Day 2- Antigua

Today we woke up early and went to Antigua. Antigua is a town about an hour away from Guatemala City. It was fun to drive through the city and a bit of the country side. I love how raw everything is. Not touristy at all. There is a lot of it that reminds me of Portugal, but there are definatly a lot of parts that are poorer. The land is really lush and green! The mountians look like they are carpeted in trees and then the trees are covered in vines so that all you can see is green.

Antigua is a smaller town than Guatemala City and looks a lot older and rustic.

We started at an old monastary that had been converted into a very elegant hotel. It was crazy to see the walls of the hotel built around the old ruins of the monastary. Very beautiful!

We then drove throught the streets a little bit. You could see the huge volcano looming on the horizon behind the city. Our driver and tour guide, Luis, told us that sometimes he takes people up to the volcano where they then ride horses to the top. Filipe asked him how long the volcano has been dormant. Luis said, "Dormant? No, it's an active volcano." Filipe said, "Yes, I know. What I meant was how long has it been since the last time it erupted?" Luis said, "About a month. When we ride up there you can look inside and see the lava flowing. Usually we just go to the base of the volcano and before we get the horses they tell us if it is a dangerous day to go." Crazy! I don't think I could get the nerve up to do that one, but it was an amazing site to see from the city!

We walked around the city a little bit. We saw this beautiful church. Next to the church there was a group of people cooking food and selling it. It smelled so good! We asked Luis if it was safe to eat it. He said, "Well, I would come and eat and bring my family." Sounded good to us. Then he said, "But people say that I probably already have 'The Bug' and that's why it doesn't affect me." We decided to be adventurous and hope we didn't get "The Bug" and got some food (so far so good with The Bug). It was really good.

Then we went to the artisan market to buy a few more things. We spent what felt like our life savings because the currency uses higher numbers (about 8 quetzales to the dollar) and we bought so much. Filipe had fun bartering with the murchants. Our first stop Filipe was bartering with this boy named Edgar who was about 12 years old. Filipe wanted to pay 150 for a couple of little paintings while the boy was holding firm at 160. Filipe finally caved in. Later we realized that they were probably going back and forth over the difference of about a dollar. After that we kept the bartering to a minimum. There was so much to see and buy.

We rounded off the trip with a tour of the Jade factory and bought Shiloh some baby earings. I guess this means we have to get her ears pierced now. On the way home we stopped at the "Walmart", here to buy a couple of things for breakfasts and some rice cereal for Shiloh. The place was packed! It was worse than the mall on Christmas Eve. Then we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

It has been fun just relaxing in the evenings. Our hotel is on a main street, and no one really recomends us walking around on it a lot so we sit at the hotel and chill. Actually, Luis said that people go out on the street in the mornings to jog for some exersize. Filipe said, "That sounds good. So we can go for a walk in the mornings?" And Luis said, "Yeah, you can go run in the mornings." This, after he had told us earlier that he is ok walking around because he knows what to look for and if anyone comes after him he can just run away. So we have been avoiding walking around the street, which makes me a little sad because I have been itching to walk around and explore.

This last picture I leave you with is a picture of a bus. All the busses here are individually owned and they all look like school busses that are pimped out. Some of them are on the more normal side, but a lot of them are painted with flames with their name emblazoned on the side, have flasing lights and chrome grills. It's a pretty funny sight.

Tomorrow is the day!! We get our little girl!!! We will be posting new pictures some time tomorrow.