No public holiday on 2nd January for the Guatemaltecans, so we were back to Spanish lessons. They started to get a bit more complicated as we progressed onto the varieties of the past tense. I went for a haircut, eek, not quite the same as at home but a quarter the price! We went with the school to a macadamia farm where I had a face massage with the nut oil said to make you look 20 years younger, see later it didn’t work :'( Another, more participative excursion was the Activity Morning up at the local basketball court on the hill where there were several games to counter the cold morning. Here are a couple of piccies of Paul entering into the spirit.
The tomato and spoon race (no eggs – are they perceived to be dangerous here!?)
And the sack race.
Then anyone with a birthday in January was invited to whack the pants (literally) off the clown (pinata), out of which falls sweets!
A day or two later we took a recommendation from our teachers and went to McDonalds for coffee, perhaps the most beautiful location and restoration of any of the Maccas in the world !
A visit to Ciudad Vieja was next – this was the first Spanish capital city of Guatemala, before it was destroyed by a massive flood from the caldera of Volcan Agua. The cemetery was amazing, as was the story from our guide who said that if you don’t pay your annual fee your remains are removed, possibly into the trash !
There is a neat viewpoint of Antigua called Cerro del Cruz, but tourists are warned not to visit independently – stories of muggings and robberies, and we knew that three people had been robbed at gunpoint recently. So, the only way to go was to go with the school trip – actually it was only about 20 minutes walk up hill, here we are, safe and sound!
A new tourist in town, a target for the locals!
A more familiar tourist inside La Merced.
And a friendly local.
Last day in our apartment in Antigua, we tidied the place up and I went to a chocolate-making workshop, yum yum (or as the Guatematecans say: yumpe yumpe).
Off to the south coast of Guatemala next for a glimpse of the sea.
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