The Wanderings of busman7

Antigua

Wonder why English doesn’t have a comparable expression in 2 simple words?

French has Au revoir, actually my Spanish – English dictionary uses au revoir as the definition, Strange!!

One thing I have learned when leaving other travelers is always say Hasta luego not good-by as the world is a small place & you never know when you will meet again. With Antigua there is no doubt about returning just a matter of when.

Friendships are made more quickly in the traveling & ex-pat community than “normal” life, no time for BS you’re taken at face value very quickly. As a friend back in Canada said “you have only been there 2 months & the neighbours are giving you a going away party?” heck 2 mo. is an eternity, you can meet someone you get along with & have the nice to meet you & the hasta luego party the same night LOL. So likely be getting on the shuttle a tad hungover in the morning as I still have some HC7 I have been nursing & way too much luggage to take it back to a country where it can be bought for three times the price paid because of usurious tax rates, really great to come from the country with the highest tax rates in the world (that I have heard of) & a province that is harmonising two taxes so we can pay even more tax. Oh well four & a bit months & it will be Adios Canada, might stop by for a short visit once in a while or not.

Talking with the lady that looks after things here & you can rent a 3 bedroom casa (house) in her town, Chimaltenango a 1/2 hr away by car an hr by bus 5Q ($0.75 CAD) for 1000Q/mo ($150.00 CAD) now it’s another 1000 or so feet (refuse to use “Trudeau” (it’s a Canuck thing) measurements) higher so might need a touch of heat for a couple months. Everything else is a bit cheaper in tourist prices & a lot cheaper in local places. A better haircut & beard trim than I have ever had in Ontario $7.50 (CAD $) tourist price, daily paper $0.45 for the good one or $0.38 for the Sun equivalent (blood & girly pic). Prices in local Bodegona are a bit less in Ont & market has all kinds of FRESH produce year round.

Trip plan is unchanged, leave 07:30 Sat on a shuttle for the city then bus for Rio Dulce spend the night then launcha to Livingston from there see what’s available to get me to Belize City. If I get lucky might be able to make my way to Caye Caulker for a night as I have left an extra day to play with & sire as hell not going to spend it in Belize City. Worst case scenario is 2 days in Livingston or Punta Gorda & chicken bus to the city. Then it’s American Airlines to Miami & on to YYZ, unless I luck out & get abducted by aliens LOL.

One more day in beautiful downtown Antigua in the sunshine at Central park talking the local people,both  expats & born Guatemalans, oh yeah supposed to get info on another bus importer.

Next update will likely be from the frozen north! BTW over 7700 hits on this blog, thanks all for the interest.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 04:20 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.