Tonys Wibbles

We stayed a night in Pension Meza in Guatemala City, had a sleazy cafe meal and a few drinks in the bar next to the Hostel with some hounding locals and the next morning made the short trip to Antiga for Semana Santa.

We made it a day early which made it easier to get a place to stay, even though the prices would double once the week started. We shared a dingy little room with one bed but it saved the pennies. Semana Santa is a yearly event which celebrates all the saints (santa) for a week (semana). Antigua is one of the main tourist spots of Guatemala and famous for its Semana Santa celebrations. These consist of several daily parades centered by a large display of one of the saints held up by an army of paraders. Lots of incense swinging, costumes, and slow rhythmic walking. All the parade routes are decorated with a carpet of beautiful murals made the night before and destroyed as the parade passes over them. Amazing how it was, after several parades we found our selves using the parade maps to try and avoid them, as getting caught in a parade could add an hour of waiting before you could progress to your favourite bar. The town was packed with tourists. I spent the afternoons in the central park trying to sell jewelry to no avail, noticing the locals, all dressed in their colourful traditional clothing were not selling much either. We decided this was because all the banks had closed for the week and non of the tourists could get any money, myself included. I was saved by selling one piece of silver to one of the guys I met on Ometepe earlier. In fact I met a lot of travelers in Antigua who I met on my travels up from Panama, and many more, so nights were busy and fun.

At the end of the week I found the Hogs Head, a new English Bar in the town where I savoured a Shepard's pie. Unfortunately they didn't have Guinness yet!

Sussi headed back to Nicaragua and I headed up north to Quezaltenango, locally referred to as Xela. Here I had planned to meet up with Chris who I started traveling with over a year ago. He had settled here when I settled in Leon and had become a very active volunteer for The Hogar, a local orphanage. He was also setting up a volunteer support project, cafe, bar, hospedaje, events and seminars. Busy man. Anyhow, I arrived on the night of a leaving do for some volunteers, Chris had set me up a space in the volunteer house so I dropped my bags and partied.

My stomach had been suffering a bit since Antigua so I got myself checked out. This ended up in a ten day stint on antibiotics, and no drinking!!!!!!!

Time for another Spanish class and a rest!