Guatemala Part 2

The next day Wednesday I think was my favorite day of the entire trip. I have never spent a Halloween quite like this before.

This was the day we were supposed to go to the towns west of the Capital City including Lake Attilan which is a popular, beautiful site. However, my uncle had given us the bad news that the road to the lake was being repaired and it would not be a good idea to go. I was pretty bummed, but it gave us a good chance to do something a bit different and fun.

We decided to go to the beach!

On the way we stopped at this cute little town of Iztapa and I drank soda out of a baggie like I used to do on our roadtrips through Mexico. Ah, that brought back memories!

But the beach that we were planning on going to didn't work out, they didn't let cars through anymore and that's when I took advantage of my online research. I had heard about this town called Monterrico. So many people raved about how beautful the beaches were, etc. So I pulled out the map and got us on track!

Well, what seemed so close on the map turned out to be a very long and bumpy ride. We finally made it though, and my parents were such troopers although they must have been thinking "where is our daughter taking us?!" It was definately worth the drive!

As soon as we got to the town, a bunch of kids swarmed us with offers of parking for our car, with shade, etc. One such girl, about 10 yrs old, I will never forget. She was so persistant and when my dad told her we would follow her to the parking area, she took off running ahead of us. She was covered in sweat and probably quite dissapointed when we told her nevermind. It was too far and we had to be close to the car (for safety reasons). My dad gave her a few cents for her time though, and after we parked I motioned her to come to me. You see I had brought with me some cute hair "pretties" (as my friend Leah would call them) just for this type of situation. I gave her a sparkly little clip and she seemed happy with it. Well quite a bit later as we were walking through the town, we ran into her again and instantly she looked at me, smiled and touched the clip in her hair where she had fastened it. I love that moment.

I wish I had asked her to take a picture with me but instead I just have this reminder of her running in the intense heat.

Well the beaches in this cute little town sure lived up to the hype, it was gorgeous!!! Wow, and the waves were enormous. We had so much fun watching them crash onto the dark black sand. Black sand, because of the volcanic activity. I was especially impressed with this beach because the only time my parents had taken me to the beach in Guatemala it was dirty and unkept. This was well cared for and so pristine.

This town also has a turtle sanctuary but it was closed, but we did get to walk around a bit. They safeguard the turtle's eggs there and even let tourists release the baby turtles in the ocean when they are ready! So cool to see the good that was being done there.

I kind of fell in love with this town. It was full of these cute murals and pretty little inns and spanish schools. I would love to take Jonas here.

But probably the most memorable part of this day was the "Lanchon". Let me explain. We didn't really want to go back home the way of the bumpy dirt road that we had come so we went to see if there was another way. And sure enough there was. A "ferry" a local reassured us, just around the corner. Well ferry, looked more like a really big canoe. Yeah, we were supposed to put our car on this thing with one little tiny motor. I was sure it would sink. But then we saw them load a 4 Runner on one of those babies and I thought okay, our tiny little car might make it. And it did! I have the pictures to prove it! My parents and I were laughing nervously the whole way. Okay, mostly my mom and I.

Then later that day we got stuck in traffic forever but at least we got to see the Quetzal painted on this rock.We finally made it to Antigua where we had dinner at the cutest little restaurant and my alltime favorite picture was taken from the balcony by our table:

This night was when we saw the kids trick or treating and that was hard as I missed my family so much, but it felt good to talk to them too.

The next day was Thursday and it was a Holiday. Dia de los Finados, which is kind of like Memorial Day where everyone goes and pays their respects to their loved ones at the cementary. My parents took me to the oldest cementary in the city so that I could see the crowds and boy were there crowds! Amidst the solemnity of the event, there were people selling everything imaginable under the sun. I saw clothes, birds, cotton candy, toys, movies, etc etc etc!

These are the graves where the poorest of the poor are buried, one casket on top of the other.

We were just weaving our way through the throngs of people. Jonas thought it was wrong that I buy clothes at the cementary, but what I bought was outside the cementary, not inside. There were very cute clothes for cheap!

After the cementary turned circus event, we went to see my uncle and his family again and we had the traditional meal of fiambe outside on thier patio. It was the perfect day for it, perfect weather, no wonder Guatemala is called the "land of the eternal spring". Check out this plate of food, it was so much! I had never tried fiambre before but it was delicious much to my surprise, I ate most of it. My dad had gotten sick from something he ate so he wasn't able to eat very much but my mom and I got lucky and never got any stomach sicknesses.