A Long Night, But Fun Day

Friday evening and Saturday morning were not so fun.

Lori ended up being sick. Everything you would expect from being sick in Guatemala, happened. The whole nine yards. Savannah somehow slept through it all. We think it had to be due to eating the Guatemalan Chicken Soup at the Marriott. You would think it would be safe, but I guess not. We were later able to have fruits at the Marriott and end up OK, so it seems odd that soup would be the problem, but there isn't any other choice since we ate the same things.

Regardless, this lesson did teach us to drink Gatorade. It was the best drink for making yourself feel good and rehydrated. I think dehydration was the biggest problem I had, just not taking in enough water.

In the morning, I placed an order to the concierge to get some Imodium. Somehow the Imodium ended up on my front car seat and not in our bags on Wednesday night. So that helped us to get ready to meet our tour guide Eduardo at 9 am to take a trip to Antigua.

Eduardo was a very interesting guy and very good for a guide. He charged the three of us $60 to drive us to Antigua and some other attractions nearby. Lori saddled Savannah up in a Snugli and we were off driving the Pan-American Highway heading through Guatemala City towards Antigua.

Our first stop was not in Antigua itself, but at a home/museum that seems a little bit like a tour guide tourist trap in retrospect, but it was pretty cool regardless. The home was lived in, but the family who lived there had opened it up to a weaving business and a museum of Mayan clothing. They even dressed Lori up in some traditional Mayan garb and showed us how the Mayans would hold Savannah.

The home was also surrounded by a coffee plantation where we met the man who ran the farm. it was a bit challenging attempting to talk with him and not knowing any Spanish. But basically, we learned that he had been farming the land for 10 years and growing organic coffee on the hills surrounding the home. They had a nice deck with a view and we saw red coffee beans that were ready to be harvested as well as cotton plants. It was a great view of a nearby town and all of the hills surrounding the town were growing coffee.

So not being coffee drinkers, we sampled the coffee, and it was pretty darn good. I could see drinking it for sure if I had access to a product this tasty. So of course we picked up some. We also picked up a nice blanket for Savannah that we would give her later on when she is older.

We then headed down to Antigua to visit the Cathedral of San Fransisco This was quite interesting to see. It wasn't particularly elaborate, but it had some impressive carvings and murals on the walls. It also contained the tomb of the new Saint Hermano Pedro. It was a very holy place, gave you that feeling of peace. The people haven't updated all of their trinkets however, because the candle we purchased still had him as Blessed and not yet canonized.

We left the church and checked out a local Jade shop where they created Jade jewlery and masks. It was very neat to see and we again found a gift for Savannah later on in life. We will try to give her a gift on each "Gotcha Day" which would be Feb 2.

Once we completed our visit here we checked out a local restaurant where I tried some beef and Lori tried some chicken. We bought Eduardo lunch and I think the bill ran about $30. It was the quality of a $60 meal here in the states.

We did have a slight issue while in the restaruant. We thought it best to change Savannah and took her to the bathroom. However, Savannah had totally blown through her diaper and soiled her outfit. To our horror we discovered that we had neglected to pack her a spare outfit...we should have known better! We ended up cleaning her up and wrapping her in her new blanket. Fortunately this was our last stop and we headed back to the hotel.

We enjoyed our trip back through the mountains and around the Water Volcano. It was unfortunate that it was so cloudy which prevented us from seeing the tops of the volcanos from the ground. Eduardo said we would find a way to see them on Monday when we would meet for another short trip around the city.

When we returned to the hotel we got cleaned up and headed out to the pool area where we enjoyed the sun and relaxed while feeding Savannah Cheerios. We decided to skip dinner and just snack since we were so full from lunch. We rehydrated ourselves and decided to rest up for Sunday.