Off to Antigua

First mishap of the trip.  Our driver to Antigua picked us up precisely at 2 as scheduled.  Eddie is super nice.  Pulling out of the Barcelo onto the 3 lane super busy street and there is a sudden super sonic burst of lightening - kaboom - sets off Eddie's car alarm which is complete with an engine kill feature . . . would be no problemo if Eddie knew how to work said auto alarm . . . stranded in the middle lane of whizzing, honking Guatemala traffic.  And, Eddie speak very little English and we, well you know, we are on our way to learn Spanish . . .  broken communication and hand jestures and Jeana ends up steering as Wil, Sarah and Sara are pushing and Eddie is . . . well Eddie is being absolutely worthless at directing insanity traffic in the street.  Must find a lot to pull into before kids get run over. . . . It is worth mentioning that in Guatemala all parking lots are attended by guys carrying big giant guns and notepads and not just anybody pulls into a parking lot . . .  all the while our car is blaring a completely annoying noise at the top of its lungs.  Eddie works a deal with scary gun toting parking lot dude and we push our way into the parking lot . . . scary gun guy notes our license plate and time that we pulled in lot into his notebook .  .  . whatever, just please get this car to quit making that noise.  Eddie spends some time opening and closing all the doors and flipping switches all to no avail.  Finally he disconnects the battery to get the car to be quiet.  Wait, reconnect  . . . blaring begins again . . .  hmmmmm.  One phone call later and a few more tricks and we are back on the road  - no problemo.

One hour through mountain roads and rain and we arrive in Antigua.

Host family is great.  Host house is great.

In Guatemala, the cars are pulled right into the middle of the houses like this.

Our first mission - to drop off Wil's stinky mission trip laundry to be washed.  Found the launderia.  Wil had 9.5 lbs of very stinky laundry.  Charge at 4Q per pound is 38Q for wash/dry/fold.  Equivalent to $5.50 U.S.   Total score. And, it would be done in 4 hours.

Today, Saturday, July 6.  We toured the ruins at the Cathedral de San Antonio and the Cathedral de St. Pedro.  Truly breathtaking and rich with history.

 Lunch back at our house.  The market in the afternoon.  We did the touristy market and then we took Sara Grace into the bowels of the locals market cause every kid from the US needs to see it.  Piles of raw meats being fanned to chase flies off, piles of not so fresh fruit, piles of tortillas everywhere, piles of totally crazy stuff for sale and true  non touristy things going on all around us.  Both markets are totally exhausting for different reasons.  The touristy market is exhausting because all the vendors are trying to force you to buy something from them, the language thing, the exchange rate thing.  The market for the locals is exhausting because it is a dirty, gigantic labrynth with just too much weird.

On the way home we had to duck into a cafe to wait out a rain storm.  There is some seriously cool thunder here.  By the time the rain let up we only had 15 minutes to get home for dinner (not that we were hungry but it would be extremely rude to be late or not show) so we were hustling the 6 blocks back when we encountered a river rushing down one of the roads that we had to cross.  There was no way around.  Giant leaps yet the only one that didn't get wet was Wil.  We made it home with 3 minutes to spare.  Another day of excellent adventure.  Buenos Noches.