Saturday, March 20, 2010

March 10

Today was pretty much a catch-up day. I spent part of the morning working on my blog and got really excited when our Internet access finally started working well.

With the Internet access working well, I immediately downloaded all of the drivers (18) that I needed to finish working on the Child Aid laptop. By the time I finished, it was time for lunch, which we ate at the apartment.

After lunch, we headed into La Antigua and had a strange ride. We were walking into Ciudad Viejas and were just at the crossroads by the cemetery, when a chicken bus with two passengers, a mother and child, stopped to pick us up. Instead of driving through Ciudad Viejas, the driver took the (fairly) new highway that connects to the Central American (Pan American) Highway to the east of Chimaltenango. He then takes the unpaved shortcut to La Antigua and doesn't stop at the terminal, as we had expected. Afraid that he would keep on driving out of La Antigua, we bailed across from La Recolección Monestery, which appears to have been one of the larger one in La Antigua.

The church interior is almost completely filled with debris from whatever earthquake destroyed it.

Other parts of the monastery have evidently been cleared of rubble, but give an impression of the size of the facility.


As we were leaving the grounds, we noticed this tree which undoubtedly was here when the monastery was founded.


After leaving the monastery, we stopped by Dispensa Familiar to use the ATM machine and then headed over to the Rainbow Cafe for an afternoon snack. From there we headed over to the Paca, a part of the mercado where clothing can be purchased for as little as Q1 (12 cents). We've been told that "hay ganga allí" (there are bargains there), but we didn't find any.

After leaving the Paca, we picked up some bananas and plums at a stall in the mercado and headed over to McDonalds for a light, early supper. On the way, we saw this man pounding down cobblestones that had just been reset.


We headed back to our apartment and, for once, we let off right at the street to our apartment. That evening, I installed those 18 drivers on the Child Aid laptop and downloaded other updates. We also find time to video chat with Nic, Gia, Cos and Donna in California, after which I worked on my blog.