Guatemala: Day One

It seems I’ve hardly stopped moving since our plane ride from Guatemala ended and London picked us up late that night at the Greenville airport.

(Pretty sure I sat behind Pedro Pascal on one of our flights. I mean, okay. I’m not pretty sure. I’m just pretend sure. It looked like him. Sort of. I can’t explain why he’d be flying economy with me, but not all choices are explainable.)

I’ve wanted time to think about my experiences – time to let all that we saw and all that we did and all that I thought to filter through. And maybe it has.

The truth is that time is simply NOT slow in my current season of life. So all the thinking and the processing has to be done like the dishes and the vacuuming and the parenting – on the go and in the between times and any little way it fits in.

I want to take the next few posts to intentionally highlight the organization we served through and to share some photos and some moments that were beautiful and important to me. I want to pause here for a millisecond in this little internet space to think about a week I hope I never forget. A week that I knew I was fortunate to live even while I was living it.

Thank you for reading along.

Day One:

We landed in Guatemala City around noon (after a morning that began at 4 am!) and passed right through customs with no problems at all. We were with a team – eleven of us in total. Me, Bergen and Piper – our friends Hannah and Stephen – and the rest we were connecting with for the first time. The kids were the youngest of us by a good twenty years. Our guide met us directly outside the airport, where it looked like a party might be always happening. A crowded sidewalk with folks selling balloons and candy and flowers and trinkets greeted us with the Guatemalan air.

Within just a few minutes, our driver for the day, Eduardo, pulled up in a bus and began loading our suitcases – which all had to be hefted up into the bus through an open side window.

Our competent and wonderful guide for our entire week was Fredy, the founder and director of Sueños y Esperanzas. (I’ll have SO much to say about Fredy – what a dear and delightful human!)

On the bus ride we had a taste of the traffic in Guatemala City. Motorcycles with four passengers (often small children) scooting in and out of cars, on the edges of the roads, in tight spaces. Road rules seemed to mostly apply to no one. Fredy would share stories and tales and tell us about Guatemala in a handful of interesting ways.

We stopped for lunch on our way to Antigua and of course I had to sample whatever this multi layered magical food was. I only wish I’d purchased a dozen more. It was so delicious.

Although the distance is not that great, the drive to Antigua took us several hours because of the traffic. And the one stop at some incredible and shockingly beautiful side the road restaurant and garden area. Fredy told us Saturdays were half work days and people were all getting off from work at the same time we were driving through.

We passed (and were passed by) many school buses. Fredy called these chicken buses. They were usually brightly painted and decorated, often painted with a name on them, ornate with lights or garlands and they all had racks on the top with luggage or bags or furniture or anything really strapped to the top. A common form of local transportation, the chicken buses drive from town to town, picking up any passengers requesting a ride. Although they are frequently used, they are not considered a safe option as they are well known to be home to both petty crimes and violent offenses.

When you entered the capital city of Antigua, the streets changed – all cobblestone and original. Brightly painted buildings. Narrow streets. Cheerful colors. And from nearly every street – a mountain view in the distance. A volcano peeking through the clouds. The puff of smoke a reminder of the power in the surrounding mountains, the servant we all are to nature itself.

We walked the cobblestone streets. We passed churches, toured a jade museum, watched a street parade, saw vendors, bright flowers, colorfully clothed residents and we ended up at the ruins of a former monastery and still functioning church that was over 500 years old.

The ruins were other worldly. We wandered and stared. We strolled and took photos and tried to absorb it in our very skin.

It was the combination of a Whole Lot – relief to be off the plane and out of the bouncy bus, both locales where I battled (and conquered!) motion sickness, the bright and glorious sunshine after leaving a dull and grey southern state in February, the gift of being someplace completely unknown and absolutely beautiful and the honor of doing ALL of that with two of my own teenagers.

Our hotel was a surprise – a wonderful one. You left the dusty stone street and walked through a wooden door and it was like one of those TV home improvement shows.

Ta-da!

Here’s a garden courtyard, open to the blue sky, green green everywhere and draping flowers and hidden corners, plus a couple little waterfall features and it’s yours for the night!

In our hotel room there were three beds – which turned out to be standard in all of our stays in Guatemala. As a person who has traveled a great deal as the only adult with many kids, multiple beds in one hotel room is downright delightful. We had a quirky pulley system that opened a skylight high above our heads that I loved.

To paint a full picture, the hot water was inconsistent and you couldn’t brush your teeth with the tap water. (Or consume it in any way.) The sewer systems throughout the country are old and incapable of handling the flushing of toilet paper so all used toilet paper gets set in a wastebasket by the toilet. For most of the night there was music playing outside – which might be a good reason to bring earplugs or install a white noise app on your phone for sleeping for some folks, but honestly, the celebratory music at all hours made it feel more like home to me!

We had dinner in a restaurant in Antigua the first night and we slept like the exhausted people we were. It had already been a fabulous adventure and we were only on Day One.

……. to be continued