Antigua for the day

I took the day off. Hopefully I can still get everything done that I need to in the next two days, but I think I’m in decent shape. Anyways, I’m suppose to have Sunday off. Since I’ve been working my ass off, I definitely deserve it.

I intended on getting up super early today which would have only granted me 4 hours of sleep. Subconsciously I definitely wasn’t having it. I could have gone through a hotel tour that way, but instead I opted to sleep in and take a taxi to Antigua instead, which worked out just fine. The way there was long and windy, mountainous, with lots of greenery. Very pretty. Though the pollution was brutal; it smelled especially of gasoline for most of the ride. Not to say I don’t like the smell of gasoline, haha. But it did burn my lungs. On the ride there, me and cab driver (Carlos?) talked, he told me that it was currently summer in Guatemala. Huh, that I wasn’t aware of. I thought it was winter here. He also told me that his son was living in Jacksonville Florida illegally working construction, for 6 years. Very difficult he said. But, you can’t blame a guy for wanting to get out of living somewhere where there is little future I suppose.

We arrived in Antigua and there were cobblestone streets all over. It was beautiful, greenery, flowers, mountains in the background, handicrafts being sold everywhere. We walked through the streets into and out of hotels and their summery patios, into a jade museum where I bought a cute pair of earrings, into and out of handicraft markets which I never would have found on my own if I didn’t have my taxi driver guide with me. One thing I like about being here (versus India, for example) is that people aren’t too pushy. Yes there were tourguides hanging around looking to make a buck, but all you had to do was say ONCE that you were fine just walking around and they would leave you alone, instead of other places where you would be chased around. It made me stop and think that maybe I did want one! There were church ruins all over, and all sorts of cute little restaurants and bars that wafted of delicious food. Carlos and I stopped for a quick bite and I ended up with bread and fondue cheese which I didn’t really mean to get, but that was OK it still was good. Who can pass up cheese fondue anyways? Definitely not me. Carlos got a postre of some sort of cheesecake with fruit on top and some coffee. We were seated at a window and people wandered in and out of our sight, people of all nationalities, and time to time children would appear. One little girl with just knobs for hands approached, I was totally taken by surprise. I gave her a little bit of money cause I felt terrible. After I passed it over to have Carlos give it to her, I was curious how she was going to accept the money without hands, but I turned away and didn’t look. Wow that was sad, I can’t imagine not having hands. One little boy just stood there and stared at me. I asked him if he wanted food but he shook his head. I have no idea what he wanted, he seemed content just standing there and staring, didn’t even open his mouth once to say anything. I tried to be careful of who I took pictures of after my taxi driver warned me that you should ask first.

The sun played beautiful games with the brightly colorful walls that lined the cobblestone streets, and inside held amazingly beautiful patios which one would never guess from the outside. After wandering the streets and the markets for hour after hour we headed back to Guatemala City, and got stuck in quite a bit of traffic on the way. I found it interesting that when we were approaching traffic, my driver would put on his hazard lights to warn the people behind to slow down. I was mesmerized by the passing sights and slowly passed out, over and over and over again. When I got home I couldn’t help but jump into bed for a nap; which lasted me until 9:30 pm. Oops. It was a nice down day Sunday.