Guatemala on jtalbot/blog

Pacaya por fin

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We originally planned on hiking and camping on Pacaya last month, but it decided to blow its top sending enough ash raining down to force the closure of the airport in Guatemala City. We hoped the two big eruptions would release enough pressure that things would calm down and we could still camp on the volcano before we head back home. Things worked out well and we were able to make our trip to Pacaya and see lava last night and this morning.

Mixco Viejo (Jilotepeque Viejo)

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Sometime around 1450, the Chajoma Maya moved their capital to Jilotepeque Viejo in order to make it inaccessible to their hostile neighbors. The city itself had been built a few hundred years earlier and they hoped moving their capital here would help them keep their warring neighbors out. It didn’t work. They were captured and ruled by the Kaqchikel Maya and eventually removed from the site shortly after the Spanish conquest of 1524. The site was never used again.

Pascual Ab'aj

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Before leaving Chichi, we took a short hike up to Pascual Ab’aj, which is a Maya sacred site that survived the arrival of the Spanish. There used to be a carved idol at the site, but some Catholic Action members defaced it in the 1950s. It’s still an active site, though. You can see real Mayans conducting rituals there every day.

Lost and Found

Even the cows knew we were lost

Chichicastenango

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 18:30:00 -0600

Twice a week the main square and surrounding streets of Chichicastenango are transformed into the largest open air market in Central America. People come from miles around to buy and sell goods. Some are grown, some are reared, and many are hand-made. When we have visited in years past, there have been hundreds to thousands of tourists combing the market for bargains, but this year was very different.

We have always wanted to stay at Hotel Santo Tomas, but it was always completely full, forcing us to stay in some of the other hotels in town. This year we had no trouble booking 2 large rooms. And when we checked in, we found out we were the only guests in the entire hotel. They told us if we wanted to use hot water to call them and they would turn on the boiler for us. They were not running it because the hotel was empty. That probably meant the other hotels in town were also empty. And that probably meant there were no tourists in town for the market.

Cortes de Pelo

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

I needed a haircut before we came to Guatemala. I didn’t get one because of various factors and the way I prioritized my time. After another five weeks of uncontrolled growth down here, I was in bad shape. Brett and his boys were also looking shaggy, so we found the barber shop with the highest reviews in Antigua and set up some appointments to get haircuts.

The major hair style down here is the fade, which is a cut where they use a shorter set of clippers on the sides and back to taper and blend it all the way down to your skin at the bottom. It gives the look of your hair fading away into your skin. It’s especially popular among teen-agers and college kids. Brett’s younger boys were very excited to get fade cuts and they turned out great. Brett and I didn’t go quite as extreme, although Brett did get the hot-towel straight-razor shave. Goodbye beard.

Lago de Atitlan

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

One of my favorite things to do is jump off of stuff into water. A few years ago we visited Lake Atitlan and did the usual thing of hiring a boat to take us around the lake. One of the places we stopped that day was at a little platform someone had built where you could jump off into the lake and take photos with the volcanos behind you, and then easily climb back up and do it again and again.

Master Electricians

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 18:30:00 -0600

We don’t see this very often in Antigua, but when we travel to smaller cities in rural areas it’s common to see complicated connections on many of the power distribution poles. This weekend we took a boat to several of the cities on the shores of Lago de Atitlan. Each of the cities we visited had power poles with more connections than you can imagine. I only snapped a few photos, but I think you can see what I mean. Imagine how much work it is to add/remove/change a connection on one of those. You have to not only know what you’re doing, but you have to be able to move carefully so you don’t get crispy.

ChocoMuseo Antigua

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We went to the ChocoMuseo in Antigua today. We signed up for the “bean to bar” workshop. This wasn’t our first chocolate factory tour, but this was so much better than any of the others. They didn’t include picking cocoa pods or fermenting or drying the beans, but we did get to roast them, grind them into paste using a mortar and pestle, make various chocolate drinks, and finally make our own chocolate bars. We also learned a lot along the way. I really enjoyed the whole experience. If you’re ever in Antigua and you like chocolate, this is a workshop for you. And it’s only $25 per person. Very worth it.

Semana Santa en Antigua

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

One of the big reasons we chose to visit Guatemala this time of year was to be in Antigua for Semana Santa. They do some amazing things for Holy Week here. Some of the festivities were cancelled by the Catholic Church because of covid, but some of the traditions lived on. One of the most famous is the tradition of creating beautiful “carpets” out of colored sawdust.

The artists work through the night to create these works of art that don’t even last through the day.

The Suicide Shower

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

If you want to take a warm shower south of the border, you’ll probably run into what a lot of gringos call a “suicide shower.” You walk into the shower area and look up at the showerhead. It has electrical wires running into and out of it. Yikes. This is because they don’t waste a lot of gas and/or electricity down here doing things like keeping a huge tank of water hot. Instead, they only heat the water right when and where you need it.

Semuc Champey (Part 2: The Pools)

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We regrouped after our lunch break. Our guide explained that each of us had a choice about how to get to the turquoise pools on top of the limestone bridge that is Semuc Champey. The hard way is to climb the stairs up to the lookout and then continue and descend the stairs to the top of the pools. He said it might be too hard for some of us and seemed especially worried about parents with kids. The alternative is to skip the cliff completely and just walk up the flat path along the river, similar to what we had walked earlier with our tubes, just on the opposite side of the river.

Semuc Champey (Part 1 - Below the Waterfall)

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 18:30:00 -0600

We slept pretty well last night, despite having 3 of us in the room and sharing a double bed with Charmaine. The only time I woke up was when I was freezing and had to adjust the air conditioner so it wouldn’t be so cold. Tessa said something about how she’s glad she brought her blanket from home with her or she would have frozen. That’s a good air conditioner.

The long ride to Lanquín

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We got up and ate breakfast earlier than usual this morning. It’s Friday, which means we’re not working – just trying to get our adventure on. Some of our previous attempts haven’t worked out exactly the way we hoped, but nothing stands in our way today. We’re headed to Lanquín to see Semuc Champey Natural Monument. It’s about 200 miles each way, but it usually takes 8+ hours due to traffic, construction, narrow winding roads, slow trucks, etc. Our driver pulled his van up to the house at 8:00 and we headed out.

Settled In

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

It’s amazing how quickly we can go from being awed by living in a big house with two chefs making amazing meals every day, someone doing all the cleaning, making my bed every day, doing my laundry, and a gardener who’s here three days a week making all the indoor garden areas, fountains, stairs, etc. look amazing… to taking it for granted.

Taking all that for granted? Yes.

We’re getting ready for our trip up to Semuc Champey tomorrow and I just caught myself wondering why my dirty clothes were still hanging on the clothes line upstairs and hadn’t been dried and folded yet. How did I get to that point? I’m very upset with myself for coming up with such a thought.

Ash Tuesday

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Pacaya blew its top again today and they had to close down the airport. Our weather forecast in Antigua was for “Volcanic Ash”. I think we got a little bit lucky with the winds today because some locations got several centimeters of ash on the ground and we just got a heavier snow than normal. But it’s probably a good thing we’re not trying to camp up there tonight. lol.

Pacaya can wait

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

When you make plans to summit volcanos, your plans have to be flexible. Volcán de Pacaya just began a new intense eruption yesterday and a new period of increased activity, so the country closed the National Park. Nobody gets to go near the volcano until it slows down. We got the email about it today, so we won’t be climbing to the summit tomorrow night to watch the lava flow down the side of the mountain after all. We’re hoping it will calm down enough before we have to fly back to the United States in a couple weeks, but there’s no way to predict what it will do. Brett’s kids are pretty upset about missing it, but there’s nothing we can do except enjoy our other activities. We’re still expecting to have a great weekend in Semuc Champey this weekend, but even that depends on the weather.

Last day in Monterrico

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We went to bed around 9 pm last night. We must be crazy gringo party animals. We invited Nate to sleep on the pull-out bed below our bunkbeds last night because he didn’t sleep very well on the couch in the family room the night before. There are no window coverings in there and the lights from outside were shining right on him. He fell asleep almost immediately, but he didn’t last very long. There was thumping music and fireworks keeping the rest of us awake until about midnight. And that’s about the time Nate decided he would rather sleep on the couch than in our room. I guess we are too noisy with our random coughs and snoring. I woke Charmaine up a few times to get her to stop snoring, but I think I slept pretty well overall.

Villas Aqua los Cabos de Monterrico

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Surprisingly good breakfast

I think I slept pretty well last night. I had the remote control to the air conditioner in bed with me, and I actually got cold enough at one point that I had to set the temperature a little higher so I wouldn’t freeze. That’s exactly where I wanted it to be.

Omelette breakfast with platanos fritos

Our Monterrico Adventure Begins

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Feeling Fine

As expected, I felt fine this morning. I didn’t want to get too crazy, but I did eat some pan dulce and drank a little orange juice. We worked some magic and found a nice Airbnb on the beach in Monterrico, rented some cars from Alamo, and headed south for a beach adventure. It isn’t El Salvador, but it’s the next best thing.

Our Airbnb hosts were hurrying to make our unit ready for us and said they could have it available by 2:00 pm if we returned the Excel spreadsheet with our passport numbers and license plates. The form had to be filled out by us, then signed by the owner of the unit and returned to the property management and security dudes prior to our arrival or we wouldn’t be allowed in the gate. Of course, we couldn’t fill out the form until we knew our license plate numbers and we wouldn’t know those until we picked up our rental cars.

102 in Antigua

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

It’s funny how quickly things can change. Yesterday we were trying to make plans for the weekend. Last night I was just trying to survive. I woke suddenly at 2:30 am with a stabbing pain in my gut. I could feel all the muscles in my abdomen starting to tighten up. I went quickly to the bathroom and puked my guts out. That was my routine every 2 hours for the rest of the night and on through the whole day. I didn’t sleep for more than about 45 minutes at a time from 2:30 am on. I had a fever that would spike and then drop and then spike and then drop. We measured it at 101.7. I felt terrible. By morning I looked terrible too.

Planning our weekends in Guatemala

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We have recently been trying to make plans for this weekend. One of the things we want to do while we’re down here is swim the limestone pools in the river at Semuc Champey and swim through the Grutas de Lanquín. We really enjoyed swimming through the ATM cave in Belize and it sounds like the caves in Lanquín have a similar adventurous quality. Both of those adventures require relatively dry conditions, but the forecast for this weekend up there is for lots and lots of rain. We’re still in the dry season here, but the jungle can get rain anytime. So we can’t do that this weekend.

Working from Antigua

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We can’t just play and eat all the time. We have to do something to pay the bills. Luckily, that something can be done remotely when there’s a good enough internet connection. The house we rented in Antigua has such a connection. It’s definitely not fast by our standards at home, but we’re able to do multiple simultaneous Zoom meetings without any trouble, and that’s our definition of “good enough” down here.

Our Chefs are Amazing

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Last night we decided to meet at 7:45 each morning for scripture study before breakfast. I’m not sure how well that will work for me, because I’m used to sleeping until I wake without ever using an alarm. That usually translates to me waking up around 8, but there’s no guarantee. I’m definitely not a morning person, so we’ll see how it goes.

I didn’t get to sleep last night until about midnight. Then I woke a few times due to noises and other things. By 7:00 I definitely didn’t feel like I slept enough, but it was time to start the day. Our two chefs were here and preparing breakfast. They cut up fresh fruit into big bowls. We had pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, blackberry, and papaya. I sucked down a lot of fruit. I’m so in love with papaya. The main part of breakfast was “typical” Guatemalan. We had eggs, black beans, and platanos fritos con crema. I loved the fresh fruit. The eggs had a nice salsa. The black beans had a really complex flavor.

El Tenedor del Cerro

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Brett and Nate like to punish themselves. They proved it by getting up early and going for a run our very first morning in town. It wasn’t a long run, but it was on the cobblestone streets of Antigua, which can’t be fun. A few minutes after they came back, Brett got a message from someone he knew when he was on his mission here years ago, who just happened to be in Antigua with his girlfriend for a cake piping class.

Church in Antigua

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 18:00:07 +0000

I didn’t pack the right attire for attending church here. I packed my usual Duluth Trading Company cargo pants and a dark polo shirt. I can get away with that most of places we go, but not here. They dress in their best clothes for church in Guatemala. I didn’t plan for that, so I found myself feeling underdressed. But we still went.

The church is on the other side of town from where we are staying, so we started walking around 8:30 and got to church around 8:50. We wondered if they would be doing church via Zoom here or not. On one hand, it’s a little harder for people to get around, so, being able to do remote church seems like a great thing. But, on the other hand, we wondered how many people would have access to a computer and internet in order to watch church remotely. As it turned out, they have both. Church is conducted live, in person, and they stream it over Zoom.

Cerro de la Cruz

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Today was our first whole day here in Antigua. It was a Saturday and we didn’t have anything on the schedule. We walked around town, bought some ice cream, enjoyed the fountain in the center of town, and then met up with one of Brett’s neighbor’s for lunch. Adam just happened to be coming to Guatemala this week and knew Brett had served his mission here. He sent Brett an email asking what sites he should see while in town. Of course, when he heard we were going to be here at the same time, he wanted to meet up and say hi. So we did.

Breakfast in Antigua

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 23:00:00 -0600

Antigua has continued to grow since the last time we were here. There are a lot of great places to eat. After a long trip to get here, we needed to eat (and drink). Before we could go off wandering around town, we needed to get settled at the house we rented to be our home base for the next few weeks. We toured the property, met the gardener and the maid, and decided who would stay in which room. Let me just say, this place is fantastic. We knew it would be nice, but it’s even nicer than the VRBO listing made it look. This is going to be a great trip.

Guatemala City to Antigua

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 22:45:00 -0600

Our layover in Los Angeles was just over five hours. That’s a long time to sit in uncomfortable chairs in a small terminal where almost everything was closed for the evening. At some point Brett and I talked about what time we thought we would be in Antigua in the morning. We were scheduled to land in Guatemala City around 6:00 in the morning. We thought that would probably be early enough that traffic wouldn’t be bad yet. We knew it would take some time to clear customs, especially with needing to verify every passenger held a recent negative test for covid, etc. We thought we would probably be leaving the airport by 7:00 and be in Antigua (20 miles away) by 7:45 or 8:00 – just in time for breakfast. We thought that was a fairly conservative estimate. We thought we had it all figured out.