Bienvenidos a Guatemala

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Flying on probably the safest day of the year.

Hola! At this moment I am in Guatemala. Yes, I can hear you thinking: a new continent every week? Well it sure lookes like it. But probably I will stay for a while in Central America. In the late evening of the 10th of September I left San Fransisco and flew on the 11th of September into Guatemala City….This is the second time I hear you thinking. Flying on 11th of September in the States?? Well probably it is the safest day, because when you are a terrorist you wouldn’t plan an attack on this day, would you? I expected more security on the airport, but I didn’t notice anything different from when I arrived. At the airport I tried to find a local bus to get to my guest house. The ATM at the airport was broken so I only had dollars with me. While waiting at the bus stop, I met a friendly man who insisted to pay for my busride. Even after me insisting to accept dollars from me. From someones face you can see if someone can be trusted and noticing his friendliness I knew I could trust him. Eventually the bus dropped me at Zona 1 where I had to go, but I didn’t know where I was exactly. There were no clear signes. I asked directions to a police officer and he was so helpful to walk me to my guest house. I spend the late afternoon walking around the city.

Arriving in Antigua

The next day I decided to go to Antigua. At the guest house I asked which bus I had to take and I stood waiting at one street for a while looking for bus 40R. No bus with that number appeared. A friendly Guatemalan guy walked in my direction who was waiting for another bus. He was very eager to improve his English and I could see his joy talking with me and to learn new words. Actually it was my pleasure as well because he learned me some Spanish. Eventually there was no bus 40R appearing and I found out they gave me the wrong busnumber at the guest house. So I had to walk a couple of blocks and my new friend helped me to find my bus. Again the helpfulness and the friendliness of the Guatemalan people appeared to me. I had to change buses at another place and eventually I arrived in Antigua. The same afternoon I walked around town in search of the place I wanted to stay and enjoyed some local food like Tortillas that were freshly made on the street.

Living with a Guatemalan family

After staying one day in a hotel I went to a Spanish school to enroll for lessons. I started the next day in the afternoon. I attended four hours of private lessons in Spanish a day. Also was I staying with a local family. That is such a great opportunity to learn more Spanish and to see how Guatemalan people live. The family is very nice and they speak only Spanish. So that helped me to learn more Spanish. They called me Jorge. The food was very nice and I ate all kind of Guatemalan dishes. There was another girl from Sri Lanka staying there who also learns Spanish. I found it quite hard to speak with the family because of my poor Spanish, but still I learned a lot and it was a nice experience. My timing was quite good because during my stay there were a lot of celebrations and parades. It was the celebration of independence.

On the move again....

After my crash course of Spanish in Antiqua I went to Panajachel. I took a bus that went half way and had to switch to another bus. While sitting in the bus I spoke with a Guatemalan man so that was again a nice way to try my new learned Spanish. The only thing was that he sad I had to stay on the bus where I had to switch busses. He pointed me the road that was going into my direction and suddenly realised he should have told me to get off. So I was dropped somewhere on the road and had to catch a bus to the place where I had to change again. Well after another change of buses eventually I reached Solala and because the bus didn’t go further I decided to walk to Panajachel. It took me more that an hour and I could have taken another bus, but I liked the walking and the scenery. The lake Atitlan is so beautiful and I passed a waterfall and had many beautiful views over the lake.

How to sell your goods on a bus in Guatemala

Eventually I stayed one night in Panajachel and took the bus to Quetzaltenango. It is funny because on these local buses people jump on to sell their stuff. It can be anything from food to creams for your skin. It is funny to see how they speak and they way they promote their goods. When they are finished talking, and that can take 15 minutes sometimes, they hand out the product to everyone. And after waiting for a minute or so he collects money from the people who want to buy and collect the product again from the people who don’t want to buy it. I am still amazed how many people buy it. Although it is just some cream that only has the smell of Eucalyptus. But with the story: it is good for everything, headache, blood pressure, etc… people just buy it. And when you are handed food and see those chocolate bars in your hand it awakes you desire to eat it. So it is a good strategy if you want to sell your stuff.

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Photos

El Parque Central
Central park in Guatemala city

The parade
This is the first day with containing the youngest children. The second and third day of the celebration of independence the older ones follow.

Focus on this and your stress fades away
This is such a peaceful sight. The horses just standing there. As time stands still....