Guatemala - the happy ending...

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!