Home!

Alright, I'm finally home. I wrote a very bitter and angry post while sitting in the Guatemala City airport this morning/afternoon, but now that I'm home I'm not quite so bitter and angry anymore. Here's today's events:

This morning I took a shuttle to the airport in Guatemala at 9 a.m.. No problem there. I arrived around 10 a.m., and my flight was scheduled for 1:20 p.m., so all was going well. Then it all kind of went downhill. 1:20 p.m. came and went, and we were moved to three different gates before they informed us that the flight to Ft. Lauderdale would be coming in late. Gee whiz. I had a four hour layover, so I wasn't too worried about missing my connecting flight to NYC until I overheard someone saying they weren't going to make their flight to NYC. So I went to the desk and they told me the plane was so delayed we were going to be stuck in Guatemala until at least 4:00. I was offered a hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale and a 7:00 a.m. flight for tomorrow or I could stay in Guatemala but they wouldn't find me a hotel and they wouldn't pay for anything, so I started freaking out because I wanted to be home so incredibly badly. I didn't have a phone and there were no phones or computers in the entire airport for me to call home and tell my mom the situation, so I of course did what any incredibly stressed out individual stuck by herself in Guatemala would do and I cried. I'm pretty sure everyone knows me as the crying girl now. The people sitting next to me on the flight confirmed my suspicion.

After sitting around the airport for a total of almost six hours, I was happy to see the plane arrive in Guatemala around 3:30. We were in the air at 4:30, so they said we wouldn't make it to the NY flight in time because though the flight was only two hours and 15 minutes long, the time difference added an hour and we would get in as the NYC plane was taking off. I resigned myself to another night away from home. However, as we approached Ft. Lauderdale, they said they were holding the LaGuardia flight for people who needed to connect, since we got in about 15 minutes after their initial take-off time. Of course, I was all the way in the back on the plane and still had to go through customs and security and get to the gate, so I basically had to run. The people next to me were very nice and helped me get off the plane faster. I practically pushed old ladies out of the way to get to the customs line and through security as quickly as possible, then said goodbye to my luggage (I had no time to claim it and check it onto the right flight) and ran to the gate.

When I got to the gate, two women were standing there in an empty waiting area, and I told them I needed to get onto the LaGuardia flight. They looked up my records and said I was booked for a flight tomorrow morning and they couldn't let me on the plane, so I instantly burst into tears and started crying about how stressed out I am and how I need to be on that plane so I can get home. Crying always works. I think I frightened them a bit. They were very nice and opened the security doors to let me onto the plane, where lots of pissed off people scoffed at me for holding up their flight a whole 30 minutes. I wanted to tell them about my 3.5 hour delay in Guatemala.

Now at last I'm home, and when I got home around midnight Becky, Elise, and Caitlyn surprised me with a Carvel Cookie Puss that we demolished in a gory mess of ice cream and whipped cream http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifand crunchies. Good times. It's really great to be home and great to have such wonderful friends. Hopefully my luggage will make it home sometime soon, too. It's on vacation in Ft. Lauderdale for a bit.

Once I got back and checked my voicemail, I also discovered I got the photography internship at National Geographic that I applied for months ago and didn't think I'd get. I'm so excited about being home and starting this internship and spending time with friends this last week before heading back to Columbia. I've had enough Guatemala for quite a while. I'll be back someday to see Tikal, but for now I'm all about NY.

There will probably be one or two more posts with photos, then this blog will have run its course. Night!

We gotta get right back to where we started from

Alright, I´m now in Antigua and mom, it´s Sunday. All the phone places are closed. But I´m safe, I´m with someone who speaks Spanish fluently (She moved her flight to tomorrow, so she came with me today), and I´ve got a shuttle taking me to the airport so that I arrive 3 hours before my flight tomorrow. I´ll probably find some international calling place and say all that shortly. Damn, this keyboard is terrible.

So the number one thing I will not miss from Guatemala is waking up at sunrise (6:30 a.m.) every morning to the sound of some guy trying to rid himself of a substantial amount of phlegm. Every morning for an hour and a half straight, starting at sunrise, this creepy Latin American man would pace back and forth by the bathroom (located outside, directly in front of my window) clearing his throat, spitting, "hocking," and being generally creepy to anyone of the girls in my group who tried to use the bathroom. His two friends would join in the creepiness by stationing themselves outside of the bathrooms/shower and singing terrible Spanish love songs as well as the occasional chorus of James Blunt´s "You´re Beautiful," a song which apparently made its way through Latin America not long ago and became the new courting song for American women. They all enjoyed wearing Speedos and saying "Hola, chica" with a creepy grin anytime they saw one of the American girls. The whole spitting phlegm ritual continued again at sunset for another hour or two. It was disgusting. I endured five days of it, and I´m incredibly happy to not have phlegm-clearing as my alarm clock any longer.

Another awesome thing about leaving San Pedro now is that the 17-year old daughter of an Italian restaurant owner there was raped two nights ago and nearly killed by a tuktuk driver. Apparently she was drunk and caught a tuktuk taxi by herself to her house, and the driver raped her and tried to murder her. He left her for dead on the side of the road next to my hotel. Luckily, she was found and is now in the hospital recovering. I skipped dinner last night and locked myself in my hotel room once it was dark.

Since I´m in Antigua and home is so close I can practically taste it, I decided to literally taste it and head to McDonalds for a late lunch. I didn´t go there the first time I was in Antigua, so it was a pretty big surprise. There were chandelliers. After getting my double cheeseburger and fries, I went down a fancy corridor to discover an outdoor eating area complete with a view of a volcano, gardens, and a fountain. In Guatemala, McDonalds is a status symbol. Carrying a bag from McDonalds is like wearing Coach or Prada. Because the food is so incredibly expensive ($5 American is expensive here), it´s like a fine dining experience that only tourists and rich ladinos can afford. Then a woman in a traditional huipuil and corte (Mayan women´s dress) came in with her kids to show them McDonalds. I´ve never felt so guilty about eating McDonalds in my life. And I know some of you are probably also thinking of the ramifications of eating McDonalds in a tropical country - yes, I supported the destruction of the rainforest in one of the countries where the McDonalds cows are destroying the rainforest. I´m just a really bad person.

But yesterday I supported Mayan weavers by buying a load of necklaces from fair trade cooperatives. And almost all of the gifts I bought for people were from fair trade cooperatives that support education, children, and women here. I bought one black market item probably stolen from some Mayan ruin and two things from hippies, and neither of those really help anyone who needs help. Oh well. I´m done with my buying and ready to get home. I´ll be in the States tomorrow afternoon and home very late at night! I can´t wait to take a hot shower.

Alright, so I have to decide between taking a five-hour bus the morning of my flight at 6:00 a.m. to Guatemala City or taking a bus to Antigua Sunday, staying overnight, then taking a two-hour bus to Guatemala City airport on Monday. Hm. I think I'm going to do the morning of option because I'm kind of freaking out about going to Antigua alone. I just hope the bus doesn't break down or get stuck in mud or hit traffic because there's just one flight and I don't have a phone to call for help. And the way my luck has been for the majority of this trip, I would not even be slightly surprised if something happened to the bus in the middle of nowhere. We might even be attacked by bandits and I'd be like, "Oh, ok. You win, Guatemala." It's best not to care. It's currently Guatemala 8654302, Lauren 1, and the one was only because some guy misunderstood my English and significantly lowered the price of something I bought Lucas.

The guy next to me on the couch thing is reading a Nora Roberts book aloud to himself. It's odd. He also asked me a lot of questions about my terryaki chicken.

It also completely distracted me from what I intended to write...

The owner of this place reminds me so much of my German professor and it's really intimidating. They have the same hair and the same way of talking.

At the hotel, I was sitting on my bed with the door open and the old pepper grinder guy from a few doors down stopped at my door to say hi. He noticed my Canon backpack, and asked what kind of camera I had, so I showed him. After a bit, he started talking about how he's a photographer, then he showed me some of his work and told me all about how he got into photography as a kid and worked for a newspaper and now he does freelance stuff. He kept talking about the new battles taking place in the photography world and how people pick sides and one wins (as is the case in many battles), but he never really went into detail about what these battles were, so it was really a lot of vague nothingness, kind of like this paragraph.

My battery is dying and I'm not supposed to use the outlets here, so it'd probably be best if I head out. The flies are also starting to migrate toward me...there are a lot of flies in Guatemala. And a lot of coffee beans. Coffee smells absolutely horrible in the fields.

Teaching English and fixin' computers

I just finished off an entire medium pizza by myself next to a lake in Guatemala. It was delicious. Everything I could ever have wanted in a pizza. I'm feeling more optimistic today, mostly because I've only got two whole days before I go to Antigua, then one day in Antigua before I go home. And because I've got an entire afternoon of me time! And free internet in a place that doesn't give me food poisoning! Yaaay!

I've been asked to fix the restaurant owner's laptop, which I will do now...God I hope everything isn't in Spanish. Oh, it probably is. It is. Eh. And it's an old Dell that is kind of ehhh. And he speaks broken English and I speak broken Spanish, so yeah! Alright some photos? Si.



This one has to be clicked on for a bigger size:


Students from the school we visited


Amy and Nicole with some students:




Ok cool back to helping with the broken Dell and teaching this dude some English then off to some party at the school.

Oh, and I forgot to mention we ran into three other Columbia students completely separate from our group in Panajachel yesterday. Apparently they also saw us on the volcano in Antigua two weeks ago and talked to someone else from our group. The world is incredibly small.

Day whatever. I´ve lost track.

This one is for all you poor Columbia Core kids out there...

The Irish guy behind me in the internet cafe: Dude, I just read a book called The Iliad. You gotta read it! It´s from like the 19th century, the 1880s or something, and I don´t know how to explain it...just read it.

I´m more worried about his friend taking his advice than I am about his thinking the Iliad is from the 1880s.

What weird things happened to me today? Hm. While walking around Pana, a crazy guy was riding up and down the street on a bike yelling things about/at Americans. When he went past me and the girl I was with, Susie, he pointed at us and yelled "CLINTON!" It was pretty strange!

Last night while standing outside the bathroom at the sink in my PJs and fuzzy pink slippers, this old white guy at my hotel said, "Nice shoes. Well, I guess everyone has that something they can´t travel without...for me it´s a pepper grinder, because if I´m gonna have eggs, I´m gonna have 'em done right." I didn´t even know what to say to that.

I haven´t been sick yet today, which is nice since most of yesterday evening was spent running to the bathroom and popping pepto bismol. And I didn´t miss making chocolate! I´m going to go do that tonight in about 30 minutes.

Another sick day in San Pedro.

Yesterday in the afternoon I went kayaking with a group of people on Lake Atitlan and it was really beautiful, albeit really exhausting. We kayaked from San Pedro to San Marcos (reference the map on the first post), went swimming for a bit, then kayaked back. When we kayaked back, there were quite a few waves and my kayak got semi-flooded when I tried to launch. While I was trying to not be flooded and not to get all my stuff wet, some Guatemalan dude was trying to solicit me to come to some school or something and I´m like, "Sounds fabulous, but I´m kind of in the middle of trying not to drown, so maybe later, ok?" It was insane. Then I finally got out on the water and sang all the way back because the other kayakers had gotten so far ahead while I was flooding, so they couldn´t hear me.

Last night, I became sick again and slept through dinner. For an hour or so I was delusional with fever and freaking out about everything, especially Stephanie Boa and the 45-year old South African guy, Juan, who she secretly brought back to the hotel. They were talking loudly in the room next to me, and I was terrified they were going to have sex and I was going to be trapped in my room. Luckily, they were too busy talking about music and energy and the kind of stuff people on lots of drugs talk about, so I just had to listen to them being insane before falling asleep.

This morning, I was woken up at 8:30 a.m. and told that there was a meeting at 8:30 a.m., so that was fun. We went to San Juan to clean up garbage along the lake with the students there. While walking around still feeling rather ill, I managed to step on something extremely sharp that then proceeded to go through my shoe and puncture the middle of my foot. Awesome. Bleeding and nauseous, I decided it would be best for me to head back to the hotel. I walked to the road and caught a tuktuk (mini taxi) with a nun (no joke). I really wish someone could´ve been there to take a picture of the nun and the atheist riding in a tuktuk in Guatemala. It was too perfect. Ok, so she was probably a sister because nuns don´t go out, but nun sounds better.

After some lounging around in hammocks and finishing A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man by Joseph Heller, Kathleen (also sick) and I decided to brave a long walk and got a gigantic lunch down by the docks, most of which we couldn´t finish. It was an exhausting walk. There was a fly and a hair in my pasta, but the pizza was really delicious. Writing about this is making me more nauseous, so I guess I´ll just cut it off and head back to the hotel to sit around some more. Today because I´m feeling so nauseous, I´m missing out on making chocolate, making organic soap, and walking a medicine trail. It sucks. All the sick people are annoyed, but cést la vie. Night!

Yay free internet!

There is a dog staring at me. I'm on the porch at a little cafe in San Pedro that overlooks the lake and has free wireless. I like this place because people speak English and they let you stay as long as you want. No one knows I'm here, but I figure they've already left me at a restaurant, so if they don't know where I am this time they can invent a story. Being in a huge group gets tiring.

One thing I noticed in Guatemala is how it’s so incredibly similar to New York City in certain ways. Instead of pigeons, there are dogs. Instead of hot dog stands, there are taco stands (and why don’t we have this in NYC yet?). Instead of the East River, there’s Lake Atitlan, which hotels dump refuse into. And the whole no toilet seat thing isn’t really unheard of in NYC. The showers are about as bad as the ones in my dorm. There are as many tiendas (small convenience stores) here as there are Starbucks in NYC. Instead of Budweiser and Heineken ads, there are ads for the Guatemalan beer Gallo (like Chris Gallo!) everywhere. And apparently it's pretty warm back in NY, too.

I’ve also discovered my terrible miming abilities. Here’s a foreign traveler anecdote for you all: I was lying in a hammock, locked out of my room - as per usual - and I heard a cat crying. I noticed that the cat had been locked inside the little kitchen area, but I didn't know how to get the door open. Being the brilliant person I am, I decided to go to the office and attempt to get someone to let the cat out. Unfortunately, my little Spanish phrase book doesn't really have any situational language for "cat locked in room," so I only knew "el gatto." So I go into the office and start saying "El gatto..." and miming for them to follow me. Obviously, they're confused, because these three people were in there just relaxing and some crazy American comes in and starts rambling about "the cat! the cat!" Finally, the owner followed me and opened the door, and of course the cat just looked at us and stayed in the room. So I looked even crazier. Damn cat. The owner looked at me like I was insane, I went back to my hammock. The end.

So now some photos!

Here's my hotel cat:


Some daisies:


When we visited the school a few days ago, we took all the kids out to lunch. They, in turn, took our cameras and took lots of photos of each other:


This little girl was really adorable:


Miriam (left) and Kai (right), the two organizers of Dream Weavers:


Miriam speaking to us with one of the other adult students:


This is Elise performing poetry in Spanish:


Two of the boys dancing in traditional Mayan attire:


A little boy performing poetry:


Most adorable little girl ever:


Part of the smoke/dance ceremony:


All of the students Dream Weavers supports through scholarships:


San Pedro from the road to San Juan:


The view from Panajachel just before sunset:


More from the docks at Panajachel:


Kathleen, Nicole, and me at the docks in Panajachel:


A flower at the restaurant we went to in Pana:


One of the shops in Pana:


More flowers:


Candles from Juan, the 45-year old hippie guy Stefanie Boa brought back to our hotel. We had no electricity for a few days, so Juan brought us candles before the group leaders kicked him out:


This yuppie guy who reminds me of Tom Hanks is sitting at the table in front of me, and he keeps looking at my Columbia laptop sticker. I've been here long enough, so I think I'll head back to the hotel to sit around and read and write and relax. Maybe shop a bit or go kayaking, since I didn't get to go hang-gliding this morning.

Back in San Pedro

I had a fever last night, but I believe it broke sometime in the middle of the night and today I´m feeling much better. This is good because I lost the antibiotics I paid for and I currently have zero quetzales and the ATMs here apparently don´t want to accept my card. Hopefully I´ll have money by the time people go hang-gliding tomorrow because hang-gliding over the lake is one of the few things I really, really, really wanted to do while here. I can´t afford much more internet time, so I´ll update more tomorrow. Jesus Christ a gigantic dog just walked through the room and out the other door. There are so many dogs here it´s insane. Goodnight, USA.

Day eight. Full day two in Nebaj, the coldest town in all of Guatemala. Because no one really packed for the cold, just about every person in the hotel is sick, myself included. Several of them also have travelers’ sickness, which is a terrible stomach virus type thing that I hope to god I don’t get. Despite having a cold and needing more sleep, I decided to go on a small hike to a waterfall with everyone this morning, bright and early. Bad plan. Halfway back from getting covered in mud and fearing for the safety of my camera, I started feeling like the walking dead. People couldn’t very well be expected to walk at my insanely slow pace all the way back, so I caught a mini cab back to the hotel and slept for I don’t know how many hours while the other people currently not incapacitated went on a second mini-hike to some sacred site. There are maybe five other sick people sleeping through the day, and a few people sleeping just because they don’t know what else to do with themselves. Nebaj is a miserable town.

Currently, I’m feeling a bit like I got hit by a car, but I’m happy because tomorrow we’re all leaving Nebaj early. Nebaj would be nice if it weren’t so damn cold, but the coldness combined with cold showers and spreading illness has made us all miserable. There are maybe four hours of warmth in the middle of the day, but then the temperature drops again. Our hotel has no heat and half the time it doesn´t even have running water. We’re all avoiding the showers until we get back to San Pedro, where the showers are just as cold, but at least it’s hot when you get outside. I tried showering here, but just putting my hand under the water felt like someone was pelting me with ice cubes. Also, I’m not so sure standing for that long would be a good idea right now. Even coming to the internet place a few doors down from my hotel was like a grand voyage. Arriving in San Pedro is going to feel magnificent. The six-hour, high altitude ride back is going to be terrible.

The people going on the three-day hike left yesterday, and about an hour after they began hiking, four people hitch-hiked back to the hotel. Apparently they weren’t up for three days of hiking at what they described as a 90 degree angle in the mud and the freezing cold. Our group leader, Kai, forgets that she’s not mortal and that we mere mortals cannot be expected to complete the tasks she does. No one else arrived from the hike today, so I guess the rest of the people are toughing it out for the next two days since there´s no option now of turning back. We´re all genuinely frightened for them. Some of the people who returned wanted to take a 20 hour bus ride with lots of transfers up to the village people are hiking to because they wanted to experience rural Guatemalan life, but the people smart enough not to even attempt the hike gave a resounding “hell no” and that settled that. Back to warmth soon.

Still no pictures because of excruciatingly slow internet connection. Yesterday my cell phone decided to stop functioning, and today my sunglasses broke. I’m really doing my best to make the most of the next nine days here, but I really can’t wait to be home, where I can take a hot shower and stay in a heated house all day. I wonder if I would’ve even signed up for this if I had known there would only be freezing cold showers and toilets you’re not allowed to flush toilet paper down...

Day one in Nebaj

I wrote a very long post explaining a lot of things, but it´s not loading correctly on this computer. Also, this computer is terribly slow, so photos are damn near impossible to upload while I´m in Nebaj. Nebaj is extremely cold, and I haven´t packed anything very warm because Guatemala is supposed to be a warm place. I´m not really going to write a detailed update until I can have some photos to go along with it, which won´t be until I´m back in San Pedro in a few days.

In short, I´m moving my flight to the 14th because that is the soonest I can move it to. The 12th and 13th are sold out, and the 11th might be too soon to get transportation to the airport. Guatemala is beautiful and the people I´m traveling with are great, but I´ve had enough. I miss home. I miss friends. I miss New York City. I thought coming here would feel like when I first went to college and it would just be a matter of adjusting to new people and a new living situation, but it´s so much more. A major part of my problem with this trip is that I don´t speak Spanish. I honestly couldn´t say what the other reasons are for wanting to leave, because I think it´s really just small things adding up to make me miserable. The big picture is fine.

Unfortunately because this computer is so slow and my cell phone is unreliable, I´m having a lot of difficulty rebooking my flight. It´s just one big mess. Every time I feel alright with everything and consider not coming home early, something else happens to change my mind. Two weeks plus in Guatemala is plenty of time. Hopefully I´ll be able to book the flight and be back on the 14th.

Panajachel

Not much time to post today and kind of annoyed because I've been locked out of my room until the person with the one key to rule room four (did you notice the play on words?) comes back from Panajachel. I've been back for a few hours, but because there are three people in my room and only one key, I have to wait for the person with the key to return and let me in. It's a dumb system. The guy next to me just admired my speedy typing skills. Sweet.

Today was a day of shopping across Lake Atitlan at Panajachel. I spent too much money, but I got lots of shopping for people done. I also took some really great photos, but I can't upload them until I get hold of my laptop, which is locked in my room. Eh. Little girls selling scarves had an interesting tactic to get people to buy them; instead of just showing them to you, they drape them on you and refuse to take them back until you pay for them or until you successfully manage to throw them back onto the girls as they run away. The smaller they are, the feistier. I also learned how to bargain without really knowing numbers in Spanish: simply act disinterested and go "Ehhh..." until they halve the price. It's brilliant.

Anyway, people are waiting for me to get back to the docks and get some food. There's also free salsa lessons tonight, but I'm still exhausted from New Years, which I'll update about tomorrow with photos. Alright, I'm out!

Day one in San Pedro!

San Pedro is absolutely gorgeous in the daytime, and it's filled with hippies! So it's pretty much home to me. I'm in a small European restaurant where they have free wi-fi for customers. I got a giant lemonade. The restaurant/cafe overlooks the lake and the mountains and it's just so beautiful that it makes up for the horrible bathrooms and showers at my hotel. Today we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted to do, so I walked around the town with a bunch of people and checked out the lake. We had pina coladas at a French-owned restaurant where you sit in little huts outside and they take a really long time to bring out food and drinks, so you can just relax and play with the puppy there and talk. This whole place is completely mellow and it's great. All the hippies sell their jewelry on the streets to make a living. I've got to go meet up with people at a restaurant before we begin New Years festivities, so I'll get to photos and happy New Years, everyone!

We begin with proof that this is truly a hippie town:


The view from the docks on Lake Atitlan:


More from the docks:


It's a pretty run-down place, but still pretty:


This guy really wanted me to take a photo of him:


Cobblestone streets:


These flowers are everywhere:


Trippy buildings:


Puppy!


Welcome to the Mayan world!


And finally, another view over Lake Atitlan:


And that's it for today! Adios!

San Pedro - The Arrival

We’ve arrived in San Pedro, and though we didn’t think it was possible, the bathroom/shower situation has gotten worse. The whole flooding thing might be preferable to this. I’m talkin’ no toilet seats, vile-looking showers, and shower heads that electrocute you if you touch them (the previous shower also electrocuted me, but at least I was being electrocuted in slightly nicer surroundings). Oh, and one shower for over 20 girls, unless someone wants to brave the shower closer to the street, which has a window so people can watch you shower. That one’s really for the exhibitionists. Of course, we are only paying about $2 a night to stay here, so we can’t really expect luxuries like toilet seats.

We managed to get here without being ambushed or raped despite frequent (mostly) unnecessary stops, so that’s a plus. My bus driver hit a dog and it was absolutely horrifying and depressing and terrible and I did my best to avoid thinking about it. R.I.P., Guatemalan dog. It took three buses to get our group and all our luggage here, and the buses kept losing track of each other. Since my bus was the leader, we got to stop for some roadside food while waiting for the other buses to catch up. We had stuffed peppers, rice, beans, and tortillas for about a dollar, and it was absolutely delicious. I’m just hoping it doesn’t make me sick, because the place was pretty sketch. It was the Guatemalan equivalent of the American’s dingy roadside diner. The kids there were cute, though. They liked my blue headphones. I just wish I could say a bit more than “muchos gracias” to them. After food and a pointless bathroom stop five minutes outside of San Pedro, we travelled down a winding mountain road with lots of sharp turns and a view of nighttime Lake Atitlan and arrived here, where the smell of pot is wafting through the air. We have arrived at the final resting place of hippies from all over the world.

Seeing as how we arrived at night and it’s difficult to really see what’s around us beyond our rooms and the bathrooms, I’m hoping the conditions will improve in daylight. I’m pretty sure I saw the outlines of gigantic mountains all around here, so that should be awesome to wake up to. Most of the people are out getting dinner right now, so I have the room to myself for a bit. My stuffed pepper and rice were quite enough for tonight - I’m not sure my stomach could handle much more.

I just realized I can’t leave the room because the door locks automatically and I don’t have the key. You know, Guatemala is a lot like John Jay dorms.

Photos of Flight and Day One

Alright, bought myself a memory stick (and a bagel and a slushie) while out walking and learned how to say "I would like that" in Spanish. So here are 28 of my favorite photos from the flight and my first day here, and I apologize for having them all in one long stream instead of behind cuts, but I don't know much html on Blogger.

We begin with lots of clouds as seen from my window on the plane during the day...
Daytime in Florida:


Over the Gulf of Mexico:


Right after sunset:



In Antigua (and Guatemala in general), women have the amazing ability to balance everything ever on their heads while walking:


I'm pretty sure this is called a Tutut. It's the local taxi:


I don't really know what this guy is, but he was on the verge of break-dancing:


Lots of people ride in one truck:


This little group walks around town singing:


There's a lot of fruit in the local market:


As well as flowers:


And lots of mountains surround the city:


It's Nicole! She's cool:


There are also loads of dogs everywhere:


Pretty flowers next to the artist's market:


I'm not sure why, but the Pharmacia uses pictures of Scrubs characters on their signs:


Since it's the old capital, there are lots of nice old buildings:


Flowers by one of the ruins:


View from the top of a mountain:


More mountain view:


Another mountain shot:


Me at the top of the mountain:




Wow that took a very long time and now my time is up on the internet. Bye! Oh, and click on the horizontal pics to make the the right size instead of cropped.