Hurricane: We're A-OK

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We've been getting a lot of emails today from friends worrying about us with regards to the Hurricane(s) coming into Guatemala.

Luckily, we don't expect anything other than more rain. Antigua is at 5,000 feet in elevation and about an hour's drive from the Pacific Coast, so we won't get any real affect from the hurricane(s) except a bunch of RAIN and more RAIN.

I remember a friend Shaun Hughes saying he really wouldn't care to travel to Central America during the rainy season, and while our week's visit here last year was incredibily beautiful, I can see how any visitor coming here this week would be fairly disappointed by the weather. I suppose that's like in any visit, but this place is certainly more predictably rainy! Beautiful in the morning, then rain in the afternoon and possibly all throughout the night. Last night was amazing; we had lightning that cast the volcano Agua in sillouette and it was just crazy beautiful. Then it dumped rain for the next 3-4 hours.

So, please don't worry about us. The bigger excitement here is the national elections this Sunday, which will pick 2 finalists for the big kahuna election in November, I think. There are many candidates, some with these awful portraits of themselves (one guy looks so mean even his mother wouldn't vote for him) and pickups running through the streets with big posters and loudspeakers yelling their slogans. Who knows if they have television ads, as we don't get TV, but it is interesting that they don't appear to go so negative as ours.

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Comments

[Mary D]

About that election
The paper today reported mobs burning down a pooling place in one town. I hope Antiqua is not experiencing that kind of "activism."

[SonjaG]

Response
Not here. We have read about some violence in various areas, but not anything in Antigua. This place is quite a bit more international than some others and as such they appear to take more precautions/pride in keeping order.