Antigua: we did a lot of nothing

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There are two things that I can say are worth reporting, one of which I can't report at this time. Don't worry, by the time you read this you will already know or will be finding out soon enough. Number one, I'm now a vegetarian. We were on the bus, curving down the highways in between Xela and Chimaltenango when a man, who seemed to appear out of no where (just like my conversion to eating no red meat), stood up and began a detailed talk about how polluted the blood of Guatemalans had become, eating meat nearly every meal, drinking pop (for all you suckas in the Midwest) by the litre, and other blood polluting ingestions. Well, for all the stuff I've learned in medical school, three years of watching obese patients with diabetes and congestive heart failure laid up in the hospital, it took me riding on a chicken bus through the glorious highland hills of Guatemala to finally do something that I've wanted to do for a long time: deprive myself of the succulent meat of dumb farm animals. There you have it my friends, I'm won't eat meat until

1. I have to because there is nothing else to eat or
2. I get to Argentina, or Uruguay in which case let my arteries go to hell.

No but seriously, it's rice and beans and fish if available from here on out.

Ok, I can't keep this a secret for much longer. There is a 90% chance that in a couple days, I'll be headed to Cuba to visit the island from which half my genes developed. I still have family there and I thought with two weeks left before I've got to haul myself and books to Ecuador for six months, vale la pena to spend it there. More on this later...

Antigua though was a mess. The bus ride took forever, not that we weren’t expecting it to, because we were. Once we arrived in Antigua, got lost for a couple minutes looking for our hostel (thanks to our fearless leader Mateo), and finally settled into our room, it was somewhat late and we were all hungry. So the group split up, some went to grab food, Mateo, Eric (who can I tell you is a total trip) and I sat in the park for a couple hours watching the local folk, Guatemalans from the capital, and gringos mix together in this beautiful setting.

We then proceeded to drink rum, eat pulled pork at a local BBQ joint, make friends with a group of 18 year old Chapines (Guatemalans), and dance the night away. Ok, so that was day one.

Just to let you know, and it is important that you do thus it has received its own paragraph, I ate no pulled pork. I abstained from the pig meat that night.

The next morning, we wasted away in our hotel waiting for them to serve us breakfast. Not that the folks in the kitchen were being lazy, they were simply limited by space and the such. When we did get our food, at 11am, we had already been expecting it for two hours. I was hoping for something much tastier. I ate the saltiest omelette of my life. Thus by the time we finished digesting our food, we had to leave.

The town was beautiful. Its roads are regular, still paved in cobblestones. It is filled with churches, many of whose facades are completely absent. I believe that these are more captivating than the ones that have flourished. It is gringofied like no other place I've been to in Guatemala. I saw a woman with Down's syndrome dancing around the park, throwing herself on the neatly manicured lawns, all while handing out fliers for a video rental business. I saw a crippled man, whose legs hung just stiff enough to allow the crutch held close by his left arm to keep him from falling over. Some kid with his shoe shining box in hand, offered us, in this exact sequence, a shoeshine, pot, crack.

Despite the apparent loss of time and money this weekend, it was worth it because I saw Cuba on a map and decided to go and I heard a curly haired man of 50, explain that we are poisoning ourselves slowly with meat and sugar. And for this reason, I realized why I am travelling.

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Photos

Antigua arch
beautiful arch

Antigua arch
beautiful arch

Pretty church
The cathedral

Pretty park
People in the park around the fountain

Pretty fountain
close-up of the fountain. I wonder if Dave Chappelle had something to do with this...

Pretty view
from the roof of our hotel