Yesterday was easy and all the flights were good. Rachel, Danielle and I (Jalees) saw Harry Connick Jr in the Dallas airport! Unfortunately, he was in a rush and didn't want a picture. We flew into Guatemala City with a beautiful view of the sunset.
As soon as we got off the plane, we noticed many differences from Canada. The airport was very humid and there weren't many lights on. It was a very interesting drive from the airport to Antigua. The streets were crazy! People were all over the street, in the backs of trucks and crowding corners. It was about an hour drive to Antigua, but we didn't mind because there was so much to look at. We got to our hotel at about nine, and were greeted with sandwiches and soup. The hotel owners are so nice and friendly to us here! Our hotel has a patio on the roof and we all spent the rest of the night up there together. It was pretty easy to get to sleep due to our long day of travels.
Today, most of our group was woken up by church bells and roosters - except for the few heavy sleepers in the group. We spent the morning on the rooftop admiring the beautiful view of Antigua. We could see volcanoes and the colorful houses surrounding the hotel. We ate breakfast Fernando's restaurant right next to the hotel. It was delicious and we had so many options to choose from. Some people had omelettes, or crepes and all the boys had Tipico which was black beans, scrambled eggs and fried plantain. We all drank Guatemalan coffee as well. It was great and got us energized for an exciting day.
We spent the morning in the city, checking everything out. We went to the market first and saw more shops than we could count. There were a lot of people trying to sell us trinkets. "No Gracious" is by far the most common saying so far. We went to the town square and saw the beautiful buildings and fountains. Rob, Arjun and all the girls decided to get hair wraps. Then we went to lunch in a cute little restaurant. Lunch was delicious and then we headed to a chocolate shop. Mrs Simpson signed us up for a chocolate making workshop and our teacher, Pablo was very animated. He taught us the history of chocolate and we got to make our own chocolate and chocolate drinks.
After chocolate making we had some free time to explore Antigua. The market was even more crowded in the evening. We came back to Fernando's restaurant for empanadas and chocolate cake for dessert. Cole ate almost everyone's leftovers. After dinner we went back to the town square to listen to some jazz music. The music was great and some of us got to practice our salsa dance moves. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to get some rest.
Tomorrow we are climbing the Pacaya volcano. It will be another long and exciting day! We will write another post tomorrow to keep you all updated
The Guat Crew
DWC Participants & Sahali High School Students
Guatemala: March 2014
P.S. If you haven't checked out our TV interview on CFJC, you can find it here on DWC's Youtube page.
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