http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SonjaG/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from SonjaG en-us Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:44:16 +0000 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:44:16 +0000 Wow this blog posting is really difficult. It's time to say goodbye to Guatemala after all this time. Tommorrow morning at 530am we leave our house to go to the airport. It's been a very busy and emotional day.When I think about this year there are some major themes that strike me as being so meaningful to me and to our family.The first is how wonderful the actual country of Guatemala is http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-287851.html As we wind down our year here I'm starting to get a little sentimental about leaving Guatemala. I hope this entire blog has been able to show the gentle reader why we have enjoyed this country so much but now I want to take just a moment to mention another reason we have been so happy here we live in a lovely houseWhen we arrived last August we had rented a pretty typical modern colonial hous http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-266824.html As I mentioned in our Semuc Champey entry we wanted to take a couple more roadtrips before we depart this lovely country. Our final item on the list was a trip out to Todos Santos way out northwest in the highlands. It's considered fairly remote and isloated so doesn't get a lot of visitors. We decided to time the trip with the visit of our friends Carlos and Djuna who were visiting us from http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Todos-Santos-Cuchmatin/blog-281494.html A while back I was walking back to our house from central Antigua which is a 20minute walk along which final portion includes a dirt road between two small coffee farms. I've walked home alone many times and normally don't think twice about any safety issues but this time for some reason I didn't like the look of the man in the distance coming towards me.As he got a little closer to me I sta http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-274931.html For Mother's Day which is actually celebrated on May 10 of every year as opposed to second Sunday Lucas and Grace's school put on a little show for us moms. With a scheduled start time of 10am the event started promptly at 1045 or so with a pretty entertaining performance by a nationally known singer Elisabeth. Hey she must be good you can find her in Wikipedia AND she's got only o http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-274889.html As our year here is nearing an end we have taken a fresh look at the Guatemalan map to see what other places we want to visit before we leave. There are a couple more spots left on our list the waterfalls of Semuc Champey and the highland town of Todos Santos.So on a long weekend holiday from school we hired Julio one of Hugo's excellent guides to take us to the wonderful sights of Semuc http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Semuc-Champey/blog-275934.html Recently various cousins from both Steve and my families came down to give us a visit. We had invited as many kids as were able to make it and 5 came in all four from my family's side Courtny Grahm Heather and Hannah and one from Steve's side Heather whom we called HeatherL which sounds like HeatherEarl.Lucas and Grace were SO EXCITED to have their cousins come to visit them all the w http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Rio-Dulce/blog-268693.html Steve HolySonja Seeped in cultureGrace Outstandingly beautifulLucas SurrealThese are the words we have each chosen to describe Semana Santa or Holy Week. In the weeks since the last procession on Easter Sunday I have repeatedly gone back to my memories and tried to come to any sort of clarity on how to describe it. Words will likely fail so this entry is heavy on pictures. If y http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-264152.html Any reader of this blog will know by now that our friend Christine owns and runs a small organic coffee farm here in Antigua. She had told us that the picking season was at hand and that she was a little concerned about getting enough help to pick the crop and so we gamely offered our familyrsquos labor to help out. Christine politely smiled and thanked us and as the weeks went by we heard f http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-263717.html When Steve and I decided to spend this year in Guatemala we were pretty sure we'd have some adventurous friends and family come to visit us. However I wasn't holding any high hopes of my parents coming to visit since a they don't like hot places and b Central America has never been high on their travel wish list.However due to the pursuasive effect of of having their grandchildren here plus http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-257519.html Today we became landowners Steve and I casually started looking at real estate in December shortly after we returned from New Zealand. It was the standard procedure Steve and I start dreaming about owning a vacation home we look around and see what's available and then we come down to reality and talk ourselves out of it. This has worked so well during these past 18 years of marriage w http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-267474.html My younger brother Eric came to visit us in early February and had been reading his Lonely Planet guidebook for suggestions of places to visit as well as I should certainly hope my List of Top Places to Visit He was pretty interested in making a visit to Tikal and as we chatted about arranging the details I decided that I would like to tag along to provide some company. I wanted the chance http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Flores-Tikal/blog-254541.html With our guests Grammy Brett Christy and baby Charlotte we decided to take a road trip out to Lake Atitln but included for the first time a side trip to Chichicastenango since we had never been there ourselves. Our strategy for hosting guests usually includes taking them someplace that we ourselves have never been to increase our opportunities to see more of the countryChichicastenango http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Chichicastenango/blog-262427.html Quickly following Mary's trail Steve's sister Christy her husband Brett and their darling baby Charlotte came to visit us for a short but full week.Seeing the baby our niece and cousin for the first time was a really big deal for us. We had left Seattle for Antigua just a couple of weeks prior to her birth and that was especially hard on Steve who loves his sister mightily and had wanted t http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-254475.html Since my mom was coming a few days ahead of my sister and her family we decided to head up to Petn together. It was the first time that we've ever traveled just the two of us and I think it was awesome. I had just been to Tikal a few weeks earlier with my family and our visiting friends so I thought that I was mostly going to show my mom around. Well it turned out to be a very different trip http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/El-Peten/Tikal/blog-255232.html Since that very first time I saw the Best Road Sign Ever found in my blog entry at Monterrico Guatemala I have had an eye out for interesting and unusual road signs of the yellow diamond variety. Herewith the best road signs of Australia and New Zealand. For this Seattle gal they qualify as unusual http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/blog-248747.html Finally wrapping up the New Zealand portion of our year abroad in Guatemala...After bidding Karen Dave Noah and Ana farewell in the golden light of the sun setting over Hahei we hightailed it out to Thames to overnight in a crappy little hotel so that we would be well positioned to 'do' Aukland in a day.Our plan was to play tourist for the day sleep in some cheap airport hotel and head on hom http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/Mount-Eden/blog-251101.html After spending 3 fun days in Rotorua I HIGHLY recommend the Rotorua Museum of Art and History our 2 families decided to explore a bit further north taking the road up past Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty and up into the Coromandel Pennisula along the Pacific Coast Highway which must be the OTHER Pacific Coast Highway because everybody knows that the original PCH goes down US101 from Washingto http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Coromandel/Hahei/blog-250112.html We have a friend living here in Antigua who is from New Zealand and when we talked with her before departing for NZ she said that we simply must try out the Zorb a notable activity in Rotorua. What is Zorb Hold on to your trousers...Ill get there real soon.We headed out towards Zorbland which is about 2030 minutes outside of Rotorua by car. En route we stopped by the Agrodome which is http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Rotorua/blog-249340.html catching up on my New Zealand trip blog entriesAfter saying goodbye to Karen Dave Ana and Noah we caught an Interislander ferry from Picton South Island to Wellington North Island. We were able to return our humongous motorhome to the rental agency and get to the airport with juuuuuust enough time for me to stop by the Wellington airport's ICEBREAKER shop They were having sale I cou http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Rotorua/blog-249066.html