I’m starting to get behind on these things, but I’ll wrap up Guatemala here.
Sunday, April 12
Even though this year was the first in my life that I had not been to a Good Friday service, I wasn’t about to miss Easter!! After another breakfast at the hostel I headed off to the Lutheran church to do a little bit of celebrating the resurrection. Yay! The Chapel was very tiny, probably with a capacity of a 40-50 person congregation tops. There were probably about 30 total, and I would say only about half were Latinos. The others were either gringos who were staying on the Lutheran campus or some foreigners who were living in Antigua more permanently and attended church there. Nevertheless, it was a Latino presiding and the service was in Spanish. The sermon was not too lengthy, and though pretty simple was good. The pastor managed to weave in the simple declaration “He is risen!!” into his sermon very fluidly, and never lost any energy when saying it over and over again. After the sermon they did communion, which was the first time I’ve had body and blood since leaving the U.S. – so good. Wine was served common cup style, which was a bit different, but hey, we had communion. Overall the service was very traditional and very Lutheran. Even musically – the service opened up with a Spanish rendition of “Beautiful Savior” and ended with a heartwarming “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” (also in Spanish). Before I headed back to the hostel, I sat down with one of the staffers at the center and asked him a bit about what kinds of things they do there. He said they are actually strongly affiliated to the Missouri Synod in the U.S., although he said the Wisconsin Synod is also starting to make a presence in Guatemala as well. After thanking him for the conversation and service I headed back to the hostel.
Ashley was not there when I got back (she had told me she was going to go to the internet café) so I did a little bit of preliminary packing before she returned. When she got back, we headed out into the city again to find the Sunday morning processional. We did eventually find it, and the mood (as expected) was totally different! That morning, instead of solemn looking characters followed by bands playing grim pieces we came across streets in which firecrackers (TONS of them, just the little [but LOUD] ones that go off on the ground) were exploding and people with horns and tambourines were literally dancing in the street. For the most part, people were no longer in costume; rather, most were in completely contemporary clothing, but still very much part of the ceremony nonetheless. One man who was actually still decked out in a convincingly biblical ensemble carried around a huge horn, blasting every once in awhile for all to hear. After doing so, he proclaimed in a loud voice everything that had happened in the past few days as if we were in the year in which Christ was actually crucified and raised. He talked about the death and resurrection at length, explaining it all to us as Jesus did to his disciples, tying it into Old Testament prophecy and going on to elaborate on what this meant for us. It was way cool. After his little speech, he blasted his horn a few more times and continued down the road. Behind him were more excited people marching the streets, including yet another platform for the morning’s celebration. Jesus, of course, was on it again, but for the first time he was without his cross, and rather was surrounded by Angels and dressed in a brilliant white garb, looking very Christ like and very majestic. He was in fact followed by a band again, but this time the music was completely different, reflecting the changed mood of the celebratory procession.
After watching the whole thing go by, we headed back to the market one more time for a last item I was thinking about buying. After this we went to the grocery store to get some food for the bus trip over the next few days. By the time we got done shopping and brought it all back to the hostel it was late afternoon. Before heading out for the night we talked to the hostel staff and arranged some private transportation the following morning to Guatemala City so we could get to our 5:30 bus to San Salvador on time. For that last evening in Antigua we picked up some more food from the fair nearby the church, went to Luna de Miel for one last crepe, and spent a few hours at the café we had been to Tuesday night where we listened to one of the highly energetic guitarists we had seen Friday night play and sing along with a bassist and saxophonist. We played some cards while enjoying the music, and finally headed back to the hostel.
Monday, April 13
We had a rough start to the day – our transportation was supposed to pick us up around 4 am so we could get to Guatemala City on time, and they were on time – but my alarm did not go off. Thankfully, the hostel’s security guard came up to our room and woke us up at about 4:10 telling us someone was waiting for us outside. In a flurry of drowsy panic (does that make sense?) we threw all of our stuff together and rushed down to hop into the car – missing the TicaBus to San Salvador would have been very, very bad. Thankfully, a combination of light traffic in the wee hours and a driver who didn’t seem to care much for speed limits allowed us to get there in plenty of time (despite 1] stopping at a gas station and 2] not knowing exactly where the TicaBus station was – a bit nerveracking!). Some great classic rock tunes on the way made it an enjoyable ride, though.
The TicaBus ride between Guatemala City and San Salvador is very short, and so we actually were in our hostel by 11:00 am. Despite being tired by the late evening and early morning, we didn’t want to spend the whole day in the hostel by any means and so we decided to explore the city a bit. San Salvador is a bit dangerous of a place (supposedly), but once again we felt perfectly safe. Better than Managua, anyway. We mostly just wandered aimlessly around downtown, seeing what we could with only general ideas about what we were looking at. We saw the national cathedral, the Palacio Nacional (national palace), and the city’s bustling market – which, by the way, had more illegal DVDs for sale than I had ever seen in my life.
After the downtown sights, we walked a long way to a museum called El museo de la palabra y la imagen (Museum of Word and Image). There we learned a bit about the history of El Salvador, the conflicts they had been through, the U.S. intervention that had taken place (we’re just everywhere, aren’t we?), and a bit about some important literary figures who had inspired a few decades of revolutionaries. The staff then invited us to watch one of the documentaries they had on DVD, and we elected one about the life of some revolutionaries before they managed to take the government out of the hands of some U.S.-backed right-wing fanatics (basically the El Salvador version of Sandinistas). They even served us some delicious complimentary mango while we watched the film – how many museums have you been to that give you free fruit? Salvadorians sure seemed like a friendly people from our experiences there.
After the museum we headed to the mall we had been to the week before for a couple more groceries we weren’t able to find in Antigua, then headed to the hostel and watched some TV before going to sleep.
Tuesday, April 14
We woke up on time, but even though we got to the TicaBus station in plenty of time we still managed to have some stress that morning. That is, I did. When I gave the lady at the desk my ticket for the trip that morning, she punched into the computer, looked up at me, and simply told me it appeared that my ticket had been canceled. Um, ok…well, I didn’t cancel it. Well, I’m sorry, you have no reservation this morning. Um, ok…can I still get on the bus? You’ll just have to wait to see if there’s space. Great. Thankfully, she managed to put me on an empty seat way at the back of the bus that was empty. At least I was going, but I wouldn’t be with Ashley that morning. She ended up sitting next to some friendly Salvadorian on his way to Nicaragua while I was in the back with a huge group of Mexicans who were heading to Honduras for some job. Oh well, now I know a guy from Mexico.
Tuesday was overall dull and slow. Lots of bus time. Managua (when we finally got there) was ridiculously hot again. Thankfully, we had plenty of córdobas left over from our trip to Nicaragua the month before, and so we treated ourselves to a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant we had previously visited in Managua, followed by a trip to the movie theater where we saw The Contract, a Morgan Freeman/John Cusack movie which apparently came out years ago. When we got back to the TicaBus hotel for the night, I checked in with the folks at the desk there to make sure I had a reservation for the following morning’s trip to San José. Nope. My reservation had apparently just disappeared. I’d just have to get to the desk a little early the next day to make sure I could get the first available seat.
Wednesday, April 15
Well, there was an available seat. Turned out to be the one I was originally supposed to sit in. Gee, I wonder why it was available? Oh, Latin America…sometimes I love you too much. Anyway, it was another long day with plenty of bus time. Ashley pretty much slept the entire time while I did all of the homework I told myself I would do while in Antigua (yeah, right). We had the opportunity to watch Spymate, which pains me to mention but I feel I must. Between the Nicaragua and Guatemala trips on TicaBus, Ashley and I have now seen this movie (or at least been exposed to it) three times, and it’s one of the dumbest movies ever made. It’s about a chimpanzee who is the world’s greatest spy. Seriously. In Spanish they call it James Mono (James Monkey). So, I just wanted to tell you about that – fascinating, right? Sorry.
Despite a long wait at the border, the bus made good time. By the time we got back to Heredia, we were just able to make our 4:00 cinema class, so instead of going home we went directly to the university with all our luggage. A couple hours later I was finally “home” again (there’s that word again – see my post from back in the first semester), and it was good to be here.
That having been said, I’m ready to be home. As I write this post I’ve got a week and a day, and I hope it goes well. Three of my classes are already over, but I’ll talk about that a bit in my next post. I hope you enjoyed all my rambling and raving about my trip to, from, and in Guatemala. It was certainly one of the coolest vacations I’ve ever had, and I certainly want to go back some day. I still have to do that Tikal thing sometime…
Until next time, thanks as always for the prayers and support. I will see you all soon!!!! Peace, and God bless!
Thursday, April 30
Friday, April 24
Guatemala, part 3
Friday, April 10
True to our plans from the previous day, we crawled out of bed around 4:30 to see as many alfombras as we could, and I’m certainly glad we did! The Good Friday morning procession is one of the biggest events that go on here, and the locals really come up with some amazing stuff for it. It’s a good thing we did get up so early, because there was an absolutely incredible amount of alfombras to see, and pretty much all of them were worth a few pictures. We ended up taking literally hundreds of pictures of these things, as they were so beautiful. It was really difficult to capture the detail and beauty of them in a picture, but we sure tried! One interesting part of the morning in that respect was that when we started off it was obviously completely dark outside, making it difficult to get good shots, but as the morning progressed the sunlight helped us out more and more until we were done, making an interesting progression of picture quality and style as we would look through the pictures we had taken later that day.
After about an hour and a half or so of wandering the streets (and even then we didn’t see all the alfombras we could have!), we found the procession making its way through town. Or rather, it found us. The alfombras basically mark the path of the processions, and it turned out we were simply following it backwards until suddenly we saw a bunch of roman soldiers on horses – a good indication that we should probably get to the side of the road. We actually were pretty lucky, as the street we happened to be on when the procession went by was not very crowded, and we had a comfortable, slightly elevated part of the sidewalk on which to spend the next hour or so as the flamboyant mix of biblical characters and scenes went by. Some stupid tourists who felt they were above municipal regulation and disrespecting processional custom decided to take some pictures from the middle of the street, in and among those involved in the procession. This angered the 99% of us who knew better, but eventually these either dispersed or were ordered off by officials in the procession.
The procession started with a crew of Roman soldiers, some of them on horseback, others on foot carrying banners or signs with messages in Latin. Behind the front crew and walking among the second wave of soldiers were what appeared to be the chief priests, along with a long line of children in the popular purple and white robes that seemingly half the population of Antigua was wearing that week. The children were holding up banners with names of Biblical characters on them with various quotations of what appeared to be dialogue from scripture, but I didn’t recognize very many of them so I’m not sure.
Following these was a small group of miniature platforms (relatively speaking) with different depictions of Good Friday events. The first of these depicted Jesus praying in the garden, literally holding a cup he doesn’t seem too thrilled to be holding. Following this were two smaller ones, one depicting an old man on his knees in prayer (I think it was St. Francis, but I’m not sure), and the other was Jesus again, this time with a crown of thorns but more or less tranquil, not yet beaten nor with cross. This relatively tender image was immediately replaced by a couple of depictions one could have taken right out of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie – Jesus wearing nothing but loincloth and beaten severely, bleeding profusely.
After a short gap of some random chief priest figures and the continuous march of men in purple robes lining the streets, Pilate showed up, an actual guy instead of another float depiction, accompanied by a servant boy holding a small pitcher and basin for Pilate to wash up at his leisure. Pilate himself was carrying around an enormous scroll which appeared to be a formal declaration of some sort, but the indecipherable Latin scrawling did not specify its exact purpose. Following these two were a few more “live-action” figures, most of whom I couldn’t identify, but I believe one of them was Herod and another was most certainly Barabbas.
After these was yet another group of Roman soldiers, this time including the massive (at times unbearable) amounts of incense that are used during almost all of these processions. Then came the main platform – Jesus carrying his cross. This scene is actually repeated in almost all the processionals of the week, but having the plethora of other Good Friday scenes preceding this particular one seemed to make it more significant. Jesus, clothed in both his crown of thorns and a red robe that matched the blood spotting any exposed skin, was portrayed in midstride, shouldering an enormous cross and looking very weak and miserable indeed. As always, Jesus was followed by a small marching band playing a grim but boisterous tune. Bringing up the rear was Mary, another constant in the processions of the week. The virgin was sobbing, a small cloth in one hand and a golden dagger apparently piercing her heart of its own accord. Bringing up the absolute rear of the procession was a collection of other women whom I couldn’t name for sure, but all appeared appropriately grief-stricken and/or futilely trying to console Mary.
After the procession a mixture of vendors preying on spectators and sweepers who clean up what’s left of the beautiful alfombras crowded the street. By this time Ashley and I were extremely hungry and tired, and so we headed back to the hostel. On our way back we ran into another bunch of alfombras, one which was in the process of being made so we took another couple shots of the process. Breakfast at the hostel was a very welcomed meal, followed by an even more welcomed couple hours of sleep.
We got up again around 11:45 to head over to central park where a crucifixion reenactment was scheduled for noon. When we arrived, the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus were already up outside the church that hugs the east end of the park, and we had to wait for Jesus to show up. We did not get to see much of the entire event as it was actually inside the church, but finally we (and the other hundreds of tourists who had gathered outside) witnessed a stream of men march out of the church carrying the body of Christ, now even more severely bruised and bloodied. After literally nailing the body to a cross, they attached ropes to the part of the cross where Jesus’ hands were and heaved the whole thing to a vertical position. Nearby loudspeakers blared an extremely dark and dramatic piece of music the moment Jesus was completely upright, and hundreds of cameras (including mine) clicked away to capture the scene.
After taking some pictures we went back to the hostel to rest again (we were still very tired). Ashley took a nap while I went out to look for – get this – a Lutheran church. The day before our hostel owner had told me there was a Lutheran church just a few blocks from where we were, so I decided I definitely needed to go look for that to see if there would be a Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday service I could attend. I did find the place – it was huge! The actual chapel there was tiny, but the location is like some sort of retreat center where church groups and other organizations often stay while in Antigua. Turns out they did not have a Good Friday service, but they did have one Easter morning. More on that when I write about Sunday.
For dinner we went to a French crepe restaurant we had seen the day before, a place called Luna de Miel (literally, “honey moon” in Spanish). The crepes were absolutely delicious, and we would end up returning twice more before leaving Antigua. Over coffee and good food we had some long and deep conversations about religion, politics, and other hot subjects which we both seemed to enjoy talking about. Resisting the temptation to get a second round of crepes, we finally headed out in search of live music once again. We finally ran into a tiny place called JP’s RumBar. The music was basically just two guys on guitar, one of whom we had seen our first night in Antigua at another restaurant. Although the guys were fantastic and the ambiance of the place was great, there were very few people there, and for a while Ashley and I were only two of four people enjoying the music (minus the staff). We thought about leaving but the guitarists were just too fun to leave – some musicians get in their element when they have a fair amount of people in front of them cheering them on, while others simply are swept away by the sheer joy of the music they’re making. These two were clearly in the latter category, and the mood was contagious. Around midnight we finally headed back to the hostel, anxious to get a full night’s sleep after a very eventful and very satisfying Antiguan Good Friday.
Saturday, April 11
We slept in a bit before having another good breakfast at the hostel. Saturday in Antigua is one of three official market days during the week, and since it lands nicely between Good Friday and Easter Sunday it’s the perfect opportunity for tourists to check out the goods available. Since Ashley and I had now seen a fair amount of the types of gifts and merchandise available, we headed over there too to find some things to fill our backpacks (and empty our wallets!).
A word about the things to buy in Guatemala. The country is known for its prevalent indigenous culture, and it shows in the items on sale in tourist areas. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by an amazing kaleidoscope of goods in bright and brilliant colors. Everything is so colorful! Basically all of the shirts, bags, pillows, toys, and whatever else you might want to buy come in fabrics (many hand-stitched) that are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously vibrant. Ashley and I are both big fans of bright colors in large amounts and combinations, and as such we were both inclined to buy just about everything we saw. Being poor college students, this of course was not possible, but it did make choosing what we purchased pretty difficult. Every little shop we walked into was an explosion of color in various shades and designs, each item boasting an aesthetic liveliness that was difficult to ignore.
That having been said, and keeping in mind we’re poor college students, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t get much. In fact, Ashley went a little crazy that morning and spent all of her remaining money and a good deal of mine (shortly thereafter we visited an ATM so we would be able to both settle debts…and eat). Much to my enjoyment, I had a couple of spirited conversations with vendors over the true value of some of the goods I wanted. After visiting the market both in the morning and early afternoon (split up by a lunch/ATM break), we headed back to the hostel where we planned out the rest of our time in Antigua, particularly in terms of getting food and other items for our return bus trip in a couple of days.
For dinner that night we went out a second time to Luna de Miel, where we had some excellent crepes yet again. That night we got into some even deeper conversations that lasted for hours, and even though we had planned on going out to find some more live music we eventually just decided to stay there. Every twenty minutes or so we ordered a coffee or something to justify our extended stay, but the staff didn’t seem to mind us. After figuring out the meaning of life, the nature of human relationship, and the idea of God vs god(s), among other things, we finally headed back to the hostel (we had been there for about four and a half hours at that point).
I’ll cut it there again for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up the last few days in just one more post. I’ve got some pictures up! Enjoy! Also, just for a more up-to-date notice about what I’m up to, I’ll be heading to Vara Blanca and Poasito this weekend, the areas where January’s massive earthquake hit the hardest, to build some temporary housing with other volunteers from both USAC and Ticos from our University. You’ll hear about it in a week or so! Until then, take care and God bless.
True to our plans from the previous day, we crawled out of bed around 4:30 to see as many alfombras as we could, and I’m certainly glad we did! The Good Friday morning procession is one of the biggest events that go on here, and the locals really come up with some amazing stuff for it. It’s a good thing we did get up so early, because there was an absolutely incredible amount of alfombras to see, and pretty much all of them were worth a few pictures. We ended up taking literally hundreds of pictures of these things, as they were so beautiful. It was really difficult to capture the detail and beauty of them in a picture, but we sure tried! One interesting part of the morning in that respect was that when we started off it was obviously completely dark outside, making it difficult to get good shots, but as the morning progressed the sunlight helped us out more and more until we were done, making an interesting progression of picture quality and style as we would look through the pictures we had taken later that day.
After about an hour and a half or so of wandering the streets (and even then we didn’t see all the alfombras we could have!), we found the procession making its way through town. Or rather, it found us. The alfombras basically mark the path of the processions, and it turned out we were simply following it backwards until suddenly we saw a bunch of roman soldiers on horses – a good indication that we should probably get to the side of the road. We actually were pretty lucky, as the street we happened to be on when the procession went by was not very crowded, and we had a comfortable, slightly elevated part of the sidewalk on which to spend the next hour or so as the flamboyant mix of biblical characters and scenes went by. Some stupid tourists who felt they were above municipal regulation and disrespecting processional custom decided to take some pictures from the middle of the street, in and among those involved in the procession. This angered the 99% of us who knew better, but eventually these either dispersed or were ordered off by officials in the procession.
The procession started with a crew of Roman soldiers, some of them on horseback, others on foot carrying banners or signs with messages in Latin. Behind the front crew and walking among the second wave of soldiers were what appeared to be the chief priests, along with a long line of children in the popular purple and white robes that seemingly half the population of Antigua was wearing that week. The children were holding up banners with names of Biblical characters on them with various quotations of what appeared to be dialogue from scripture, but I didn’t recognize very many of them so I’m not sure.
Following these was a small group of miniature platforms (relatively speaking) with different depictions of Good Friday events. The first of these depicted Jesus praying in the garden, literally holding a cup he doesn’t seem too thrilled to be holding. Following this were two smaller ones, one depicting an old man on his knees in prayer (I think it was St. Francis, but I’m not sure), and the other was Jesus again, this time with a crown of thorns but more or less tranquil, not yet beaten nor with cross. This relatively tender image was immediately replaced by a couple of depictions one could have taken right out of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie – Jesus wearing nothing but loincloth and beaten severely, bleeding profusely.
After a short gap of some random chief priest figures and the continuous march of men in purple robes lining the streets, Pilate showed up, an actual guy instead of another float depiction, accompanied by a servant boy holding a small pitcher and basin for Pilate to wash up at his leisure. Pilate himself was carrying around an enormous scroll which appeared to be a formal declaration of some sort, but the indecipherable Latin scrawling did not specify its exact purpose. Following these two were a few more “live-action” figures, most of whom I couldn’t identify, but I believe one of them was Herod and another was most certainly Barabbas.
After these was yet another group of Roman soldiers, this time including the massive (at times unbearable) amounts of incense that are used during almost all of these processions. Then came the main platform – Jesus carrying his cross. This scene is actually repeated in almost all the processionals of the week, but having the plethora of other Good Friday scenes preceding this particular one seemed to make it more significant. Jesus, clothed in both his crown of thorns and a red robe that matched the blood spotting any exposed skin, was portrayed in midstride, shouldering an enormous cross and looking very weak and miserable indeed. As always, Jesus was followed by a small marching band playing a grim but boisterous tune. Bringing up the rear was Mary, another constant in the processions of the week. The virgin was sobbing, a small cloth in one hand and a golden dagger apparently piercing her heart of its own accord. Bringing up the absolute rear of the procession was a collection of other women whom I couldn’t name for sure, but all appeared appropriately grief-stricken and/or futilely trying to console Mary.
After the procession a mixture of vendors preying on spectators and sweepers who clean up what’s left of the beautiful alfombras crowded the street. By this time Ashley and I were extremely hungry and tired, and so we headed back to the hostel. On our way back we ran into another bunch of alfombras, one which was in the process of being made so we took another couple shots of the process. Breakfast at the hostel was a very welcomed meal, followed by an even more welcomed couple hours of sleep.
We got up again around 11:45 to head over to central park where a crucifixion reenactment was scheduled for noon. When we arrived, the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus were already up outside the church that hugs the east end of the park, and we had to wait for Jesus to show up. We did not get to see much of the entire event as it was actually inside the church, but finally we (and the other hundreds of tourists who had gathered outside) witnessed a stream of men march out of the church carrying the body of Christ, now even more severely bruised and bloodied. After literally nailing the body to a cross, they attached ropes to the part of the cross where Jesus’ hands were and heaved the whole thing to a vertical position. Nearby loudspeakers blared an extremely dark and dramatic piece of music the moment Jesus was completely upright, and hundreds of cameras (including mine) clicked away to capture the scene.
After taking some pictures we went back to the hostel to rest again (we were still very tired). Ashley took a nap while I went out to look for – get this – a Lutheran church. The day before our hostel owner had told me there was a Lutheran church just a few blocks from where we were, so I decided I definitely needed to go look for that to see if there would be a Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday service I could attend. I did find the place – it was huge! The actual chapel there was tiny, but the location is like some sort of retreat center where church groups and other organizations often stay while in Antigua. Turns out they did not have a Good Friday service, but they did have one Easter morning. More on that when I write about Sunday.
For dinner we went to a French crepe restaurant we had seen the day before, a place called Luna de Miel (literally, “honey moon” in Spanish). The crepes were absolutely delicious, and we would end up returning twice more before leaving Antigua. Over coffee and good food we had some long and deep conversations about religion, politics, and other hot subjects which we both seemed to enjoy talking about. Resisting the temptation to get a second round of crepes, we finally headed out in search of live music once again. We finally ran into a tiny place called JP’s RumBar. The music was basically just two guys on guitar, one of whom we had seen our first night in Antigua at another restaurant. Although the guys were fantastic and the ambiance of the place was great, there were very few people there, and for a while Ashley and I were only two of four people enjoying the music (minus the staff). We thought about leaving but the guitarists were just too fun to leave – some musicians get in their element when they have a fair amount of people in front of them cheering them on, while others simply are swept away by the sheer joy of the music they’re making. These two were clearly in the latter category, and the mood was contagious. Around midnight we finally headed back to the hostel, anxious to get a full night’s sleep after a very eventful and very satisfying Antiguan Good Friday.
Saturday, April 11
We slept in a bit before having another good breakfast at the hostel. Saturday in Antigua is one of three official market days during the week, and since it lands nicely between Good Friday and Easter Sunday it’s the perfect opportunity for tourists to check out the goods available. Since Ashley and I had now seen a fair amount of the types of gifts and merchandise available, we headed over there too to find some things to fill our backpacks (and empty our wallets!).
A word about the things to buy in Guatemala. The country is known for its prevalent indigenous culture, and it shows in the items on sale in tourist areas. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by an amazing kaleidoscope of goods in bright and brilliant colors. Everything is so colorful! Basically all of the shirts, bags, pillows, toys, and whatever else you might want to buy come in fabrics (many hand-stitched) that are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously vibrant. Ashley and I are both big fans of bright colors in large amounts and combinations, and as such we were both inclined to buy just about everything we saw. Being poor college students, this of course was not possible, but it did make choosing what we purchased pretty difficult. Every little shop we walked into was an explosion of color in various shades and designs, each item boasting an aesthetic liveliness that was difficult to ignore.
That having been said, and keeping in mind we’re poor college students, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t get much. In fact, Ashley went a little crazy that morning and spent all of her remaining money and a good deal of mine (shortly thereafter we visited an ATM so we would be able to both settle debts…and eat). Much to my enjoyment, I had a couple of spirited conversations with vendors over the true value of some of the goods I wanted. After visiting the market both in the morning and early afternoon (split up by a lunch/ATM break), we headed back to the hostel where we planned out the rest of our time in Antigua, particularly in terms of getting food and other items for our return bus trip in a couple of days.
For dinner that night we went out a second time to Luna de Miel, where we had some excellent crepes yet again. That night we got into some even deeper conversations that lasted for hours, and even though we had planned on going out to find some more live music we eventually just decided to stay there. Every twenty minutes or so we ordered a coffee or something to justify our extended stay, but the staff didn’t seem to mind us. After figuring out the meaning of life, the nature of human relationship, and the idea of God vs god(s), among other things, we finally headed back to the hostel (we had been there for about four and a half hours at that point).
I’ll cut it there again for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up the last few days in just one more post. I’ve got some pictures up! Enjoy! Also, just for a more up-to-date notice about what I’m up to, I’ll be heading to Vara Blanca and Poasito this weekend, the areas where January’s massive earthquake hit the hardest, to build some temporary housing with other volunteers from both USAC and Ticos from our University. You’ll hear about it in a week or so! Until then, take care and God bless.
Saturday, April 18
Guatemala part 2
Wednesday, April 8
We slept in for the first time in nearly a week, and it was delightful. Since we left early the day before, we had not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of our hostel’s free breakfast. It wasn’t the most exquisite thing I’ve ever had, but it was very good, and it was certainly nice to wake up and have someone make us a good (free) meal instead of munching on the snacks and sandwiches we had brought from Costa Rica.
We didn’t really have much of a game plan for the day, so after breakfast we took a look at Ash’s travel book to get some ideas. Supposedly there was a really old but well-kept colonial house nearby that we decided to check out, and after getting a bit lost on the way we finally found it. Unfortunately, it was closed. Keeping to our freestyle itinerary, we happened to look down the street and see what looked like a pretty impressive cathedral – “Whatever, let’s go over there!” It was, in fact, a very impressive cathedral, famous because buried there is a famous saint/monk whose name escapes me at the moment. Anyway, there were some very pretty gardens and statues leading up to the room in which this guy’s sepulcher is. No photos were allowed inside, but the architecture and displays were definitely pretty enough to remain in my memory for some time. On our way out, we passed by the lines of people waiting for their turn in the confessional booths – what a crowd! Wednesday was the last day to confess, apparently, and it looked like a good fifth of Antigua had showed up to take their turn before Easter rolled around.
Outside, we found an entrance to another part of the cathedral which was basically a huge area of ruins from parts of the church that are no longer kept. Since it was only a little over a dollar to get in, we did it, and I’m certainly glad we did. The area was huge, and very fun to explore. I’m not entirely sure what all the empty spaces were, but the mix of crumbling walls and semi-maintained flower gardens made for some pretty cool sights and pictures. Part of the ruins included a tiny museum mostly dedicated to the saint who was buried there, so we spent some time learning about him and looking at some things he had touched, worn, and that sort of thing.
After leaving the museum/ruins, we strolled around the cathedral’s plaza for a bit, where there were even more shops with more cool stuff to get (I bought a little something, but I can’t say what it is otherwise the recipient will know it’s for him). Ashley held off, but when there are so many pretty things at such relatively low prices it’s sometimes hard to resist! Turning our attention and our spending ideas towards lunch, we walked to a bread shop we had passed on our way to the colonial house and picked up some delicious banana bread to hold us over for dinner. While enjoying our light lunch and popping into various shops that caught our attention, we decided we wanted to head to Volcán Pacaya for one our day trips, so we dropped into numerous tour companies around town (there are TONS of them in Antigua, offering to bus you just about anywhere from down the street to Mexico) until we found a good price and signed up for the next day.
Having to figure out a few things going on back home, we hopped into an internet café in which I did some academic planning, summer job searching, but most importantly received some exciting news – I was offered a Peer Advisor position in East Hall at Augustana next year! So that made me pretty happy, because I was worried that a late application and being out of the country might hinder my chances. Anyway, afterwards we headed into a bookstore we’d been meaning to check out where I found a ton of books I would have loved to buy, but I unfortunately had neither the money to pay for them (books are expensive down here!) nor the physical space to bring them back to Costa Rica. I did make a short mental list, though, and I’ll have to do some searching when I get back to the U.S.
For dinner that evening, we found a great Italian restaurant whose prices were remarkably reasonable despite the restaurants location on one of the busiest streets in Antigua. Having put down some excellent bruschetta (how do you spell that?) and pasta, we walked just a few restaurants over where there was a fantastic salsa group playing live. Unfortunately, neither of us had much cash on hand, so when the place got a little more packed we felt a little awkward taking up a table having bought only one drink between the two of us. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the music they played. Guatemalans, it seemed, are not as apt to dancing as Ticos, and that made the ambiance a little different. Granted, we were not in a dance club, but even I felt compelled to move a bit to the great music we had the pleasure of listening to. Around midnight or so we finally headed out to rest up for another outing.
April 9 – Maundy Thursday
Around 6:00 in the morning we were picked up by our tour company’s shuttle, which had already picked up 8 or so other tourists set to make the same hike. On the ride to the volcano, two things became clear to me; first, all the other tourists in the bus knew each other and two, they all were speaking French. Ashley, coincidentally, is nearly fluent in French, having both grown up with it in an immersion primary school and lived in France for some time. Consequently, she is passionate about all things French and jumps at the chance to do French-related things, in this case, making some new friends and practicing the tongue she hadn’t used much in so long. The French folks were more than happy to talk back with her – most of them did speak various amounts of English as well, but naturally they only resorted to that when speaking directly with me. While not extraordinarily bothered by all this, I was in fact lost for much of the day. *sigh* I’ve gotta learn French someday….
The hike itself was great. It was a little cold in the morning (which I was not dressed for), but eventually the sun decided to show up and grace us with a little heat and better views from the trail which began the day enshrouded in fog. One of the more interesting parts of our way up was a steep hillside which was not part of the official trail at all, but our tour guide had led us up a little higher so we could “ski” (the guide’s word) down to get back on track. We literally just skidded down hundreds of feet of volcanic hillside, skidding through loose rock and dust until the terrain leveled out a bit at the bottom. It’s a little difficult to describe the sensation, but I suppose skiing is about as close I can get.
After that little adventurous bit we walked further up the trail where we (along with the multitude of other tour groups that go there daily) were lucky to come across an impressive “river” of lava coming down the mountainside. It was incredible to see – it looked like a large chain of volcanic rock like the rest of the landscape we were walking around on, except it was spotted with glowing orange gaps and slowly moving down the incline. Sometimes, what looked like (and I suppose it was) solid rock simply melted into the rest of the mass as if it suddenly just lost its solidity. Another amazing aspect of that particular sight (which was a huge “duh” moment but was still striking) was the intense heat! We stood several meters (a good 20-25 feet, at least) away from the lava, but even at such distance it was difficult to bear. For safety reasons the guides earnestly encouraged us to take only a few pictures and then turn around to head back down to the “safe zone” (hillside instability, or something like that – “NOW you tell us,” I thought). After snapping my fair share of shots – more than “a few,” anyway – I regrouped with our guide and the French brigade to start making our way down back to the bus.
Back in town, we headed to Antigua’s supermarket to get some basic food for lunch along with some mangos we bought from street vendors. After eating Ashley decided to take a nap while I went out and did some more exploring and hopped in another internet café for a bit.
Thursday is when the serious Holy Week events start happening in Antigua, including the alfombras (carepts). As part of the processions that take place all week long, but particularly in the last few days, people create alfombras right in front of their house or business. They are not literally carpets, but rather decorative works of art made directly on the street using flowers, grasses, colored sands/sawdust, and absolutely whatever else one feels like using. The subject matter of the alfombra varies just as much as the creator’s choice of materials, but normally people give them religious themes, such as creating flower crosses or crucifixes, portraits of Christ, depictions of the Host, or other such images. As the alfombras are not at all regulated, some people choose to go different routes both in terms of image (one we saw simply had a colored backdrop with flower petals forming the word “HOLLAND”) and of materials (some put actual loaves of bread and goblets of wine on theirs, another included a model of St. Peter’s Basilica, and still others were made entirely out of fruit or vegetables).
Alfombras are only constructed on streets where the processionals will pass by. When they arrive, normally the front section of participants keeps to the sides of the street and avoids the alfombras entirely. When the floats/platforms come on the scene, though, they simply walk right over them, effectively trampling and destroying beautiful works of art that have only been in existence for a matter of hours. For me, this was perhaps the most curious aspect of the alfombra tradition, that after working so very hard and meticulously on these things, they are simply destroyed by the procession for which they were made. Topping it all off, after the entire procession has passed by it is always followed by dump trucks and other construction site-style vehicles along with a group of men with brooms, all of whom whose job it is to gather up what remains of the alfombras and quickly dispose of it. In other words, after both the procession and these guys have passed by, there is absolutely nothing left. Crazy.
By the time I got back to the hostel, the staff had started making one out on the street and invited me to help. Ashley promptly came down too to join us. Even though our little alfombra was hardly the biggest or most extravagant, it was very fun to help make one. Rather than sticking around to wait for the coming procession to swing by, Ashley and I grabbed a camera and headed out, taking literally hundreds of pictures of all the beautiful alfombras we could find. Our hostel owner told us that the best time to go find some amazing alfombras would be the following day, Friday, very early in the morning, and so we made plans to not get much sleep.
For dinner we went to a place closer to our hostel, but actually got stuck on the way. One thing you learn quickly about the processions is that the city literally stops for them. If you’re trying to cross a street but are cut off by a procession, you simply must wait until the whole thing goes by – it is prohibited to cut across them. That having been said, these things can last up to an hour or maybe more, so you just find yourself on one side of the street for a long time. Furthermore, people pack the sidewalks to watch these things (or perhaps, in some cases, to wait to cross the street), and sometimes they get so full one can’t even go up or down the street on the side he or she is already on. This happened to us in our search for dinner, but it wouldn’t be the only time.
After dinner we went to a place on the other side of town where supposedly there was supposedly some live Reggae music going on. Unfortunately, we arrived right as the band was finishing their last song. Not wanting to waste the cover charge we paid to get in, we stuck around and enjoyed the decent selection of reggae and similar music the place put on for the rest of the night, even though it was not live. After we tired of Bob Marley and people watching (which actually entertained us for a surprising amount of time!) we made our way back north towards our hostel. On our way there, we stopped by a large county fair-style assortment of food vendors going on outside one of the major churches in Antigua, La Merced. We had seen this set up for the past couple days, but hadn’t yet explored it at all. Picking up some cheap dessert-type food, we browsed the more substantive options and resolved to have at least a few meals here for both the experience and to save significant amounts of money. By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 1:00 am, which was just lovely as we would be getting up in a little over three hours to find some more great alfombras before the Good Friday morning processional, one of the grander spectacles of the week.
Hope you’re enjoying the updates. I realize this post only includes two days of travel, but it got a bit long for just two days and the awesomeness of an Antiguan Good Friday will take some serious descriptive initiative to do it justice. Check back soon!
We slept in for the first time in nearly a week, and it was delightful. Since we left early the day before, we had not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of our hostel’s free breakfast. It wasn’t the most exquisite thing I’ve ever had, but it was very good, and it was certainly nice to wake up and have someone make us a good (free) meal instead of munching on the snacks and sandwiches we had brought from Costa Rica.
We didn’t really have much of a game plan for the day, so after breakfast we took a look at Ash’s travel book to get some ideas. Supposedly there was a really old but well-kept colonial house nearby that we decided to check out, and after getting a bit lost on the way we finally found it. Unfortunately, it was closed. Keeping to our freestyle itinerary, we happened to look down the street and see what looked like a pretty impressive cathedral – “Whatever, let’s go over there!” It was, in fact, a very impressive cathedral, famous because buried there is a famous saint/monk whose name escapes me at the moment. Anyway, there were some very pretty gardens and statues leading up to the room in which this guy’s sepulcher is. No photos were allowed inside, but the architecture and displays were definitely pretty enough to remain in my memory for some time. On our way out, we passed by the lines of people waiting for their turn in the confessional booths – what a crowd! Wednesday was the last day to confess, apparently, and it looked like a good fifth of Antigua had showed up to take their turn before Easter rolled around.
Outside, we found an entrance to another part of the cathedral which was basically a huge area of ruins from parts of the church that are no longer kept. Since it was only a little over a dollar to get in, we did it, and I’m certainly glad we did. The area was huge, and very fun to explore. I’m not entirely sure what all the empty spaces were, but the mix of crumbling walls and semi-maintained flower gardens made for some pretty cool sights and pictures. Part of the ruins included a tiny museum mostly dedicated to the saint who was buried there, so we spent some time learning about him and looking at some things he had touched, worn, and that sort of thing.
After leaving the museum/ruins, we strolled around the cathedral’s plaza for a bit, where there were even more shops with more cool stuff to get (I bought a little something, but I can’t say what it is otherwise the recipient will know it’s for him). Ashley held off, but when there are so many pretty things at such relatively low prices it’s sometimes hard to resist! Turning our attention and our spending ideas towards lunch, we walked to a bread shop we had passed on our way to the colonial house and picked up some delicious banana bread to hold us over for dinner. While enjoying our light lunch and popping into various shops that caught our attention, we decided we wanted to head to Volcán Pacaya for one our day trips, so we dropped into numerous tour companies around town (there are TONS of them in Antigua, offering to bus you just about anywhere from down the street to Mexico) until we found a good price and signed up for the next day.
Having to figure out a few things going on back home, we hopped into an internet café in which I did some academic planning, summer job searching, but most importantly received some exciting news – I was offered a Peer Advisor position in East Hall at Augustana next year! So that made me pretty happy, because I was worried that a late application and being out of the country might hinder my chances. Anyway, afterwards we headed into a bookstore we’d been meaning to check out where I found a ton of books I would have loved to buy, but I unfortunately had neither the money to pay for them (books are expensive down here!) nor the physical space to bring them back to Costa Rica. I did make a short mental list, though, and I’ll have to do some searching when I get back to the U.S.
For dinner that evening, we found a great Italian restaurant whose prices were remarkably reasonable despite the restaurants location on one of the busiest streets in Antigua. Having put down some excellent bruschetta (how do you spell that?) and pasta, we walked just a few restaurants over where there was a fantastic salsa group playing live. Unfortunately, neither of us had much cash on hand, so when the place got a little more packed we felt a little awkward taking up a table having bought only one drink between the two of us. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the music they played. Guatemalans, it seemed, are not as apt to dancing as Ticos, and that made the ambiance a little different. Granted, we were not in a dance club, but even I felt compelled to move a bit to the great music we had the pleasure of listening to. Around midnight or so we finally headed out to rest up for another outing.
April 9 – Maundy Thursday
Around 6:00 in the morning we were picked up by our tour company’s shuttle, which had already picked up 8 or so other tourists set to make the same hike. On the ride to the volcano, two things became clear to me; first, all the other tourists in the bus knew each other and two, they all were speaking French. Ashley, coincidentally, is nearly fluent in French, having both grown up with it in an immersion primary school and lived in France for some time. Consequently, she is passionate about all things French and jumps at the chance to do French-related things, in this case, making some new friends and practicing the tongue she hadn’t used much in so long. The French folks were more than happy to talk back with her – most of them did speak various amounts of English as well, but naturally they only resorted to that when speaking directly with me. While not extraordinarily bothered by all this, I was in fact lost for much of the day. *sigh* I’ve gotta learn French someday….
The hike itself was great. It was a little cold in the morning (which I was not dressed for), but eventually the sun decided to show up and grace us with a little heat and better views from the trail which began the day enshrouded in fog. One of the more interesting parts of our way up was a steep hillside which was not part of the official trail at all, but our tour guide had led us up a little higher so we could “ski” (the guide’s word) down to get back on track. We literally just skidded down hundreds of feet of volcanic hillside, skidding through loose rock and dust until the terrain leveled out a bit at the bottom. It’s a little difficult to describe the sensation, but I suppose skiing is about as close I can get.
After that little adventurous bit we walked further up the trail where we (along with the multitude of other tour groups that go there daily) were lucky to come across an impressive “river” of lava coming down the mountainside. It was incredible to see – it looked like a large chain of volcanic rock like the rest of the landscape we were walking around on, except it was spotted with glowing orange gaps and slowly moving down the incline. Sometimes, what looked like (and I suppose it was) solid rock simply melted into the rest of the mass as if it suddenly just lost its solidity. Another amazing aspect of that particular sight (which was a huge “duh” moment but was still striking) was the intense heat! We stood several meters (a good 20-25 feet, at least) away from the lava, but even at such distance it was difficult to bear. For safety reasons the guides earnestly encouraged us to take only a few pictures and then turn around to head back down to the “safe zone” (hillside instability, or something like that – “NOW you tell us,” I thought). After snapping my fair share of shots – more than “a few,” anyway – I regrouped with our guide and the French brigade to start making our way down back to the bus.
Back in town, we headed to Antigua’s supermarket to get some basic food for lunch along with some mangos we bought from street vendors. After eating Ashley decided to take a nap while I went out and did some more exploring and hopped in another internet café for a bit.
Thursday is when the serious Holy Week events start happening in Antigua, including the alfombras (carepts). As part of the processions that take place all week long, but particularly in the last few days, people create alfombras right in front of their house or business. They are not literally carpets, but rather decorative works of art made directly on the street using flowers, grasses, colored sands/sawdust, and absolutely whatever else one feels like using. The subject matter of the alfombra varies just as much as the creator’s choice of materials, but normally people give them religious themes, such as creating flower crosses or crucifixes, portraits of Christ, depictions of the Host, or other such images. As the alfombras are not at all regulated, some people choose to go different routes both in terms of image (one we saw simply had a colored backdrop with flower petals forming the word “HOLLAND”) and of materials (some put actual loaves of bread and goblets of wine on theirs, another included a model of St. Peter’s Basilica, and still others were made entirely out of fruit or vegetables).
Alfombras are only constructed on streets where the processionals will pass by. When they arrive, normally the front section of participants keeps to the sides of the street and avoids the alfombras entirely. When the floats/platforms come on the scene, though, they simply walk right over them, effectively trampling and destroying beautiful works of art that have only been in existence for a matter of hours. For me, this was perhaps the most curious aspect of the alfombra tradition, that after working so very hard and meticulously on these things, they are simply destroyed by the procession for which they were made. Topping it all off, after the entire procession has passed by it is always followed by dump trucks and other construction site-style vehicles along with a group of men with brooms, all of whom whose job it is to gather up what remains of the alfombras and quickly dispose of it. In other words, after both the procession and these guys have passed by, there is absolutely nothing left. Crazy.
By the time I got back to the hostel, the staff had started making one out on the street and invited me to help. Ashley promptly came down too to join us. Even though our little alfombra was hardly the biggest or most extravagant, it was very fun to help make one. Rather than sticking around to wait for the coming procession to swing by, Ashley and I grabbed a camera and headed out, taking literally hundreds of pictures of all the beautiful alfombras we could find. Our hostel owner told us that the best time to go find some amazing alfombras would be the following day, Friday, very early in the morning, and so we made plans to not get much sleep.
For dinner we went to a place closer to our hostel, but actually got stuck on the way. One thing you learn quickly about the processions is that the city literally stops for them. If you’re trying to cross a street but are cut off by a procession, you simply must wait until the whole thing goes by – it is prohibited to cut across them. That having been said, these things can last up to an hour or maybe more, so you just find yourself on one side of the street for a long time. Furthermore, people pack the sidewalks to watch these things (or perhaps, in some cases, to wait to cross the street), and sometimes they get so full one can’t even go up or down the street on the side he or she is already on. This happened to us in our search for dinner, but it wouldn’t be the only time.
After dinner we went to a place on the other side of town where supposedly there was supposedly some live Reggae music going on. Unfortunately, we arrived right as the band was finishing their last song. Not wanting to waste the cover charge we paid to get in, we stuck around and enjoyed the decent selection of reggae and similar music the place put on for the rest of the night, even though it was not live. After we tired of Bob Marley and people watching (which actually entertained us for a surprising amount of time!) we made our way back north towards our hostel. On our way there, we stopped by a large county fair-style assortment of food vendors going on outside one of the major churches in Antigua, La Merced. We had seen this set up for the past couple days, but hadn’t yet explored it at all. Picking up some cheap dessert-type food, we browsed the more substantive options and resolved to have at least a few meals here for both the experience and to save significant amounts of money. By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 1:00 am, which was just lovely as we would be getting up in a little over three hours to find some more great alfombras before the Good Friday morning processional, one of the grander spectacles of the week.
Hope you’re enjoying the updates. I realize this post only includes two days of travel, but it got a bit long for just two days and the awesomeness of an Antiguan Good Friday will take some serious descriptive initiative to do it justice. Check back soon!
Friday, April 17
Guatemala trip, part 1!
Hello again! I’m finally back from my trip! Just to remind you, we here in Costa Rica got all of Semana Santa (that is, Holy Week) off of classes since they close the public universities anyway. Ashley Lyons (one of the girls with whom I traveled to Nicaragua) and I bought tickets months ago to head up to Guatemala for the week and experience the world famous Holy Week celebrations in the city of Antigua. We had a fantastic time, and this trip will be every bit as memorable as the Nicaragua one was. I’ll try to be a bit quicker to get all the details about the whole trip than I was with Nicaragua, but once again there is just too much to tell! We’ll give it a shot though, right? So…
Saturday, April 4
Like our last trip, we elected to travel by bus. Flying would have been twice as expensive, and this way we would have the opportunity to spend some evenings in other cities on our way there and back. As such, we had another extremely early bus to catch in San José, so Ashley stayed over at our house in the guest room the night before. Not a whole lot happened this first day – it was mostly time spent on the bus (and much of that sleeping, due to our early rise). The first leg of our trip took us north to Managua, so we had done this part before. On the bus ride up we watched no less than four movies, and all of them pretty stupid.
When we actually arrived in Managua we struck by the incredible heat. For unknown reasons, the bus drivers for the company we take up there, TicaBus, keep the air in the vehicle somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so after getting off the bus extreme heat seems even hotter yet. We arrived in Managua in the early evening, so we wandered around a nearby mall a bit before finally going around 9:00 or so to a nearby restaurant we had found on our previous trip, in which there was live music almost every weekend, and this Saturday was not an exception. And so, for a few hours we enjoyed some very fun Nicaraguan folk music, some with fairly obvious political overtones. The only thing I didn’t really like about the place was that the entire establishment was a bit pricy, and after filling up with people it became fairly obvious to us that we were spending the night with Nicaragua’s upper crust. I don’t have a problem with people with money in general, but here I sort of got a negative feeling of being somewhere I wasn’t part of the club. Hard to explain. Anyway, the music was great and gave us an excuse to stay out until midnight or so before another super early bus the next day.
Sunday, April 5
Another relatively uneventful day, but I suppose travel days are just like that. Having stayed out the night before we slept quite a bit again on the bus, waking up now and then for border crossings, movies (a much better selection this day – and I’d like to note here that watching Speed while on a bus is an interesting experience), and the occasional initiative to do homework. Though we did not stop anywhere except at borders, I suppose I can say now that I’ve at least been through the country of Honduras. It looked pretty enough from the highway view we enjoyed, and I’d certainly like to come back some day to spend some more time exploring it.
Our second and final country we crossed into for the day was El Salvador. Reading about the country in Ashley’s Lonely Planet book was a bit frightening, to be honest (I’ll spare you the details), but we certainly had a fine time there (even though it was only two days en route to Guatemala/Costa Rica). Our hotel was fairly nice, if a little far off from the bus stop. Our first night here there was only one person on staff, an extremely helpful and kind young lady who recommended us some things to do for our evening. We ended up simply going to a nearby mall, which actually turned out to be a very cool place. Though filled with shops one can find in many U.S. shopping centers, the place had a very unique feel to it and even though I’m not one for malls I was impressed and content to spend my evening wandering about it. At the end of the evening, we went to the mall’s movie theater to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great for two reasons: one, it was in Spanish (dubbed, not subtitled, as are all movies down here that small children might go see), and I would say I comfortably understood 95% of the dialogue, which made me feel pretty good about myself; two, it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. The movie selection was my suggestion, and though I think Ashley may have been a bit skeptical at first, she loved it to. When it was over, we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep before yet another early morning.
Monday, April 6
The day before, the taxi driver who brought us from the bus station to our hotel offered to pick us up in the morning, and we accepted. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up, and we had to call another one. Luckily we arrived at the TicaBus station on time and had a comfortable and brief bus ride to the Guatemalan border and on to Guatemala City. Once in the city we opted to take a taxi instead of finding buses to Antigua, sharing the ride with a woman from Portland (with whom Ashley talked the whole ride, as she too is from Oregon) and a young French guy.
One of the only regrets I have about this trip is that we didn’t get a very complete picture of Guatemala. Holy Week in Antigua is ridiculously packed, and as such we had to make reservations at our hostel months before. Not having any specific itinerary in mind at the time, we booked for the whole week which would limit our travel opportunities a bit. Due to its fame and popularity as a tourist destination, Antigua really is a world apart from its country – the streets are perfectly clean, the shops and food is (relatively) expensive, and poverty is hardly visible. That comment in itself is not a complaint, but just a recognition that the Guatemala we experienced was a bit separate from the “real” Guatemala (I imagine it’s similar when one visits Cancun).
That having been said, Antigua was amazing. The hostel where we stayed was fantastic – I don’t think I’ve ever been welcomed so warmly or treated by such friendly hostel staff. The hostel, named simply Hostel 5, is run by a family who speaks near-perfect English (but respected our desires to practice our Spanish with them). Small but comfortable rooms, private bathrooms, and free breakfasts all contributed to a weeklong stay that left us very much satisfied with our near-random booking from months before.
Since we arrived in Antigua relatively early in the day, we didn’t waste any time in getting out and exploring. It didn’t take us long to find a ton of markets and street shops filled with things we resolved to hold off on buying until the end of the week (when we would have a slightly clearer idea about what our options were – and how much money we would have left!). One of the first people we met in Antigua was an outgoing guy near the central park who was offering free tourist info and a variety of bus options for day trips outside Antigua. Knowing we wanted to venture to Atitlán Lake sometime in the week, we eventually came back to him and bought some tickets for the following day.
In one of the shops we dropped into we ended up meeting another friendly guy with whom we ended up having a long conversation. Rodrigo is a native Guatemalan whose first language is K’iche, one of the more common native dialects in a country filled with indigenous peoples (and pride). Rodrigo had actually just gotten back to Guatemala after having spent ten years or so in the United States, illegally. His stories about his border crossings, encounters with la migra (immigration police) – both U.S. and Mexican – and his life in the states were fascinating. One always hears such stories from the media, but it’s nothing like hearing about such experiences first-hand – I’ll take Rodrigo’s version of an illegal’s life in the States over Lou Dobbs any day! Interestingly, Rodrigo was never caught or sent back to Guatemala; rather, he decided to return to Guatemala simply because he missed his family and – get this – he preferred taking his chances, economically speaking, in Guatemala rather than the U.S. because of the current crisis. Crazy.
After our fill of shopping and exploring, we headed back to the hostel for a bit to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner and possibly evening entertainment. One of our greatest resources for the week turned out to be a widely distributed magazine that is circulated throughout Antigua giving a ton of information about nearly all the restaurants, shops, events, ceremonies, and entertainment options for the week. As such, we were able to find some great live music almost every evening we were there, and our first night was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, we ran into the first procession we would see. One of the main characteristics of an Antiguan Holy Week is the elaborate processions that go through the street for almost all of Lent, but particularly for this week. They typically consist of banners marking the particular church or religious group presenting the procession, a swarm of people in full costume (mostly Biblical garb of some sort), and enormous platforms/parade floats which are carried on the shoulders of the people in the processional. I’ll get into more detail when describing processions later in the week.
We had dinner at a little place a few blocks away from Antigua’s Central Park, where the food was great, but the evening was a bit awkward as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant other than wait staff and musicians. Nevertheless, the live music went forward as planned and we enjoyed a series of musicians playing guitar, flute, drums and singing. The guy on flute, while not extraordinarily musically gifted, was particularly entertaining simply because I’ve never seen anyone get so physically into their own music (eccentric and unpredictable convulsions – yes, that’s the word – characterized every one of his songs). At the end of the evening, all of the musicians got together for a few great joint numbers. Afterwards we went straight back to the hostel to sleep up before our early bus to Atitlán.
Tuesday, April 7
The shuttle for which we had purchased tickets the previous day picked us up at 8:00 am for a two to three hour drive to Lago de Atitlán. This lake, another popular tourist destination, is fairly well known, and for good reason – it is absolutely beautiful. It’s an enormous lake, with an ample amount of villages all the way around it. Some of the towns are sizeable and touristy, others are strictly indigenous communities in which Spanish is hardly spoken (if it all). The lake is also characterized by three impressive volcanoes which surround it, adding to the beauty and intensity of the landscape. Interestingly, Ashley and I had just read a short story in our Latin American literature class by Miguel Angel Asturias describing a mythical collide of indigenous peoples, Spanish conquistadors, and personified forces of nature that explained the formation of one of the volcanoes which, as legend has it, covers a hoard of priceless treasures the natives hid from the European invaders. This certainly added to my fascination with the lake.
It is truly lamentable that we only had one day (6 hours, actually) to spend here. The lake deserves so much more time than that, and I believe one could easily spend at least a week exploring both the communities and the landscape there. When we got off the shuttle, we ran into a ton of street vendors selling the same beautiful art, crafts, and clothing we had seen in Antigua. Again, we would have loved to have spent more time here, and as such we didn’t really know where to go. In the interest of saving both time and money, we finally elected to take a private boat/taxi to San Marcos, a small community apart from the larger and touristier towns of the lake. From the dock at San Marcos we made our way to a nearby swimming area a mix of Europeans and local kids were enjoying the crystal clear waters and cliffs of various heights to jump off of. The water, while of course nothing like the North Woods lakes I’ve swam in, were a bit chilly. Nevertheless, we had a great (albeit short) time enjoying the water, clear skies, and beautiful landscape surrounding us.
Shortly thereafter we just managed to catch a boat back to the town where we needed to hop on our shuttle again, and having an hour or so of time left when we arrived we did a bit of shopping. Much to my delight, bartering is a much more common practice in Guatemala than both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and I was happy to help Ashley now and then, as she was a bit too, um, shall we say polite? to contest the prices that the vendors try to extort out of their white customers.
Finally hopped back on the shuttle and rode back to Antigua. That evening we went to a comfortable café with good food and, once again, live music. It was a very strange act – musically it consisted of basically one guy who sang and played guitar, but for some reason he was joined by a clown who made balloon animals, flowers, and other such things while the first guy sang and played. Very strange. Anyway, after the music was over the guitarist sat down for a drink and a meal at the table next to ours, and after his friend the clown left he started to talk with us. He was a really nice guy (and a pretty good musician, too!), and invited us to join him for a few hours at a café he usually went to after performing. We accepted, and headed across town to Café No Sé, a cozy little place with low-key live music of its own and a dark relaxed ambiance that reminded me of an English pub for some reason. After a few hours of music and conversation with our new friend (and some more locals we met there), we headed back to the hostel, exhausted by a long day.
Ok, I’ll take a break for now but hopefully get another post up soon. I’m trying to keep these things at around 2,500 words maximum, otherwise a single post just gets way too long. There’s lots more to be told, so check back soon for stories from the next few days. I also should have pictures up within the week. Until then, take care!!
Saturday, April 4
Like our last trip, we elected to travel by bus. Flying would have been twice as expensive, and this way we would have the opportunity to spend some evenings in other cities on our way there and back. As such, we had another extremely early bus to catch in San José, so Ashley stayed over at our house in the guest room the night before. Not a whole lot happened this first day – it was mostly time spent on the bus (and much of that sleeping, due to our early rise). The first leg of our trip took us north to Managua, so we had done this part before. On the bus ride up we watched no less than four movies, and all of them pretty stupid.
When we actually arrived in Managua we struck by the incredible heat. For unknown reasons, the bus drivers for the company we take up there, TicaBus, keep the air in the vehicle somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so after getting off the bus extreme heat seems even hotter yet. We arrived in Managua in the early evening, so we wandered around a nearby mall a bit before finally going around 9:00 or so to a nearby restaurant we had found on our previous trip, in which there was live music almost every weekend, and this Saturday was not an exception. And so, for a few hours we enjoyed some very fun Nicaraguan folk music, some with fairly obvious political overtones. The only thing I didn’t really like about the place was that the entire establishment was a bit pricy, and after filling up with people it became fairly obvious to us that we were spending the night with Nicaragua’s upper crust. I don’t have a problem with people with money in general, but here I sort of got a negative feeling of being somewhere I wasn’t part of the club. Hard to explain. Anyway, the music was great and gave us an excuse to stay out until midnight or so before another super early bus the next day.
Sunday, April 5
Another relatively uneventful day, but I suppose travel days are just like that. Having stayed out the night before we slept quite a bit again on the bus, waking up now and then for border crossings, movies (a much better selection this day – and I’d like to note here that watching Speed while on a bus is an interesting experience), and the occasional initiative to do homework. Though we did not stop anywhere except at borders, I suppose I can say now that I’ve at least been through the country of Honduras. It looked pretty enough from the highway view we enjoyed, and I’d certainly like to come back some day to spend some more time exploring it.
Our second and final country we crossed into for the day was El Salvador. Reading about the country in Ashley’s Lonely Planet book was a bit frightening, to be honest (I’ll spare you the details), but we certainly had a fine time there (even though it was only two days en route to Guatemala/Costa Rica). Our hotel was fairly nice, if a little far off from the bus stop. Our first night here there was only one person on staff, an extremely helpful and kind young lady who recommended us some things to do for our evening. We ended up simply going to a nearby mall, which actually turned out to be a very cool place. Though filled with shops one can find in many U.S. shopping centers, the place had a very unique feel to it and even though I’m not one for malls I was impressed and content to spend my evening wandering about it. At the end of the evening, we went to the mall’s movie theater to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great for two reasons: one, it was in Spanish (dubbed, not subtitled, as are all movies down here that small children might go see), and I would say I comfortably understood 95% of the dialogue, which made me feel pretty good about myself; two, it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. The movie selection was my suggestion, and though I think Ashley may have been a bit skeptical at first, she loved it to. When it was over, we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep before yet another early morning.
Monday, April 6
The day before, the taxi driver who brought us from the bus station to our hotel offered to pick us up in the morning, and we accepted. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up, and we had to call another one. Luckily we arrived at the TicaBus station on time and had a comfortable and brief bus ride to the Guatemalan border and on to Guatemala City. Once in the city we opted to take a taxi instead of finding buses to Antigua, sharing the ride with a woman from Portland (with whom Ashley talked the whole ride, as she too is from Oregon) and a young French guy.
One of the only regrets I have about this trip is that we didn’t get a very complete picture of Guatemala. Holy Week in Antigua is ridiculously packed, and as such we had to make reservations at our hostel months before. Not having any specific itinerary in mind at the time, we booked for the whole week which would limit our travel opportunities a bit. Due to its fame and popularity as a tourist destination, Antigua really is a world apart from its country – the streets are perfectly clean, the shops and food is (relatively) expensive, and poverty is hardly visible. That comment in itself is not a complaint, but just a recognition that the Guatemala we experienced was a bit separate from the “real” Guatemala (I imagine it’s similar when one visits Cancun).
That having been said, Antigua was amazing. The hostel where we stayed was fantastic – I don’t think I’ve ever been welcomed so warmly or treated by such friendly hostel staff. The hostel, named simply Hostel 5, is run by a family who speaks near-perfect English (but respected our desires to practice our Spanish with them). Small but comfortable rooms, private bathrooms, and free breakfasts all contributed to a weeklong stay that left us very much satisfied with our near-random booking from months before.
Since we arrived in Antigua relatively early in the day, we didn’t waste any time in getting out and exploring. It didn’t take us long to find a ton of markets and street shops filled with things we resolved to hold off on buying until the end of the week (when we would have a slightly clearer idea about what our options were – and how much money we would have left!). One of the first people we met in Antigua was an outgoing guy near the central park who was offering free tourist info and a variety of bus options for day trips outside Antigua. Knowing we wanted to venture to Atitlán Lake sometime in the week, we eventually came back to him and bought some tickets for the following day.
In one of the shops we dropped into we ended up meeting another friendly guy with whom we ended up having a long conversation. Rodrigo is a native Guatemalan whose first language is K’iche, one of the more common native dialects in a country filled with indigenous peoples (and pride). Rodrigo had actually just gotten back to Guatemala after having spent ten years or so in the United States, illegally. His stories about his border crossings, encounters with la migra (immigration police) – both U.S. and Mexican – and his life in the states were fascinating. One always hears such stories from the media, but it’s nothing like hearing about such experiences first-hand – I’ll take Rodrigo’s version of an illegal’s life in the States over Lou Dobbs any day! Interestingly, Rodrigo was never caught or sent back to Guatemala; rather, he decided to return to Guatemala simply because he missed his family and – get this – he preferred taking his chances, economically speaking, in Guatemala rather than the U.S. because of the current crisis. Crazy.
After our fill of shopping and exploring, we headed back to the hostel for a bit to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner and possibly evening entertainment. One of our greatest resources for the week turned out to be a widely distributed magazine that is circulated throughout Antigua giving a ton of information about nearly all the restaurants, shops, events, ceremonies, and entertainment options for the week. As such, we were able to find some great live music almost every evening we were there, and our first night was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, we ran into the first procession we would see. One of the main characteristics of an Antiguan Holy Week is the elaborate processions that go through the street for almost all of Lent, but particularly for this week. They typically consist of banners marking the particular church or religious group presenting the procession, a swarm of people in full costume (mostly Biblical garb of some sort), and enormous platforms/parade floats which are carried on the shoulders of the people in the processional. I’ll get into more detail when describing processions later in the week.
We had dinner at a little place a few blocks away from Antigua’s Central Park, where the food was great, but the evening was a bit awkward as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant other than wait staff and musicians. Nevertheless, the live music went forward as planned and we enjoyed a series of musicians playing guitar, flute, drums and singing. The guy on flute, while not extraordinarily musically gifted, was particularly entertaining simply because I’ve never seen anyone get so physically into their own music (eccentric and unpredictable convulsions – yes, that’s the word – characterized every one of his songs). At the end of the evening, all of the musicians got together for a few great joint numbers. Afterwards we went straight back to the hostel to sleep up before our early bus to Atitlán.
Tuesday, April 7
The shuttle for which we had purchased tickets the previous day picked us up at 8:00 am for a two to three hour drive to Lago de Atitlán. This lake, another popular tourist destination, is fairly well known, and for good reason – it is absolutely beautiful. It’s an enormous lake, with an ample amount of villages all the way around it. Some of the towns are sizeable and touristy, others are strictly indigenous communities in which Spanish is hardly spoken (if it all). The lake is also characterized by three impressive volcanoes which surround it, adding to the beauty and intensity of the landscape. Interestingly, Ashley and I had just read a short story in our Latin American literature class by Miguel Angel Asturias describing a mythical collide of indigenous peoples, Spanish conquistadors, and personified forces of nature that explained the formation of one of the volcanoes which, as legend has it, covers a hoard of priceless treasures the natives hid from the European invaders. This certainly added to my fascination with the lake.
It is truly lamentable that we only had one day (6 hours, actually) to spend here. The lake deserves so much more time than that, and I believe one could easily spend at least a week exploring both the communities and the landscape there. When we got off the shuttle, we ran into a ton of street vendors selling the same beautiful art, crafts, and clothing we had seen in Antigua. Again, we would have loved to have spent more time here, and as such we didn’t really know where to go. In the interest of saving both time and money, we finally elected to take a private boat/taxi to San Marcos, a small community apart from the larger and touristier towns of the lake. From the dock at San Marcos we made our way to a nearby swimming area a mix of Europeans and local kids were enjoying the crystal clear waters and cliffs of various heights to jump off of. The water, while of course nothing like the North Woods lakes I’ve swam in, were a bit chilly. Nevertheless, we had a great (albeit short) time enjoying the water, clear skies, and beautiful landscape surrounding us.
Shortly thereafter we just managed to catch a boat back to the town where we needed to hop on our shuttle again, and having an hour or so of time left when we arrived we did a bit of shopping. Much to my delight, bartering is a much more common practice in Guatemala than both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and I was happy to help Ashley now and then, as she was a bit too, um, shall we say polite? to contest the prices that the vendors try to extort out of their white customers.
Finally hopped back on the shuttle and rode back to Antigua. That evening we went to a comfortable café with good food and, once again, live music. It was a very strange act – musically it consisted of basically one guy who sang and played guitar, but for some reason he was joined by a clown who made balloon animals, flowers, and other such things while the first guy sang and played. Very strange. Anyway, after the music was over the guitarist sat down for a drink and a meal at the table next to ours, and after his friend the clown left he started to talk with us. He was a really nice guy (and a pretty good musician, too!), and invited us to join him for a few hours at a café he usually went to after performing. We accepted, and headed across town to Café No Sé, a cozy little place with low-key live music of its own and a dark relaxed ambiance that reminded me of an English pub for some reason. After a few hours of music and conversation with our new friend (and some more locals we met there), we headed back to the hostel, exhausted by a long day.
Ok, I’ll take a break for now but hopefully get another post up soon. I’m trying to keep these things at around 2,500 words maximum, otherwise a single post just gets way too long. There’s lots more to be told, so check back soon for stories from the next few days. I also should have pictures up within the week. Until then, take care!!
Friday, April 3
Volcán Arenal (again), Soccer, and more rain!
Topics…
Hello again to all the faithful followers! The big news this week is that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be heading off to Guatemala to spend a whole week in Antigua, and a few nights in both Managua (Nicaragua) and San Salvador (El Salvador) during the bus ride there and back. More on that, of course, when I get back. For now, I’d just like to give a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to over the past week since the last post.
So, this past weekend the group did go to Arenal. This was the second time I’ve been there, because last time I went with Ben and Kristen and we spent a few hours at Baldí, a natural hot springs/bath resort near the volcano. Well, guess what the group did? Yup, spent a few hours at Baldí…so that was fun. Not going to lie, I would have loved to have done some different type of adventuring around the area but overall it was a very good day over there and I bonded with many of the program kids that I hadn’t talked to much before, mostly because I didn’t go on the large group Nicaragua trip. Baldí was fun again – this time the waterslides which Ben, Kristen and I didn’t use were open, and so we made heavy use of them. Even though this was a very gringo-ized location, these slides were yet another form of Costa Rican entertainment that likely would fail many U.S. safety standards – oh well, they were fun! Much like my time there last semester, though, there are only so many hours one can spend in warm pools before deciding that simply sitting in warm pools is not that exciting for, well, however many hours one is in them. Nevertheless, we got treated to a delicious meal at the resort’s restaurant, concluded by an amazing tres leches (three milks) cake.
After finally heading back to the hotel around 9:00 or so, a few of us hung out outside Lauren, Brook, and Jolene’s room and played a bizarre “cup game” I had never heard of but turned out to be pretty fun. Strangely, for almost the entire rest of the evening, somehow a fair-sized group of us got started on a conversation about God, non-Christian religions, spirituality, and other such topics. People came and left throughout the chat, but eventually it turned into a conversation between Lauren, Brook, and Ashley Lyons (with whom I’ll be traveling this coming week and a half) about whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell, whether we as humans can know such things for sure, etc. Near the end of the night I jumped in and spouted some Luther dialogue (without explicitly calling it that), which was followed by some more conversation and around 12:30 or so we decided that it was a good talk but we needed sleep.
On a completely different note, there’s been some peculiar weather happening lately – the rain is back! Now, nobody told me that it was going to rain at all this semester, and I was surprised enough that we had some in January/early February. Apparently rain in March is in fact extremely rare, but there have been a couple days where it just poured. All of the new students (that is, not here last semester) were pretty impressed, but those of us who were here during the infamous October days tried to explain to them what real rain was like! Jessica told me that these strange downpours do not hail the beginning of the rainy season, only that it’s on the way. I’m hoping we can keep up clear skies for the most part at least until I leave!
This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to a soccer game with Jessica and a few of her friends in San José, where we watched Costa Rica (national selection team) play El Salvador. It was extremely fun and extremely energetic. The whole stadium was basically a stream of red (I went out earlier that day to get myself a jersey, so that I would fit in – had I worn Salvadorian colors my life might have been in peril) jumping and screaming in a unison that one usually only finds in student sections in the States. We arrived extremely early to ensure we had good seats, even though we were in the cheapest section. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good view of the action, behind one of the goals at the end of the field. When the crowd starts jumping up and down, one’s seat shakes violently (it was certainly more so for me than any earthquake I’ve ever felt)! Some of the less impressive aspects of Tico culture come out during soccer games, including a plethora of nonstop vulgarities directed at the opposing team, the officials, and even their own players. One thing that I had known before the game but I still can’t seem to get used to here is that whistling at a game is very much negative gesture or jeer, as opposed to the positive context it has in sports events in the states; as such, it was strange to hear the entire stadium begin whistling loudly whenever a Salvadorian came on or off the field. Cameras were not allowed into the stadium, but I think some friends of mine who were also at the game snuck them in, so I might be able to post some pictures later.
Speaking of pictures, I’ve finally uploaded some from Nicaragua! Sorry for the wait, but it took me a while to get some from the Ashleys.
That’s about all for now. It’ll be a bit before the next post, as I’ll be out of the country again starting tomorrow and won’t be back until the 14th of April. All the while, my remaining time here is slipping away…as of today I have just barely over a month left in Central America!! I’m both excited and sad about the inevitable bittersweetness (is that a word?) of the departure to come, but I’m trying not to think about it too much until I get there.
Until next time then! Please keep me in your prayers, and know that I’m thinking about all of you all the time!! God bless!
Hello again to all the faithful followers! The big news this week is that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be heading off to Guatemala to spend a whole week in Antigua, and a few nights in both Managua (Nicaragua) and San Salvador (El Salvador) during the bus ride there and back. More on that, of course, when I get back. For now, I’d just like to give a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to over the past week since the last post.
So, this past weekend the group did go to Arenal. This was the second time I’ve been there, because last time I went with Ben and Kristen and we spent a few hours at Baldí, a natural hot springs/bath resort near the volcano. Well, guess what the group did? Yup, spent a few hours at Baldí…so that was fun. Not going to lie, I would have loved to have done some different type of adventuring around the area but overall it was a very good day over there and I bonded with many of the program kids that I hadn’t talked to much before, mostly because I didn’t go on the large group Nicaragua trip. Baldí was fun again – this time the waterslides which Ben, Kristen and I didn’t use were open, and so we made heavy use of them. Even though this was a very gringo-ized location, these slides were yet another form of Costa Rican entertainment that likely would fail many U.S. safety standards – oh well, they were fun! Much like my time there last semester, though, there are only so many hours one can spend in warm pools before deciding that simply sitting in warm pools is not that exciting for, well, however many hours one is in them. Nevertheless, we got treated to a delicious meal at the resort’s restaurant, concluded by an amazing tres leches (three milks) cake.
After finally heading back to the hotel around 9:00 or so, a few of us hung out outside Lauren, Brook, and Jolene’s room and played a bizarre “cup game” I had never heard of but turned out to be pretty fun. Strangely, for almost the entire rest of the evening, somehow a fair-sized group of us got started on a conversation about God, non-Christian religions, spirituality, and other such topics. People came and left throughout the chat, but eventually it turned into a conversation between Lauren, Brook, and Ashley Lyons (with whom I’ll be traveling this coming week and a half) about whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell, whether we as humans can know such things for sure, etc. Near the end of the night I jumped in and spouted some Luther dialogue (without explicitly calling it that), which was followed by some more conversation and around 12:30 or so we decided that it was a good talk but we needed sleep.
On a completely different note, there’s been some peculiar weather happening lately – the rain is back! Now, nobody told me that it was going to rain at all this semester, and I was surprised enough that we had some in January/early February. Apparently rain in March is in fact extremely rare, but there have been a couple days where it just poured. All of the new students (that is, not here last semester) were pretty impressed, but those of us who were here during the infamous October days tried to explain to them what real rain was like! Jessica told me that these strange downpours do not hail the beginning of the rainy season, only that it’s on the way. I’m hoping we can keep up clear skies for the most part at least until I leave!
This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to a soccer game with Jessica and a few of her friends in San José, where we watched Costa Rica (national selection team) play El Salvador. It was extremely fun and extremely energetic. The whole stadium was basically a stream of red (I went out earlier that day to get myself a jersey, so that I would fit in – had I worn Salvadorian colors my life might have been in peril) jumping and screaming in a unison that one usually only finds in student sections in the States. We arrived extremely early to ensure we had good seats, even though we were in the cheapest section. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good view of the action, behind one of the goals at the end of the field. When the crowd starts jumping up and down, one’s seat shakes violently (it was certainly more so for me than any earthquake I’ve ever felt)! Some of the less impressive aspects of Tico culture come out during soccer games, including a plethora of nonstop vulgarities directed at the opposing team, the officials, and even their own players. One thing that I had known before the game but I still can’t seem to get used to here is that whistling at a game is very much negative gesture or jeer, as opposed to the positive context it has in sports events in the states; as such, it was strange to hear the entire stadium begin whistling loudly whenever a Salvadorian came on or off the field. Cameras were not allowed into the stadium, but I think some friends of mine who were also at the game snuck them in, so I might be able to post some pictures later.
Speaking of pictures, I’ve finally uploaded some from Nicaragua! Sorry for the wait, but it took me a while to get some from the Ashleys.
That’s about all for now. It’ll be a bit before the next post, as I’ll be out of the country again starting tomorrow and won’t be back until the 14th of April. All the while, my remaining time here is slipping away…as of today I have just barely over a month left in Central America!! I’m both excited and sad about the inevitable bittersweetness (is that a word?) of the departure to come, but I’m trying not to think about it too much until I get there.
Until next time then! Please keep me in your prayers, and know that I’m thinking about all of you all the time!! God bless!
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