March 14

This morning was rather relaxed. I worked on my blog before church. It was about 10:30 a.m. when we headed down to the highway to find a chicken bus.

Because of our late start, we walked part-way to Ciudad Vieja before picking up a chicken bus. To our surprise, Driver stopped in Ciudad Vieja by the gas station for some reason and got off the bus. Soon, another bus came along and we jumped off our chicken bus and took the one that was moving. We just made it to church at the Ciudad Vieja cathedral at 10:55 a.m.

Mass this morning wasn't as elaborate as last week, there were only 10 altar servers. Father Andre was the celebrant and we understood more of his sermon this week, not all, but more.

After Mass, I examined the processional barge that was stored in one of the side chapels of the church.

It's really quite a massive structure.

It may be hard to believe, but it takes fifty men (changed about every block) to carry this structure through the streets of La Antigua (starting and ending in Ciudad Vieja) from about 11:30 a.m. until 11:30 p.m.


As we had planned last Sunday, we joined Fathers Andre and Bernard for lunch in LA. We went to a small restaurant, La Cuevita de lo Urquizu (The Little Cave or Cellar of the Urquizu, whatever that is?), that had probably 12 meat choices (stewed, roasted, fried, etc.) all cooked in traditional clay pots and an equal number of vegetable and salad choices. Of course, there were corn tortillas. It was quite good.

Following lunch, we continued on to Santo Domingo, a former Dominican monastery that has now been recreated as a Five-Star hotel. In addition to the hotel and dining facilities, there are also colonial museums and preserved ruins.

At one time the chuch that stood on this site (now only a shell with a tent-like roof) was one of the largest in La Antigua. It was a fully functioning monastery that was destroyed by one or more of La Antigua's many earthquakes. Here's a view of the monastery crypt

and here is what's left of the monastery kitchen.


After enjoying coffee and chocolate con leche and enjoying the parrots,

they took us back to our apartment, as we have to be packed and ready to leave to meet our bus in La Antigua at about 6:15 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Since Linda has not been feeling her best and I'm basically lazy, I decided to ask Art if he could find us someone to clean our apartment after we leave. One of the downsides of living near an active volcano is the presence of volcanic ash. At dinner last night, Art told me that he had someone lined up for us and that it would cost Q45 ($5.60). Sounds to me like I made an excellent decision. Unfortunately, I didn't have change, so I had to walk into CV to get some. The simplest way to get change is to go to a tienda (small store) and buy something, so I did. I purchased some diet Coke (600 ml or 20 oz) for Q5 (60 cents) each. On my way, I called my mother and chatted with her until I lost the connection for the second time. It took me a while to realize that I had run out of minutes. I'd have to call back on Linda's phone when I returned to the apartment.

On my way back, there was an older policeman on my side of the road. He asked where I was walking, so I told him to our apartmento. He asked if I was from the EEUU (los estados unidos), and I said that I was. I also said I was from Iowa, which usually leads to a blank stare, so I said oeste (West) of Chicago and he nodded. He asked what the lump on my backpack strap was and I showed him my anti-nausea wristbands. I told him they were for enfermo de montana (use circumfex on second n) or mountain sickness.

Back at the apartment, I used Linda's phone to call my mother and Bill. they had just returned from Amarillo, where they had attended a family funeral. I suggested that Los Angeles and a visit with Syd, Nic and the twins wasn't much farther. We soon started packing and decided that it would be a miracle if we could get everything to San Antonio Palopo (accent on final o) and eventually to Xela. We are definitely going to have to jettison some stuff before we return to Iowa.

March 13

Today Linda was still not feeling up to par and elected to stay in bed for most of the day. However, since we were almost out of groceries, I elected to go into La Antigua for supplies.

I took a chicken bus into town and got the groceries we needed at Bodegona. Since it was lunch, I decided to have lunch at Pollo Campero and pick up a take-out order for Linda, since her appetite had returned. I had intended on taking a tuk-tuk back to the apartment to save time, but Alameda Santa Lucia was jam packed with traffic and nothing was moving.

Knowing that the chicken buses used back streets to get out of town, I found one heading for Alotenango and soon was on my way. Surprisingly, Linda's lunch was still somewhat warm when I returned to the apartment.

Fortunately, Linda was feeling better when it was time to leave for dinner. Our landlords, Art and Rosa, had invited us to dinner at the home they're renting in La Antigua. If you remember, they lived at their bed and breakfast (next to our apartment), but had rented it to a family with ten children (8 boys and 2 girls) as a home. The dinner Rosa prepared was delightful. We enjoyed the conversation also, as it gave us new insight into the life of an expat. Following dinner, Art graciously took us back to our apartment.

March 12

Today, we once again slept in and then surfed the Internet and worked on our blogs. Mid-afternoon, Linda started to feel nauseaus. She decided to go to bed, hoping that it would pass and we ended up spending all day at the apartment, .

My only outing was to walk into Ciudad Viejas to pick up some Coke light. Walking back, I greeted the police at the intersection by the cemetery and they greeted me back.

March 11

This morning we got on a chicken bus for La Antigua around 8:30 a.m. We needed to drop off our laundry at the lavandaria and also wanted to attend the 9:00 a.m. expat breakfast at Café Contessa. This week it was almost standing room only.

After breakfast, Carl invited us to join him, Claire (his wife) and Patsy (a friend) on a trip to the mall in Chimaltenango. Having nothing better to do, while we waited for our laundry to get done, we readily accepted.

The purpose of the trip was to go to the Maxi-Bodegona (a better stocked grocery store) and look for a computer keyboard for Patsy's laptop. The built-in keyboard on her laptop was giving her problems and, being three years old, probably wasn't cost effective to repair.

The trip to Chimaltenango was uneventful. The only keyboard available in the mall was much too expensive, but the grocery store, to our surprise, had one much cheaper. After finishing our shopping, we returned to La Antigua for lunch.

After parking in La Antigua, we walked past the park in front of La Merced Church and noticed that the fountain was decorated with flowers.


Lunch was at Frida's, named after the artist and wife of Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, a Mexican cafe. According to Carl, they have the best nachos in La Antigua. While I'm not sure they are the best, however, they very well may be the biggest nacho plate. After our appetizer, we had other entrees, such as a tortilla soup or tacos.

After lunch, which was later than we usually eat, Carl drove Patsy home and then took us to get our laundry. We had intended on taking a chicken bus back to our apartment, but Carl graciously insisted on driving us home.

Dinner was scrambled eggs, followed by video conferencing and blogging.

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.

March 9

This morning we slept in, as we were just about done with our Child Aid project. About 11:00 a.m. we took a chicken bus into La Antigua and had lunch at the Rainbow Cafe. Since it was a nice day, we decided to take that trip to Guatemala City that we had skipped on Sunday.

We found a chicken bus heading to Guate (shorthand for Guatemala City) and soon found ourselves leaving La Antigua. The trip from La Antigua to Guate is has a lot of curves that tend to bring out the worst in chicken bus drivers. I commented to Linda that it was like Disneyland's Space Mountain with the lights on.

In about 45 minutes we were at Hiper Paiz. There are several in Guate, but this is the closest one to La Antigua. The expats tell me that you can drive here and return to La Antigua without actually driving in Guatemala City.

Hiper Paiz is the WalMart Superstore of Guatemala. In fact, WalMart is part owner of the Hiper Paiz chain. This is probably why there aren't any actual WalMart stores in Guatemala.

On the inside, it looks much like any "big box" store you've ever seen.
Anything you could find at a WalMart Superstore, can probably be found here.


After leaving Hiper (pronounced Aye-per), we walked across the highway on an elevated walkway to visit a shopping center. This is also the side of the highway where we will catch our return chicken bus to La Antiga.


Before long it was about 3:00 p.m., so we headed over to where the chicken buses load by the highway. We needed to get back to La Antigua around 4:15 p.m. to deliver a CD and a DVD of Linux distributions (complete operating system and programs) for children. I had promised John and Yesika that we would drop them off when they brought their young son into La Antigua for his gym class (some type of martial arts).

After dropping off the disks, we grabbed a quick supper at McDonalds and soon were on our way back to our apartment for the evening.

March 8

On Monday morning we had an appointment with John, an expat, who has a one bedroom apartment in a gated community for rent for $275 per month + utilities + $25 per month for high speed Internet.

As we left the apartment, we looked up and saw that Fuego was really smoking this morning.

We headed into La Antigua by chicken bus at about 8:15 a.m. and were waiting in front of the cathedral for him to pick us up to see the property at 9:00 a.m. After getting into his van, I was surprised that he was heading towards Jocotenango, as I had assumed the property was on the road to Ciudad Vieja. Well, it turns out that there are different places around here that have the same or very similar names.

We drove through Jocotenango and were soon at the guard protected gate into the property. The apartment is where John and his wife Yesica lived while they built their dream home both behind, above and beside the apartment. The apartment is beautiful, spacious and well equipped. Here's a link to the web pages describing it, which includes photos (click "View more photos"). www.sailing-diving-guatemala.com/hotels/donjuan-apartment.php appears to us to be ideal for a pair of newly “retired” gringos living on a fixed income.

John mentioned that they also have a four-bedroom house for rent in La Antigua, so we asked if we could see it also. I've applied for a job in La Antigua with a Houston-based non-profit and if it were to materialize (doubtful), we could easily afford the larger property. The house, which is also gated, although without a guard, is delightful. There are four bedrooms, four bath rooms, maids quarters and a roof-top patio. It would be a delight to live there. Here's a website describing it, which also includes photos (click "View more photos"): http://www.sailing-diving-guatemala.com/hotels/sanjose-apartment.php. The rent for this property is $525 + utilities and the house is wired for high speed Internet, although it is not currently connected. Unlike the apartment, it also includes a gated garage. This would be a great place to have friends and family from the states come to visit us, but would only be really affordable if I were working.

Following the property viewing, John dropped us off at Parque Central and we walked to the Rainbow Cafe for lunch. We had brought our netbook with us and wanted to use their Internet access since our's was on the fritz. After lunch, we headed to the mercado to pick up some limes and bananas and headed for our usual pick-up point for a bus. We boarded a bus that we thought was going to Dueñas and were surprised when it dropped us off not far from where we often board the bus in Ciudad Viejas. Obviously, the driver was concerned about our health and thought that we needed more exercise, like a 20 minute walk back to our apartment.

After supper, I reinstalled Windows XP (Spanish) on the Child Aid laptop. I also installed my three main maintenance programs: Avast Antivirus, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Advanced SystemCare. When I couldn't get the wireless Internet to work, I realized that I would need to download special drivers from the Dell website to make sure all the laptops features actually worked. I finished up by making a quick summary of the blog entries I've not yet been able to post.