Saturday, June 12th
We almost didn’t make it in time to the bus station at Santa Rosa because we thought our alarm was turned on. It was, but the volume wasn’t up loud enough! Good thing neither of us slept well and were up before our alarms. After quickly packing up we caught a taxi, headed to the bus station and caught a bus to La Entrada. From La Entrada we found a bus to take us to Copan Ruinas. When we arrived in Copan, I thought we’d have this hard time finding a direct mini-bus to Antigua…not so. We asked one of the guys at the bus station and he knew exactly where to take us to buy a ticket. We got two for noon to Antigua, so we had some time to burn which we filled with a good breakfast. We also had to pick up Mike’s (Tad’s friend) journal from this coffee shop he had forgotten it at. We made our way over there, ordered some coffee and were relaxing when Laura Beth comes walking down the stairs! Then Mr. Bran and the whole Spanish administration of our school! I remember them saying they were going on vacation after school was done, but it was crazy that we saw them at that time in that coffee shop! We all said our ‘hi’s and byes and good lucks, and then Tad and I headed back to our pick up point.
Our little van was pretty packed full with people, who we came to know pretty well for the seven hour trip. One guy, Jay, was absolutely hilarious and kept cracking jokes which made time go faster. We were quite close to the Guatemala border and when we arrived, we had to have our passports stamped and checked out. We also exchanged lempiras for quetzals here. Tad had forgotten his wallet in his duffel (which was on top of the van), so I exchanged about two thirds of my lempiras for quetzals, assuming I could do more of that in Guatemala if I needed to. I later found out this was not the case, but that’s on another day. We got back in the van and continued our trek to Antigua. We passed the time with conversation with other people in the van, listening to the US versus England World Cup match on the radio (in Spanish of course) and enjoying the landscape. By the time we reached Guatemala City though, I was more than ready to be done with the seven hour van ride. We finally arrived to Antigua around seven pm, were dropped off in the central park, said bye to our new friends, and tried to figure out where our hostel was. It had started to rain, but we walked a few blocks and found it. We checked in, got settled, and headed out for dinner. We found a cool place that had a bunch of different atmospheres (bar, restaurant, etc) and had an amazing dinner, probably some of the richest food either of us had eaten in a while! We were pooped from the long day so it was bed time right after dinner.
Sunday, June 13th
We woke up fairly early, had our free breakfast (included in our hostel) and we headed to a bank to exchange the rest of our lempiras for quetzals. I proceeded to ask about where I could exchange our money, and I got the same answer each time: lempiras can only be exchanged at the border. I had been the only one who had exchanged money so all the cash we had was what I had. I had already used a decent amount paying right away for our hostel, so we were a bit worried about how we were going to afford the next five days in Guatemala. I had a few credit cards, thank goodness, but not everywhere accepts cards. One of the banks said Citibank could maybe exchange them and to check tomorrow (Monday) and see. So we decided to use my credit card for the day whenever we could to save our cash. After kinda settling that matter, we decided to explore the city.
Antigua is absolutely beautiful and somewhat touristy while maintaining its colonial atmosphere. We saw some old gorgeous churches, some of which had been damaged by earthquakes, as well as colonial homes and other buildings.
We had lunch at Subway (tons of American food here) and started to watch another World Cup game. We finished up and decided to head to this cute restaurant/bar called Frida’s (in honor of the artist) to finish watching the game. We had some amazing, rich food for dinner and then went to the only Irish pub in Antigua (and maybe in Central America for that matter). It was like we were teletransported back to America or Europe. Almost everyone in there was speaking English and they were playing trivia. Tad and I both forgot we were in Guatemala for a few hours until we left and were back on cobblestone streets. It was a weird, awesome experience for the evening!
Monday, June 14th
Citibank opened at nine in the morning, so I made sure I was up in time to go check if they could exchange my lemps. Same answer: no, only dollars to quetzals. I came out of the bank superstressed about what we were going to do about money. Tad and I decided to sit in the park and try to figure out our situation. While we were sitting there, Froni and both of her boys (Marcos and Nico) came walking through the park. We both noticed each other and were surprised to see each other. Before we left for vacation, I remembered Froni saying she had to go to Guatemala to renew Marcos’ passport or visa (since he’s Dutch and living in Honduras), but it was still crazy we saw each other on the same day in the same place in Antigua. We chatted a little bit and mentioned our situation about money to her. She told us she had plenty of dollars if we wanted to exchanged lemps for dollars with us so we could get quetzals. She was a God-send; she had no idea how much that saved us! We took her up on the offer and exchanged lemps for dollars (as much as we thought we’d need), which meant I could go back to the bank and get quetzals. It was so nice to see the three of them and they seriously helped us out so much; God was definitely looking out for us. We headed back to the hostel because Tad had a meeting online for his Spain trip and then went to lunch at the best McDonald’s ever. It was huge, had its own room for McCafe stuff, and they had an amazing outside seating area/patio where you could sit and see the dormant volcano for a view.
Tad and I had decided to sign up for a walking tour around Antigua to hit some of the most well know sites from a renowned company and it turned out to be great. We had a guide and he told us great facts about the places we visited: a large colonial church that had been damaged by earthquakes, an old monastery that had been turned into a five star hotel, and a jade factory.
I found the most amazing ring at the jade factory and if I had had the money to drop on it, I would have! But not possible. We relaxed after all the walking and then headed to a well know restaurant for another amazing dinner in a great atmosphere. We saw Froni and her boys there again; she had recommended the place to us. It was really nice to see Nico and Marcos, since they had both been my students; Marcos was in fifth grade and Nico was in my ninth grade Bible class. We decided to have some dessert and wine at a unique little restaurant before we headed to bed to get ready for our next leg to Lake Atitlan in the morning.
What was your favorite part of that walking tour? :)
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