HELLO again, Antigua

(Part 1 of the Volcano Trail series.)

I watched each of the bags slowly move on the creaky conveyor belt in Guatemala City airport, wondering where mine was. With increasing impatience I tried to spot my gray duffel bag, probably sandwiched among all those huge suitcases the Guatemalan natives had brought with them. From time to time the bags belt would bunch up against one another causing some to fall on the ground. This necessitated the baggage crew activating the blaring siren signal, stopping the entire belt and reloading the fallen bags, and restarting the whole darned thing. Quite comical actually. I had a laugh at my own feeling of deja vu, since only last May I had witnessed the same exact thing happen.

Finally the last of the bags were claimed by their owners, and mine was nowhere in sight. Roughly a third of the flight's passengers suffered the same fate. Apparently all those suitcases did not fit into the plane's cargo area, and thus we were the unlucky ones. After filling out the baggage claim form at the counter, I decided to find a shuttle van to take me to Antigua - the scene of many amazing memories from my last vacation. Waiting for the van to leave, I exchanged the usual pleasantries with the woman seated next to me, and to our amazement, M. and I discovered we were part of the same tour group and spent the hour-long ride exchanging travel stories.

Don Juan greeted me warmly when he opened the door to his house. We talked about the old times, my current trip and luggage predicament. Dona Amalia walked by with a noticeable limp and saw me - she had fallen down some stairs, broken her hip, and was on the long journey back to recovery. And as usual, the numerous (6 in all) grandchildren came by to play and were surprised not only at my presence, but also that I had still remembered all of their names.
There was another student staying at the house, J., a gregarious German (the rarest of species!) hell bent on learning Spanish – in addition to his classes, he played on three futbol teams with the locals, and insisted on speaking only in Spanish, even to the extent of using it in emails to his friends back home knowing full well that they didn’t speak the lingo! (“No me importa!”). After dinner, he plopped onto the bed in my room and we spent the night discussing our experiences in Antigua, and a wonderful book of Spanish idiomatic expressions translated into English he had found. Predictably, we cracked up over the curse expressions and slang words for private parts. Perhaps I shall buy my own copy - yes, it would be useful to learn how to say “Go to hell!” in another language.