We seem to have good luck meeting locals on the buses who help us and the bus from Santa Ana to Guatemala City was no different.Whether it is because Lou looks like a deer caught in a car's headlights in some of these situations or my charismatic charm I don't know but anyway a nice young man name Dustin (now a Facebook friend) attending University in El Salvador to be a doctor offered us some advice and help. Dustin was heading home to visit his parent he hadn't seen for 26 days for one day then heading the 4 hours back to school. Sitting in front of us we got talking. He ended up calling his dad on that marvel of marvels,the cell phone,who then met us and gave us a ride to a safer part of town to a bank to get some local money then helped negotiate and direct a taxi to the address of the couchsurfing address we had with us. Addresses don't seem to be as straight forward as they are at home,even the locals are mystified. Rule of thumb here when asking directions are always to ask 5 people and go with the majority consensus. Even if a person doesn't know where the place is they will never say that but will tell you something.
Once we got to the area of the address we were confronted by armed guards and barricades to the condominium which seemed more like a guarded compound. Once inside, the taxi driver having to have his ID scanned, it took around 20 minutes to find the house we were looking for. There seems to be a number of other compounds inside the first one. Once again we entered through barricades and by security guards at the entrance and finally found the casa.
It was quite a surprise. We were originally slated to stay with Charlene but she had a surfer from Germany so she sent us to her mom's Helga who is also a couchsurfer and about our age. Back to the house. It was beautiful, 3 bedrooms lovely sitting music room, kitchen, dining room, a couple of atriums and a beautiful patio with attending gardens.
Helga is of German-Guatemalan extraction and her and the family speak German as well as Spanish and English. We had a lovely bedroom and private bath at Helga's. She has 2 daughters, one a dermatologist and Charlene a psychologist and a son who is a music conductor.
We enjoyed a family night as the girls all came to visit as well as Charlene's boyfriend and niece.Helga is an avid reader and classical music enthusiast.
We had a few Guatemalan coffees and a few Hockey Pops and a lot of enjoyable conversation. It was an interesting insight into middle economic Guatemalan society. Maids and gardeners and security concerns. The house was lovely but walled in as all the houses are and security measure evident everywhere.
Last month 18 bus drivers were murdered on the job by extortionist. These were private bus companies and if they didn't pay the extortion their drivers were shot. Now there are 2 policemen on every bus in the city.Much like San Salvador, everyone warns you about the dangers and places not to go. Doesn't really appear to be so bad but sometimes you need to listen and take the advice.
We went downtown without incident and can't say we were impressed. The last time we were here about 12 years ago it seemed more interesting. Usual down towns, lots of markets selling the same things. I think Guatemala has a 20 year supply of this stuff.
Next morning we had a Guatemalan desayuno courtesy of Helga, a fried egg,a type of porridge and lots of fruit and excellent coffee. She insisted on giving us a ride to a safer place to catch the chicken bus to Antigua about 25 minutes away. We left her with a copy in Spanish of Hemmingway's
El viejo y el mar. Another new Facebook friend. I think we will learn some Spanish by deciphering
some of her posts.
Antigua is a very nice Spanish colonial city with cobblestone streets and very colourful casas. It is probably the number 1 area for taking Spanish lessons. a week of 4 hours/day,room and 2 meals a day with a Spanish family start at less then a$100 a week.We were able to catch a bus on to San Pedro so only stayed a few hours. Again, we had been here a number of years earlier. It was here at a bank it took about an hour to cash a $100 traveller"s cheque under the watchful eyes of 3 armed security guards. We also remembered the Pollo Loco across the street and figured they must have really good chicken because they had shotgun armed guards at the entrance and exit.
We grabbed a shuttle to San Pedro for the 2-4.5 hour ride. Turned out to be 4.5 hours but everybody seemed to have a different opinion on the time thing.Sitting ahead of us were some young Americans with the ugliest tattoos. The guy had a bull or cow or dog or something on his leg and about 12 other individual ones as well. The girl sitting beside him had similar tastes in tats and added a nose ring which to my taste is about as ugly as you can get. Didn't care for the adornments but they were nice kids. They were heading to San Marcos which has the reputation as the healing yoga spiritual centre on the lake.
So after an arduous ride through mountains and around hairpins cutbacks and other forms of roads that don't even have names we arrived in San Pedro Laguna. Now to meet up with Mr. Juan Wilson the caretaker of our house rental.
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