My Trip to Guatemala--Part 1

I have struggled so much with how to document this trip. Because it was more then just a trip, it was an incredible learning experience. I learned so much about myself, about my parents, about where I came from. It was truly indescribable in words. So I took pictures. LOT'S of pictures. I have never had my camara tell me the memory card was full before, at which point I started using my parents camara. But the most important thing I will take with me are the feelings that can't quite be related to someone. I guess I will just carry them with me and hopefully they will motivate me to be a better person.

Every night I wrote a little journal of what we did that day so that I wouldn't forget. I had scrap pieces of paper for several different types of journals: (I didn't think to take an actual journal)

-one for our daily adventures

-one for stories that my parents would tell me about their childhood, past etc.

-one for notes and ideas for bringing Jonas with me there, what he should know first, etc, including a complete "mock" itinerary for our next trip!

-and one with lists; a list of what to bring people back, a list of foods I had to eat while I was there, etc (which I ate all but 2 of btw)

These little scrap pages are precious to me now, I should probably frame them or something :)

So here is a little tiny smidgin of our wonderful trip:

My mom and I left on Friday morning Oct 26th super early and got to the Long Beach CA airport at about 7:30am local time. The fact that we made it there was a bit of a miracle in and of itself. As of 4 days before the trip I was losing hope, as we were flying standby and it was UEA weekend, everything was booked. We thought Jonas might have to drive us to Las Vegas in order to get out. But because of the fires in California, many people cancelled their flights and what was a completely sold out flight ended up having 27 seats on it! My mom and I felt very blessed. So we had all day because our flight to Guatemala didn't leave until 1am the next day so we had nothing but time on our hands. About 11 hours to be exact. I had researched online (of course) and decided that it was in our be interest (the interest of fun) to take the bus to the beach and hang out there all day, browsing shopping malls, eating,

Then we ended up taking the wrong bus right off. Woops! But it actually was a blessing because it changed our day completely and for the better! Here's what happened. The bus driver kindly told us which bus we needed to take and that it stopped right across the street. While we were waiting the bus came a bit early and the driver was the nicest guy ever! He let us wait in the empty bus while he ran over the the store for a minute, he chatted with us and he even ended up telling us all the things that we could do right there in Long Beach. He told us about the bus system right downtown being free and so because of him we didn't even go to any of the places that I had planned, we just stayed there. We went to a farmer's market, we browsed Walmart, I bought postcards and mailed them to my family, we went to the oceanfront, we stopped at a hotel lobby and my mom even took a tiny nap while I paid bills over the phone! The most hilarious thing about this day was the fact that I was lugging my big suitcase the entire time! On and off the busses, in the stores, everywhere! And no one even thought twice about it, maybe that's why eveyone was so nice to us? But the best part of this day I think was that my mom and I got to bond so much! We talked and talked, we ate and had ice cream and we were both on the eve of the beginning of this great trip so I think we were so full of energy from that. It was so fun. We even went to a little internet cafe and I sent pictures from Walmart's website where I store them to the Walmart right there at Long Beach so that my mom could take them and show them to our family in Guate. That was perfect timing.

me and my suitcase, attached at the hip

Anyway, we didn't want to be out at dark so at about 6pm we took the long bus ride to the LAX International Airport and waited there for our flight. The crazy thing is that my dad had a layover there at LAX too and we were there at the exact same time but couldn't see each other because the airport is so huge we were in totally different terminals!

We tried really hard to sleep on the flight and it was so nice to have a confirmed seat next to my mom for once. But it made me so miss Jetblue when they wanted to charge me 2 bucks for a Ginger Ale! I love Jetblue!

We got to Guatemala City at about 7:30in the morning and my dad got there about 30 min after us.

This is where we stayed, my uncle has a condo on the seventh floor. It was really nice and we felt very safe there.

The Bellini has a terrace all the way at the top and my uncle took me up there to see the view...it was gorgeous!

The next day we went to church here.

This is the place where my parents were baptized, met each other, and got married!!! Wow, talk about emotional. We walked into the gym and my mom was telling me how she can remember my dad goofing off and sliding from one end to the other and crashing into the wall! She thought we was pretty crazy, but in the end he won her over!

Later on Sunday we went to see my grandmother's grave. It was difficult to be in Guatemala without her and so emotional. It was a beautiful cementary.

Then we did some shopping in a town called San Felipe and we ate tostadas from a lady making them in the marketplace. They were yummy!

And that night in the quaint little town of Antigua we were pleasently surpised that they were having two big Catholic processions. This was the smaller one but pretty cool since I have never gotten to see one of these before.

I love the town of Antigua! It is so picturesque. I guess that is why so many tourists flock there.

The next day Monday was downtown Guatemala City day. We went to the bank and my dad exchanged my dollars for Quetzales, at the rate of 7.80Q for every dollar.This is one of my favorite pictures, it is the Palacio Nacional or the National Palace. Funny how I didn't notice how beautiful the sky was that day until after I looked at these pictures!

I bought a blanket for Jasmine from this cute little lady in the commons area, and she agreed to pose for me.

The next day, Tuesday, we went to see the ruins of Kaminaljuyu in the city and then drove to Lake Amatitlan.

This is one of those places that has lot's of memories for me because I remember coming here everytime we would visit Guatemala as a kid. We would ride the little boats in the lake and ride the kiddi rides and ponies and eat pupusas at the little eateries there. This time we walked around the lake and ate pupusas, but we left out the kiddi stuff.