Day 92: The Market

Today was my first full day in La Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. That is the official name of the city, affectionately known to everyone as Antigua; it was the capital of Guatemala many years ago before a two-at-once volcano eruption necessitated a change in location.

I woke up at 05.00 this morning because of all of the light that was in my room. My room in Buenos Aires was always quite dark, but the sun definitely
rose later, closer to 07.00 so I was startled this morning. I had set my alarm, but I was afraid that somehow I did not hear its piercing, horrifying, trill or that it had not gone off. Instead I got to roll over and sleep another hour.

At six I got up and showered, then posted the lengthy blog, with photos, that I had written before and saved on my computer. I wrote it on word, and despited changing the font when I transfered the text, that is the reason why that post looks different.

Breakfast was at 07.00 promptly, cereal (a food I had had for the first time in three months the morning at Carmen's parents' house), fruit, tea, and a little piece of sweet bread. Yum. Apparently the coffee here is quite excellent, grown locally, etc. so I will need to try it tomorrow morning even though I am not much of a coffee drinker.

A second view of Carmen's courtyard

I met up with Carmen at 09.00, or rather, she picked me up at that time, and we went to her house where some men were arriving to finish installing a security system into the house. Her neighborhood has had some problems recently and so in addition to the individual security in the houses, a group is forming to initiate a neighborhood watch. We waited for quite a while, there were four men and yet with each man that arrived (they came separately), they seemed to work more slowly. Once it was done we headed out and bought a bag of lettuce from a local farmer before heading to Santiago's school.

Dining room

Santiago only has school until noon, so once he was released we went back to their house for some pasta as lunch. Santiago and I played with some bubbles purchased yesterday in the central park, and played a little soccer in the courtyard of the house. I took a couple photos of the house since I think it is really nice and deserves the attention. After a little dessert of bread with nutella (and with globs of nutella spread in sufficient quantities across our cheeks), we drove across Antigua to the markets. The market is open on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the last being the busiest and largest of the days, and there are two parts: the artisan section and the food/clothing section. We looked through the artisan section at all of the fabric, touristy bags, jewelry, trinkets, and Santiago got a Toucan postcard and a little wooden whistle, and then we walked through a section of the food market and part of the used clothing, toys, and household goods area.

Carmen and Santiago in the market

After all that excitement on the lower end of the economic scale, we drove to pick up Nick (Carmen's husband) from a meeting he had at one of the fanciest hotels in the city. We walked around part of the hotel that is very lush, posh, and built in and around old ruins of an ancient nunnery. Apparently it is a hot spot for weddings, with good reason, it was very nice.

Fancy flower at the fancy hotel

With Nick, we all went for a little stroll past a traditional sweet shop, and into a jade museum where we got a little tour and explanation of jade and its relationship with the Mayan culture and how all of the stones are cut and polished into jewelry and other items. I found out that my Mayan horoscope sign is Kan, the snake and learned about all of my good and bad traits.

Classic sweets

Description of my Mayan horoscope: Kan

Little jade Kan necklaces

"Spousal Resting Bench"

Quite parched, we walked to a little cafe/restaurant and ordered some beverages and a little cake. I had some fresh (of course) lemonade and a little slice of chocolate cake. Hey, I can have cake two days in a row, I am on vacation. Yes, I have been "on vacation" for the entire three months now, but I figure I will survive the experience. Everyone was quite tired after our tea-time snack, so I was dropped off back at my room.

Santiago playing with water. Common occurrence.

I just had a nice little dinner of chicken, pasta, cucumber and bread and a chat with María Elena, the lady who owns this house. She is very friendly, and so we talked for a goodly while. She has been having students stay with her for a while now, she is quite the experienced host with plenty of entertaining stories. Apparently two other girls are coming this weekend from the United States to attend a Spanish school here in the city.

Alright, adjusting to the rural lifestyle, I will head off quite tired to bed early, it is only 8.00p here. I changed four hours coming from Buenos Aires, now I am the same time as my home in Austin, Texas. How bizarre.

Chao.