Nostalgia in Antigua

(Part 2 of the Volcano Trail series.)

The first order of the day was to call up the Continental Airlines baggage claim office. Bad news - turns out my bag would not be arriving till the following day in Guatemala City - a bit of a problem since by then I will be on the road to Copan, Honduras. Uh oh. Eventually I instructed the agent to forward the bag to Roatan, where I would pick it up in a couple of days. Trying to shake off the sinking feeling in my stomach, I made my way to Parque Central to meet up with M. for brunch. I suggested we walk a few blocks to Rainbow Cafe, one of coolest hangouts in Antigua with a different style of live music played every night, and where they served arguably the best brownies in town (as my Spanish classmate N. can attest to, having wolfed down tons of them).

Afterwards, I decided to play tour guide and show M. around town. We headed for the handicrafts market where M. was almost (but not quite) tempted to purchase some lovely colorful scarves. The adjacent public market is a combination really of a dry goods and wet market, plus a thriving second hand clothing bazaar. Yes, this is where those old clothing donated to charity actually wind up in. Imagine my astonishment at the sight of one of my professors proudly wearing a T-shirt with a huge logo of Delilah's Den - a popular strip club in Philadelphia! Anyway, we also made a stop at the newly-restored Spanish cultural center (pictured), as well as the local McDonald's outlet. This branch is undoubtedly the most beautiful one I've ever set foot on, without the obstrusive golden arches, and being a converted colonial house it came with a huge garden complete with water fountain. Interestingly, a Happy Meal purchased here entitled the customer to 30 minutes of free Internet access ("McInternet"), a concept yet to be adopted in the US.

After we parted, I walked over to Parque Central and sat there watching the locals spending a lazy Sunday afternoon sitting around and relaxing, and listening to the live bands performing onstage across the street. Later that night, I checked into the hotel and met C., the tour leader, and some of the other members of our tour group. I wasn't too surprised to see that there were a lot of young Aussies among them who were on holiday for several months while I was content enough to be away from work for two and a half weeks. C. had organized a basic salsa lesson which I happily joined - turned out to be loads of fun with laughter all around as we gringos got tangled up practicing the moves, much to the amusement of the native hotel staff.

Stay tuned for more posts from my Central America trip.

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.

Ladies Night at Frida's

(Event occured on May 18, 2005. Dedicated to Bro. Patrick)

If there is one thing the hordes of Spanish language students love to do in Antigua, it must be bar hopping. The logic is quite simple: bored foreigners faced with the prospect of sitting around in their host families' houses generally prefer to hang out and meet other foreigners in bars (and converse in their native tongues, unfortunately). As expected, one soon becomes familiar with the drink specials on offer at each bar, and the respective timings of that crowd-drawing phenomenon called Ladies Night.

At Frida’s, Wednesday night was THE night. Yes, the place was named after the famous artist Frida Kahlo - numerous portraits of her adorned the walls. The gang found an upstairs table quite easily, and soon the place was bursting at the seams with gringos out for a night on the town. Quite the scene indeed. Mojitos were the night's special bargain – only Q5 ($0.67) for ladies but Q10 ($1.33) for lads, and the bar management was canny enough to provide different-shaped glasses to implement their pricing structure - short, stout glasses for the former, and tall, skinny glasses for the latter.

As I stood there talking to Byron, suddenly there was a brief commotion by our table and I saw an angry waiter stride away with a ladies' drink in his hand. Turns out that the vigilant waiter had seen Patrick (the dude beside me in the pic) holding on to Hannah’s glass briefly, and intrepreting this as an act of deception (and cheapness), he went ahead and snatched the drink right out of poor Patrick’s hand, at the same time sternly reprimanding him, “For ladies only!!!”. Never before had anyone seen anything like it. We all had a good laugh about the incident later, and Patrick took the good-natured ribbing in stride, and everyone acknowledged that what made the whole thing doubly hilarious was that as a seminary student he fit the unlikeliest profile of a petty thief.

Guatemala Needs Your Help!

As you may know, I spent a couple of weeks down in Antigua, Guatemala last May where I took intensive (make that super intensive) Spanish language classes. Along with waking up very early for 4 hours of instruction, I participated in various cultural activities in the afternoons (including a very animated futbol match), stayed with a local family, and travelled to two other fascinating and popular parts of Guatemala: Tikal and Lago Atitlan.

Thus it saddens me that the recent Hurricane Stan has destroyed villages in the Lago Atitlan area, and millions of people have lost their homes and belongings. So I am posting this letter from Petra, the asst. manager at Casa de Lenguas (a fantastic school set in a converted colonial house in Antigua where I took my classes). She is coordinating a fund-raising effort for the victims of the said hurricane.

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Dear student,

As you may know, Guatemala and its people suffered a terrible tragedy in the last month from hurricane Stan that hit Guatemala on October 4th 2005. Guatemala was hit worst of all Central American countries, and the exact impact of the disaster is still not fully known. Stan hit mainly in the south of the country, the Pacific coastline and the highlands of Guatemala, representing the 30% of the country that are also the poorest areas.The latest news tells us that over 1000 people died, hundreds are missing, entire villages are wiped out, and over 3 million Guatemalans are affected.

Casa de Lenguas would like to ask for your help in collecting funds. We will channel 100% of the donations to a few selected non-profit organizations that are experts in construction, who will rebuild houses, schools and hospitals in Guatemala that are affected by Stan.

You can help us by donating money to our foundation and by bringing out the message to your friends and family members, and encourage them to help Guatemala too! Invest in the future with us and do not allow this to become a setback too overwhelming for the social and economic development of our beloved Guatemala.

You can donate via our on-line Registration Form here or wire money to our bank account. For more details about this or if you like to read more about Stan and the situation in Guatemala, have a look at our website: Casa de Lenguas.

All contributions are appreciated, no matter the size!

Warm regards,

The Casa de Lenguas team
Petra Cubretovic
Assistant Manager