of a woman putting an entire tube of red lipstick on her lips was oddly disturbing. The building was pretty stunning as well.

And that was it for Antigua’s sights, so headed back to the Yellow House so I could pick up my computer and find some wifi. Rather than head back to Kafka for the third day we tried to branch out. Unfortunately, the Rainbow café wifi wasn’t working and the only other place I could find was McCafe – that’s right, we were in Guatemala and their McDonald’s not only have the fancy McCafes they also have fast wifi. It was good until the staff started to make our orders. It took tham least 20 minutes to make two lattes and I think they broke 5 dishes while doing it. In fact, every time someone ordered something it took forever and was accompanied by an orchestra of crashing crockery. As it got closer to the end of the work day that meant more people, more orders and more noise.

I managed to get some blog posts up and arrange for Spanish lessons in the town of Xela. But I had to call it quits when the noise began unbearable. It was time to move on not just from McCafe, but from Antigua too.