Antigua to Panajachel, Guatemala
Hi, all, well we made it. it was a long trip and the plane got really bumpy coming into guatemala city between the volcanoes. we made our way to antigua and to our surprise found out that all of the rooms were sold out because there was going to be a procession the next day, 2 weeks before easter! we didn´t freak out though and stopped in to a travel agency who had a connection to a lady who runs a guesthouse, i think mostly for language school students, and we stayed there the first night, $40 US, out of the budget, but a room. it was in front of a park, san sebastian. the first place that we stopped at said they had rooms for the next night so we switched to there in the morning, 170 Quetzales which is like $22 US, much better.
btw, the keyboard is different here so i don´t know how to use all of the symbols/punctuation that i want/need to.
anyway, the next day we went to the plaza central where everyone was and i asked a cop what time the procession was going to arrive, because it actually started in some other town at 6am, and he told me 11am and he also told me that the tourism office was on the opposite side of the plaza from where it actually was. when we got the program for the procession it stated that the procession was arriving at the plaza at 4pm. i don´t know what his problem was, but he totally gave me wrong info.
guatemala is much more modern than i expected. i´m not seeing the in your face poverty that i´ve seen other places, but then again, we haven´t really gotten out into the rural areas yet.
it was really cool that dave got to see a procession without being here for holy week. people were making the carpets in the streets early in the afternoon so we got to see that too. there were 3 huge float type of things, but 2 of them got carried and didn´t have wheels. i read that they weigh a couple of tons. one that went by was carried by women in high heels carring their purses on their shoulders. wow, are they tough!!!
we did a bit of touring around on sunday too and i found a better place to stay for holy week and canceled my reservation at the jungle party lodge where i definitely didn´t want to stay, but it was the only place i could find to book from home. we ate pupusas which are like two tortillas together w- black beans and cheese in the middle, but they are closed on the sides. they´re from el salvaldor and they´re delicious!!!
yesterday we hopped a tourist shuttle to the town of panajachel in the morning and arrived around noon. we´re staying at a great place called hotel utz jay that´s decorated w- local fabrics and the walls are yellow which is a plus. i think that it should be a requirement for all rooms to be decorated w- the vibrant local fabrics and handicrafts. once we got situated we decided to head to RESERVA NATURAL ATITLAN to walk the trails and i read that we could see MONKEYS there. we rented a couple of bikes and headed up a hill that´s like at a 45 degree angle. once we got there the girl asked if we only wanted to do the trails and i asked what else there was and she pointed to a picture of people on a ZIPLINE!!!! YAY!!! when i had mentioned this to dave previously he said that he wouldn´t do it, but he did. IT WAS SOOOO MUCH FUN!!! it was only 125 Q )$16US) it´s so much more than that in costa rica where i was planning on doing it. we did 6 lines and a few of them were SUPER HIGH and SUPER FAST. it was great!!! after that we stopped on an observation deck and dave was like ¨look, there´s a monkey!!!¨ there were about 3 or 4 of them pretty close to us. then a guy came by and threw them some bananas and 2 of them went running for them, which was even closer to where we were. i could´ve stayed there for a long time, but it was dusk and we had to get back.
panajachel isn´t a bad town. the food is MUCH cheaper than in touristy antigua. we paid $2.50 each for a plate of pork chops, rice, beans, guacamol, tortillas and a pop. in antigua it would be like $10. there are a lot of people my parents´ age from the states here who just don´t want to stop being stinky hippies, so they still are. it´s a nice little town though.
today we´re taking it easy because dave isn´t feeling well. hoping to make it across the lake…
Tags: antigua, Central America 2007, monkeys, panajachel, procession
